Wherever he was plying his trade on Monday, Carlos Zambrano’s agent must have dropped his BlackBerry after hearing that his primary client fell hard on his left shoulder during a Cactus League game with San Francisco.
Zambrano, the Cubs’ ace who is in line for a five-year contract worth around $17 million to $18 million per season, stumbled between second and third base while running out a first-inning triple off the center-field wall before picking himself up and scampering to third.
For just a second, Zambrano’s big payday, along with the Cubs’ championship dreams, appeared to be up in smoke.
As it turned out, the only injury Zambrano suffered was a bruised ego.
He wound up allowing two runs on three hits over four innings in the Cubs’ 10-5 win and left the ballpark without addressing reporters, as did manager Lou Piniella.
“I was more worried about his hamstring than his belly-flop, to be honest,” general manager Jim Hendry said. “Let’s applaud him for playing the game right, for running every ball out. I’ll take a guy–any day–on my club, where you have to pull back the reins a little bit than somebody you’ve got to jump-start every day.”
The scene was reminiscent of Mark Prior’s flip on the basepaths after his collision with Braves second baseman Marcus Giles in 2003. Prior went up and over and landed directly on his throwing shoulder. Zambrano’s flop was less violent and he landed on his non-throwing shoulder.
Third-base coach Mike Quade, celebrating his 50th birthday, said he considered tackling Zambrano if he tried for an inside-the-park home run. Quade is listed at 6 feet, 195 pounds, while Zambrano is 6-5, 255.
“He’s a big man and I’m thinking, `Man, this is going to hurt really bad if he tries to get by me,'” Quade said.
The belly-flop stopped Zambrano’s grand ambitions.
“Hopefully, he learned from that,” catcher Henry Blanco said. “It was exciting [watching it] in the dugout. When we knew he was OK, he started laughing, but he scared everybody. Thank God nothing happened.”
Blanco hurt his right knee on a foul tip and was seen limping out of the ballpark. Blanco said he’d be fine in a couple of days, although the injury looked a bit more serious. Derrek Lee also tweaked his groin while running the bases in the first inning and was removed as a precautionary measure after the top of the second.
Hendry said Lee is fine, and Lee told Cubs officials he could run the 60-yard dash, if necessary.
All in all, it was an interesting day. The Giants’ Barry Bonds lost two first-inning fly balls in the sun, leading to a six-run inning off Matt Morris. The Cubs’ Jeff Samardzija appeared in the fifth and pitched two shutout innings before being sent to minor-league camp.
Piniella said Sunday he wanted to see the matchup between Samardzija and Bonds, who greeted Samardzija with a sharp single to right on the second pitch he saw before being lifted for a pinch-runner.
“It was cool,” Samardzija said. “Just tried to keep cool and make some pitches.”
Going from playing football for Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl in January to facing perhaps the greatest home run hitter of all time in March has been the ride of a lifetime.
“It always goes fast,” Samardzija said. “So, I mean, you’ve got to sit back and enjoy it. It’ll be a cool time to think about it. Everybody’s going to be asking me about it, so it’s crazy. But it’s definitely been a pretty insane three months. If someone else out there has had a couple of months like that, I’d like to hear about it. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Can Samardzija work his way up to the Cubs before the end of the year?
“That would be a big speculation,” Piniella said before the game. “He’s looked good here, but he hasn’t pitched above A-ball. He’ll get some innings under his belt and learn his trade. You never rule anything out but, at the same time, it would be a pretty big long shot.”
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psullivan@tribune.com
