Round One

Today, the first day of this season's Cub-Cardinal rivalry, went to the Cardinals by a 6-3 score.

There seemed to be an unusually large number of people dressed in red (do Cardinals fans own any other color clothes?) for a series early in May, but with the Cubs and Cards both contenders this year, and the weather suddenly in the 80's, after yesterday's 40's, the largest crowd of the year so far (that is, until tomorrow, which will be larger) showed up.

Carlos Zambrano gave up two dink singles and a walk and then made one mistake pitch, which on an ordinary day would have been a routine out, but today, with the wind howling out to RF, wound up being Fernando Vina's third career grand slam. I hate Vina; he's been a pest to the Cubs since his days with the Brewers. There was one series in 1998 where he led off three straight games by being hit by a pitch.

And against Matt Morris, that was enough. The Cubs had Morris on the ropes a few times, but couldn't come through. Encouraging signs were Moises Alou hitting a long home run onto the street (say, maybe it's finally warm enough for him), and Corey Patterson homering and having three hits.

It was the first appearance in the bleachers this year for Jessica, my Cubs newsgroup friend from NY. She was supposed to come on Opening Day, but with the snowout couldn't make it. She says she's been to blame for all the bad weather, but today's weather was great. So instead, we'll just blame her for today's loss, pick up the pieces and hope Kerry Wood can stop the Cardinals tomorrow.