Thursday afternoon, Carlos Zambrano started for the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
Cubs’ Carlos Zambrano Leaves Start With Back Injury
In the first inning, Zambrano gave up a line drive and a walk, but escaped the inning with no real damage.
In the second inning, Zambrano walked Nate Schierholtz, threw away the baseball upon Brandon Crawford's bunt single, gave up a single to Miguel Tejada, and left the game with an apparent injury.
Officially, Zambrano was suffering “lower-back soreness” but that might just be a euphemism for Holy-Crap-I-just-gave-up-a-hit-to-Miguel-Tejada-itis. A team of physicians, at this very moment, is running a battery of tests.
Zambrano and Ryan Dempster have been the only Cubs starters who 1) opened the season in the rotation and 2) haven't spent any time on the Disabled List. Worse, Zambrano and Dempster and Matt Garza have been the only Cubs starters who haven't been absolutely blasted by enemy hitters.
Unfortunately -- for the Cubs and for enemy hitters -- Doug Davis was released just yesterday, which leaves the club with few options (let alone attractive options) if Zambrano can't make his next start. And heaven forbid he's knocked out for a while. In that case, we'll perhaps see more of Casey Coleman (7.78 ERA), James Russell (5.06) or Rodrigo Lopez (5.40) on the bump, every fifth day.
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