Six Cubs’ pitchers combine for 9 innings of shut-out baseball in spring opener; Cubs win 8-7

First box score of the spring rolls in and the Cubs are already exciting.  Zambrano, Dempster, Ohman, Novoa, Howry and Wuertz (with the save) pieced together a scoreless gem against the A’s in Mesa yesterday.  Unfortunately, 32 year old, non-roster invitee and imitation T-ball stand Bryan Corey was lit up in the 5th for seven runs on six hits (including three home runs), marring the prowess of his teammates.  Corey (no relation to ex-Cub Patterson, Harry’s Ghost), who pitched briefly for Iowa in ‘04, is obviously around as cannon fodder as the bullpen doesn’t contain much free space.  Leaving Bryan aside, this was a nice start to the spring, with six staff sureties allowing only three hits between them.  On the offensive side of the equation, Felix Pie tripled in two runs and last year’s rookie troika Murton, Cedeno and Greenberg each added a hit.

In other news, Zambrano, Blanco, Barrett and Lee are off to the WBC.  I saw a bit of Byung-Hyun Kim’s work against TAIWAN!!!!!!!!!! (the name Chinese Taipei is about as nauseating as a return to “South Rhodesia” or “Stalingrad” would be) and he looked as good as I’ve seen him in years - some nasty stuff.  Our ol’ buddy Hee Seop Choi also nearly jacked a homer in the Tokyo Dome.  Solid pitching all around from the Korean team.

Finally, it appears Mark Prior is strengthening at a reasonable pace - he threw 50 pitches off the mound.  According to Rothschild, he might work his way into the rotation in the second go-around.  Good news (taken with a touch of salt).