NLDS game 1 recap

photo from the Chicago Tribune

A pair of aces faced off in the desert on Wednesday nite. Both aces pitched up to their fans expectations. Carlos Zambrano went 6 innings, allowed 4 hits, 1 walk, struckout 8 and only allowed 1 earned run on a homerun by Stephen Drew. Brandon Webb matched Z plus one inning. He threw 7 innings, he too allowed 4 hits, walked 3, struckout 9, while allowing only one run on a bases loaded infield single by Ryan Theriot.

In the bottom of the seventh, Lou Piniella turned to his bullpen and rookie Carlos Marmol. Marmol has been awesome this season and saved the Cubs in so many situations. Tonite was not the youngsters night. Marmol gave up a leadoff homerun to Mark Reynolds, after striking out Jeff Salazar he walked Chris Snyder (who the fuck are these guys?) and the great Auguie Ojeda doubled. Conor Jackson hit a sac fly to center and the D-backs had a 3-1 lead after 7 innings played.

In the 8th Brandon Lyon got flyouts on two well hit balls by Ramirez and Floyd amd Mark Reynolds made a sparkling play on DeRosa. At this point you should have just gone to bed because Jose Valverde was warming up in the D-back bullpen.

The Cubs offense had chances throughout the nite to get more runs off of Webb. They had a leadoff double by Z in the third and he never moved. In the fifth Ryan Theriot reached second on a throwing error by Mark Reynolds. As opposed to sacrificing, Piniella let Z swing away and he lined out. Soriano flied to center and the Cubs had missed an opportunity to score a run. With two outs in the sixth the Cubs loaded the bases and Theriot got their only run in on his infield hit. The Cubs would leave the bases loaded when Z struckout. The Cubs big three (Soriano, Lee and Ramirez) were a combined 1-13 in this game. The Cubs as a team were 1-10 with runners in scoring position. Webb and the D-back pen deserve alot of credit for that.

So the Cubs are down 1-0. The good news is they were not supposed to beat Webb. The bad news is now they have to win the next three ballgames. We also start to see how the Diamondbacks won all of those games. Oh well. It's never easy.