Morning Box Score: Cubs Top Astros

By Matt Motyka in News on Apr 7, 2009 3:00PM

It’s officially baseball season, and the Chicago Cubs got off to a solid start with a 4-2 win over the Houston Astros. In his first plate appearance of ’09, Alfonso Soriano launched a second-pitch fastball from Roy Oswalt over the wall in left to put the Cubs on top 1-0. Carlos Zambrano looked a little loose in the bottom half of the inning, but got out of trouble with an unorthodox 9-3-6 double play that helped to calm the nerves. It was more of the same at the plate in the top of the second, when Aramis Ramirez led off the inning with a big fly of his own. Add to that a sac fly from Ryan Theriot in the fourth, and the Cubs jumped up 3-0. Zambrano got the hook in the seventh after putting the first two batters on, but Aaron Heilman and Neal Cotts came in to clean up, allowing only one run to cross. Carlos Marmol pitched an effective eighth for the Cubs and Micah Hoffpauir singled in a run in the top of the ninth to make it 4-1. New closer Kevin Gregg didn’t make things easy on himself in the final frame by putting runners at the corners with nobody out, but escaped relatively unscathed as the Cubs held on 4-2. Zambrano got the win and Gregg was credited with a save.