He came, he saw, he conquered. Anthony Rizzo went 2-4 with an RBI in his Cubs debut last night, making no fewer than 30 Gold Glove-caliber plays at first base.
“He did not act like much of a kid tonight,” Cubs manager Dale Sveum said after Rizzo’s triumphant night. “You can’t teach no-panic. But you need the ‘full monty’ — guys getting on base in front of him and then it snowballs into extra at-bats that your third, fourth and fifth hitters are getting to come back and win games.”
Despite the coming of Anthony Rizzo, Starlin Castro seems to think he can’t carry the team to this year’s World Series all by himself.
“It is about the whole team,” said Castro, who batted ahead of Rizzo. “He helps a lot, but we need to get [production] from everybody to be a good team, not just him.”
Way to be a wet blanket, Castro.
So how did Mr. Rizzo feel last night?
“It was awesome,” he said. “My first thoughts coming in here was the sight of that green door opening like ‘Rookie of the Year,’ the movie. I didn’t see that. I got lost coming in. But it was a lot of fun today.”
He looked calm, cool and collected out there. Did he take a Xanax or something before the game?
“That’s how I play the game, I play really relaxed,” he said. “Everyone always tells me, it looks like you’re not even trying. I like hearing that a lot. Just try not to hype it up too much and get too riled up. I knew once (I got) out there my adrenaline was going to take over.”
That’s good to hear. And he already knows the score with unreasonable fans and media.
“I was the ‘savior’ last year (in San Diego) too,” he said. “And that’s why I think it’s easier this year to come up. Hopefully this is just a building block of what is to come here in the city and the organization. I think there are a lot of good things to come and hopefully we can look back and this is one of the first steps.”
I think we’ve got ourselves a first baseman, folks.
I guess Rizzo was ready.
I’m pretty disappointed.
No a single homer by Rizzo last night. What a let down. What the hell are we paying this guy for?
He didn’t leap even ONE building with a single bound!
well shoot, I kind of like him now, he at least has the soundbites down pretty well
it is pretty amazing how fast the new player who’s here to save the team can cycle through, are we looking yet at who’s next?
Believe it or not, Josh Vitters has shown considerable improvement at the plate over the last 6 weeks or so. Right now his biggest problem is that he is a complete hack defensively at third base.
Brett Jackson’s strikeout problems have continued.
With that said I don’t think we are likely to see either of these guys or any other significant prospects until the rosters are expanded in September.
that seems like a reasonable response, reasonable responses have no business in describing the next Cubs superstar prospect
Actually, they do since we actually have a reasonable person running the Cubs now.
the person running the Cubs is not the same as the people reporting on the Cubs, or watching the Cubs
Josh Vitters isn’t gonna be a major leaguer.
He’s only 22 years old and in AAA, so odds are he’s going to get a shot at the major league level at some point.
Possibly.
But not for long.
I expect his career service time to be measured in weeks, not years.
I would suspect he’ll get at least a few years of service time based on his progress over the last few years.
going for the sweep today!
RANDY WELLS…
D
F
A
!
!
!
Hilarious.
Anthony Rizzo works miracles.
And Anthony Rizzo just put CC Sabathia on the DL too.
Ok…I’m a bit puzzled…
Randy Wells being DFAd gets only 1 thumbs up while CC Sabathia going on the DL gets 2?
Seriously people?
This really is a new day.
And the rejoicing did begin. My guess is that he ends up coaching high school baseball if he can figure out the whole bachelors degree/teaching credential thing.
Len & Bob’s tweet for today’s lineup (not making this up):
@lenandbob: #Cubs lineup today: Mather8/Starlin6/Hobbs3/Soriano7/Baker3/Soto2/Barney4/Valbuena5/Samardzija1
awesome
I’ll tell you this, if you are a pitcher and are unable to throw strikes with Theo running this organization, you’re going to have too look for employment with another team (preferably the Reds).
Ugh–can we use this as a game thread? I have meetings from 12-2 today.
You have my permission . . . .
Julie…this new job isn’t working out. You’ll just have to quit and service us full time.
Uh . . could you rephrase that?
no…especially after your “get it up” comment the other day.
I guess she didn’t like my thread from yesterday
She did tweet me that it was “to big” this morning
what? Seriously? We should ban her from this site.
Correction she said it was “so big”
Next SHORT game thread,”And now for something COMPLETELY different:The CUBs can win today”
That’s even worse.
What’s your twitter handle? Do I follow you?
what? of course i did.
When will Rizzo hit his 1st HR? Someone should get a pool going.
He should have already hit 16 of them
He’s in a slump.
The Cubs have two hits.
The Mets have none.
Guess who’s winning the game.
Just clicked in to Gameday and went to see how the Mets scored. In any inning if you WANT the other team to score make sure and walk the lead-off batter. BROTHER!!! C’mon CUBS!
And if the Cubs DON’T want to score,make sure and get a man on 3rd with no outs. SHEEEESH! C’mon CUBS! I know I gotta watch my language.
Muy Muy Valbuena
What can anyone say?: Double for Rizzo
He’s out of his slump!
MVP!
MVP!
Jeff Samardzija forgot how to pitch or something.
The Yankees have lost both Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia today.
If the Cubs trade Dempster to them, they would have the best disabled starting rotation in baseball.
I turned the game off
You are a very smart man.
I just came in from the doctors-the game already started? Is it on anywhere? Also, why would the Cubs DFA Wells when they can throw him in as part of a trade package?
I don’t know if it is on anywhere…but if I were you, I wouldn’t bother trying to find out.
As far as Wells…if you walk as many people as he has this month, Theo is going to make sure you don’t wear a Cubs uniform anymore.
Saw earlier that Wells was DFA’d to make room for Soler on the 40-man roster as he’s expected to sign in the next few days.
It’s on mlb.tv but don’t bother Sloan…
On the bright side, its not a shut out
I’m disgusted
This is a year!
Yes. Yes it is. No question of that.
An impressive start for young master Rizzo…What’s next on his agenda? Walking on water or changing water into wine? Let’s see what he is doing a month from now before we anoint him as the new lord & savior of the franchise…Good luck Tony R & may all your swings be good ones…
Did we win? LOL
Yes.
Yes we won.
We won if this was golf.
oh you
If a new day had dawned…it must have been a winter day, because it sure got dark early.
Oh it dawned all right. It dawned on us that it takes a team to win. But then we just needed a gentle reminder. Not an ASS WHOOPING!
I think Spellcheck found out that Julie was moving on to bigger and not so better things and just self destructed…
It just blew his mind that she picked Pierzynski over him.
He found the picture that she had in the shower of him in the trash
Broke the poor boy’s heart. I think his eyes were misty today
But!…Butt!…I mean But!…We did win the series. AS long as we don’t lose another series for the rest of the year I think we can still sneak into the last Wild Card slot. GO CUBS!
there’s still a bright side:
We can’t lose tomorrow.(I hate off-days)
The next team is the Astro’s
The game is on WGN
It’s a day game
Bright spot: nobody broke their leg yesterday. And no one pulled their hamstring either.( I hope)