I should take my coffee break more often.
See, all the professors in the department where I work were congregating for their normal 10am coffee break. Knowing my interest in baseball and my blog, they waved me in like they had something really important to tell me.
Turns out one prof has a cousin whose kid is going to make his debut for the Cubs today. Ryan O’Malley? Turns out he’s a Springfield product from Sacred Heart-Griffin. He says O’Malley was an All-Stater while there.
Of course, if you paid any attention to the boxscores you know what he did against the Astros. Oh what the heck. Let’s post them, anyway.
8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 6 BB, 2 K (Win)
If he can keep this up for the foreseeable future (read: next year and beyond), this is a shot in the arm for the Cubs’ pitching staff. But one game at a time. And this is a great start.
Here are his college and minor league numbers. They look real good except for the first two times he played at Iowa (he didn’t pitch a lot either time so it just may be indicative of small data sampling). His Iowa numbers looked better in ’06.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing more of Ryan. With the loss of Wood and Prior, now is the time to evaluate the Cubs’ pitching talent. From what he did against the Astros, O’Malley has shown he may some.