Chicago Cubs Baseball

Chicago Cubs baseball manager Lou Piniella is pure genius. Managing his first official game as Cubs skipper, Diamond Lou assured us all today that 2007 would not be a repeat of last year.

Or the year before that.

For each of the prior two seasons the Chicago Cubs hung 16 runs on their opening day opponent, amassing a gazillion hits and playing flawlessly in the field.

As it turned out, those blow out wins proved to be nothing more than fool’s gold and false hope. No sooner did the scent of opening day blow off the Cubs’ uniforms, they were back to their old ways, making their slow descent to the manure of mediocrity.

Sadly to say, there were days where mediocrity was a blessing.

But all that changed. And it started today. With Piniella in his debut at the Cubs’ helm, there was no romp in the park or cartwheels or clicking of heels.

Nope. Today was the Cubs turn to take one on the chin. And in the mouth and on the shins.

Cincinnati’s Adam Dunn made sure of that, smacking a pair of homers off Carlos Zambrano, who was the one Cub who performed like the past two seasons. Zambrano kept his string of opening day meltdowns alive at three with a five-inning performance that won’t do anything to help his Cy Young chances.

Yeah. That Cy Young award. The one he predicted he’d be winning at the end of this season.

But to hang it all on Big Z would be unjust and unfair. His teammates certainly did their part, playing mid-season Cub baseball on opening day.

In mustering a lone unearned run in the 5-1 loss, Chicago stranded five base runners in scoring position and eight for the game.

Yep, this year is going to be different. Unless of course, Bronson Arroyo clubs Cub pitching for home runs like he did last year.

Then all bets are off.