In his first major league debut with the Cubs, Anthony Rizzo delighted fans and lived up to the hype with a solid game that helped push the Cubs past the Mets on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.
What You Need to Know:
- Rizzo is the Cub’s top prospect and was called-up from the Iowa Cubs, the Cub’s Triple-A team in Des Moines, on Monday – after patiently waiting all season for his big debut. The Cubs are looking for some fire-power at the plate to help their struggling offense – and Rizzo delivered on his first night.
- Rizzo went and impressive 2-4 (2 hits at 4 at bats) with an RBI double in the 4th inning that gave the Cubs the lead. You would’ve thought the guy hit a grand-slam the way the crowd reacted to his double – that’s how jacked up Cubs fans are about this guy.
- Cubs starting pitcher, Randy Wells, who is in the rotation for the injured Ryan Dempster, struggled again last night only lasting 3 1/2 innings and gave up 3 runs, 6 hits and 4 walks. For once, it was the bullpen that saved the day. Reliever, Scott Maine threw 2 scoreless innings and got the win. Carlos Marmol, the Cub’s closer, earned his 100th save.
Randy Wells
- At the end of the game, Rizzo received the shaving cream pie in the face – a baseball tradition for players after outstanding performances – from pitcher Matt Garza. Baseball does shaving cream pies as to football’s cooler of Gatorade over the head. After all, the high-five is so passe.
Your Take Away Piece: “Thank God Rizzo had a solid outing on his big night. The kid is under so much pressure to perform that his strong first outing shows the guy can handle the pressure of the media and Cub’s expectations – which is half the battle.”
What’s Next: The Cubs will go for the sweep today as they face the Mets in Game 3 at Wrigley at 1:20PM. Jeff Samardzija gets the start after one of his ugliest outings of the season on Friday when he gave up 5 runs in 5 innings against Arizona. Samardzija has struggled lately after a great start to the season and is 0-3 in his last 3 starts. Perhaps the feel-good factor of having Rizzo in the clubhouse rubs off on the Shark and the Cubs get their second sweep of the season.
