The Cubs started their 2019 campaign on a perfect note, lighting up the Rangers pitching staff for 12 runs on 13 hits and eight walks.
The offensive star for the Cubs was easily Javier Baez, he hit the Cubs first two home runs of the year and drove in four. He's trying to follow up a monstrous 2018 season where he finished second to Christian Yelich in MVP voting. Hitting two home runs is a perfect start to that.
It was an all-around solid game by Cubs hitters. They forced the Rangers to use seven pitchers and were doing an excellent job at grinding out at bats and making pitchers work. Every Cub batter aside from Daniel Descalso reached base today. Each spot in the lineup reached base two times today.
Jon Lester was solid in his fourth opening day start for the Cubs. He threw six innings allowing two runs on four hits along with two walks to three strikeouts. He allowed the only damage on a two-run home run by Elvis Andrus His velocity wasn't where it was last year, but he still managed to locate his pitches fairly effectively and avoided a lot of hard contact.
Randy Rosario and Brad Brach followed up Lester and both pitched clean 1-2-3 innings. Brach was throwing around the 93 MPH range, which is a good sign after reports of his velocity being down in Spring Training.
Pedro Strop was given the ball in the 9th and got two quick outs before he gave up a two out single to Hunter Pence. He was pulled for Mike Montgomery, who closed out the game, but not before giving up a monstrous two-run home run to Nomar Mazara.
The Cubs and Rangers play again at 7:05 PM on Saturday. Yu Darvish will make his regular season debut going against Edinson Volquez.
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