Is Carlos Silva Turning His Career Around With the Cubs?

This article was originally published at TheDailyCub.com , my blog covering all things Chicago Cubs.

Yesterday, Cubs newly acquired pitcher Carlos Silva pitched in his third outing of Spring Training, and he continued his progression as he works on his retooled delivery. After a horrific start in his first Spring Training appearance, Silva has been doing better and better with each outing.

In his first start of the spring, Silva pitched horribly, giving up six runs on seven hits against the rival Chicago White Sox all in just two innings of work. The bad start was expected by those who looked into Silva’s history with the Mariners and Twins.

However, in his two starts since he has pitched seven scoreless innings, got the win on both occasions, and has done a great job with his pitches as he makes up for his bad first start. He’s allowed six hits and one walk over the two appearances, giving him a very low WHIP of 1.00 in those two performances, and he lowered his ERA from 27.00 to 6.00.

Silva said that his newly found confidence may be stemming from the fact that his mother, whom he is very close with, will finally get to see him pitch live this season. For years she has been attempting to come to the U.S to watch him pitch but was never able to come.

“That was a big headache the last couple years,” Silva said. “She had been getting denied, denied, denied. I think that’s why I was fired up today.”

Silva also said that he is getting a different feeling this season than in previous ones, and that he feels a lot better about his command. If this keeps up, he could be on the fast track to becoming the fifth starter in the Cubs rotation.

“I have to talk to my mother before the game and after the game,” Silva said. “If I showed you the message I sent to her, I said, ‘The way I feel today I haven’t felt for a long, long time.’ The last game was good. I still have to work more. Today, I felt like it was me. I threw the sinker the way I wanted to throw it. I used my breaking ball, and my changeup was good today. I had good command.”

Although Silva has had issues in the past, he has shown flashes of how good he can be, and it seems as though he is working hard to recapture that magic this season with the Cubs. With the loss of Rich Harden, having a new pitcher come in who has a better history of being healthy than Harden could actually make the Cubs rotation better than last season.

Don’t get your hopes up too high, as Silva hasn’t shown a consistent ability to dominate as a pitcher, but having guarded confidence about this season for Silva might be the right way to go.

I’m Joe W.

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