Despite a few hiccups in the bottom of the first inning for Big Z — a walk followed immediately by a home run to Justin Upton — the Cubs managed to scratch out a comeback victory against the Dbacks on Friday night.
Carlos Zambrano settled down after that home run and pitched a good game the rest of the way, throwing six innings and giving up just those two runs on four hits and three walks. He struck out two.
But the real story was the Cubs offense, which woke up in the fifth inning against Arizona’s Armando Galarraga. Alfonoso Soriano and Geovany Soto hit back-to-back home runs that inning to tie the game, the first such time any two Cubs have hit back-to-back HRs in the 2011 season. Soriano followed that up by leading off the seventh inning with another home run, his ninth so far this season, the most by any Cub in the month of April.
The Cubs added an insurance run in the eighth off of Esmerling Vasquez, and Carlos Marmol managed to notch his sixth save of the season. The Cubs and Diamondbacks will play the third game of the four game series on Saturday night, with first pitch scheduled for 7:10 P.M., CDT.