Chicago Cubs Baseball Predictions 2010: With less than a month left before Major League Baseball’s Season Opener, teams are gearing up for this year’s Spring Training. One of the biggest question marks for this year’s Chicago Cubs is starting pitching. After an atrocious end to last year’s regular season, Cubs manager Lou Pinella has put together a pitching rotation for the first several exhibition games, but isn’t ruling out any prospects from earning a spot.
The projected rotation for this week will be: Randy Wells on Thursday against the Oakland Athletics. On Friday, Carlos Zambrano is expected to get the nod versus the Arizona Diamondbacks. We will get our first look at Carlos Silva versus the Chicago White Sox on Saturday. Tom Gorzelanny and Jeff Samardzija would split Sunday’s assignment and Ryan Dempster should start against the A's on Monday.
Currently, the Chicago Cubs [18/1] have been listed with rather mediocre sports betting odds to win the 2010 World Series. In the category of sports betting odds to win the National League Pennant, the Chicago Cubs [9/1] have been given the best chances behind the Philadelphia Phillies [3/1], St. Louis Cardinals [11/2] and Los Angeles Dodgers [7/1].
One of the biggest names to look out for is 2008 first-round pick Andrew Cashner, who could potentially earn a job as a reliever in the Cubbies bullpen. “There are open spots here on our pitching staff,” Piniella said. “We're going to have to take some young pitching out of here. So it doesn't really matter who it is.
“Whoever wants it, go out and compete, and they're going to get opportunities, whether it's Cashner or whomever. How 'bout if Cashner's lights-out and we put him in the bullpen?”
But pitching isn’t the only position where Pinella could be looking to put some fresh new faces. Top 19-year-old prospect, Starlin Castro could start at shortstop and atop the batting order in this week’s Cactus League opener.
“I'm anxious to see the kid myself,” Piniella added. “He handles himself very professionally for a young kid out here. He's calm. He's not awed by being here. He's relaxed. He's not starry-eyed. If you didn't know he was 19 years old, you couldn't guess he was 19.”
