The Chicago Cubs defeated the Houston Astros 4-2 on Opening “Night” in Houston.  Carlos Zambrano pitched 6 strong innings, giving up only 1 earned run on 5 hits.  Zambrano had 3 walks to go along with 6 strikeouts in the win.  Alfonso Soriano got the Cubs off to a good start with a lead-off home run off of Astros’ starter Roy Oswalt.  Aramis Ramirez added a solo shot in the 2nd inning to give the Cubs a 2-0 lead, and Ryan Theriot’s sacrifice fly in the 4th inning increased the Cubs lead to 3-0.  The Cubs added an insurance run on Micah Hoffpauir’s pinch-hit RBI single in the 9th inning which gave the Cubs a little cushion heading into the bottom of the 9th.

The Cubs bullpen looked mostly sharp.  Aaron Heilman and Neal Cotts helped Zambrano get out of a 7th inning jam minimizing the damage to only one run after Big Z allowed the first 2 hitters to reach base.  Carlos Marmol worked a scoreless 8th inning, issuing only a walk to Lance Berkman.  Kevin Gregg recorded his 1st save as a Cub – it wasn’t pretty as he allowed a run on back-to-back singles and a sacrifice fly to open the inning.  But Gregg re-grouped and recorded the final 2 outs to give Zambrano his first career opening day victory.

All-in-all – a good opening day Cubs fans.  Here’s to many many more…