Major League Baseball

Cubs 5, Mariners 3

Published Mar. 23, 2009 1:35 a.m. ET

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Lou Piniella likes what he sees in Carlos Zambrano. "Zambrano was awfully sharp," the Cubs manager said Sunday after Zambrano allowed one run and four hits over six innings in a 5-3 win over the Seattle Mariners. "He threw 70-some pitches but gave us six good innings. He threw strikes. Good demeanor," Piniella said. "To me, he looks in much better shape than he did last year. He looks trimmer." Zambrano, who beat the Mariners' Erik Bedard, will get two more starts before the opener at Houston on April 6. "I felt good today," Zambrano said. "I was able to use all my pitches today, and all my pitches were good." Bedard, whose season ended early last year because of surgery to remove a cyst from his left shoulder, has been bothered by sore buttocks. He pitched on March 5, but not again until March 16, when he threw one inning. Bedard threw 47 pitches in 2 2-3 innings on Sunday. "Just trying to get ready; just trying to get my arm strength back," he said. "A-week-and-a-half off seems like a long time when you're not pitching for a week. You just gradually get back into it and try to throw strikes and make good pitches. ... As long as I feel fine, I'll be fine for the season." Seattle's run off Zambrano came in the third, when Chris Woodward led off with his fourth homer of spring training. Zambrano doubled for the Cubs, and Alfonso Soriano hit a two-run single off Cesar Jimenez. Mike Wilson homered in the seventh against Carlos Marmol, Wilson's fifth spring-training homer. Notes: Cubs 1B Derrek Lee played for the first time since last Monday and went 1-for-2. He was nursing a sore right quadriceps. Lee said he felt pressured by Major League Baseball to join the U.S. team for the World Baseball Classic. With 1B Kevin Youkilis injured, the Americans were short at first base. "They started calling me," Lee said. "They needed a first baseman. I couldn't go, not being 100 percent. I thought it was disrespectful, to be truthful. They know I wasn't playing here. How do they expect me to get off the trainers table and go play there? But also at the same time, you understand they're trying to win, and I was the guy that was on the roster."

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