Spring Training: Cubs vs Rockies (SS)

On Tuesday the Colorado Rockies decided to take on both the North and South Siders. The Cubs faced a split squad Rockies team at their Spring Training complex. The Cubs faced lefty Jorge de la Rosa, a name Jim Hendry was briefly rumored to be interested in early on this off season before the pitcher resigned with the Rockies. On to the game notes.

PITCHING

Carlos Zambrano went three innings, giving up five hits and one earned run. It was the first run Zambrano had given up this Spring. Unfortunately de la Rosa shut down the Cubs in his four innings of work, only allowing two hits while striking out 5. Zambrano has looked great this Spring, and combined with his great finish to the 2010 season, hopefully it is a sign of good things to come once April rolls around. There will still be questions of whether he can keep it together for an entire season, but at least he is off to a good start in getting there.

Sean Marshall struck out two in his scoreless inning of work, but Braden Looper gave up the big blow, a three run home run in the 7^th inning that ending the scoring for the day.

DEFENSE

The Cubs did not have any errors in this game, but it sounds like there were a couple plays missed that could have been made by Blake DeWitt and Tyler Colvin.

OFFENSE

New Cub Fernando Perez was given a shot at lead off in this game, but he went 0 for 3. He did show off a little bit of his amazing speed on the base paths on Monday in the come back win over the Angels, but Perez could not reach base to provide an encore performance against the Rockies. It should be noted that Perez is working on being a switch hitter again, so just getting at bats from both sides is the key at this point.

The hot hitting Marlon Byrd was given the day off, and Tyler Colvin was inserted into the three hole in the line up, going 0 for 3. Unfortunately, other than that, there was not much the Cubs offense could muster up to talk about. Of course a day after Cubbies Crib highlights Rudy Jaramillo’s positive impact so far this Spring, the bats go silent right? I am sure the Cubs will bounce right back today in their rematch against the Royals.