Carlos Alberto Zambrano (born June 1, 1981 in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela) is a right-handed starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who has played for the Chicago Cubs since 2001. He is signed with the Cubs through the 2012 season. He is one of the few switch-hitting pitchers and has won a silver slugger award for his hitting.
Zambrano, a big, imposing figure at 6'5" and 255 pounds, was signed by the Cubs as an amateur free agent in 1997 and made his debut in 2001. After being used in both starting and relief duties, he enjoyed his first full season as a starter in 2003, finishing with a 13-11 record, 168 strikeouts and a 3.11 ERA. He was also in the Cubs starting rotation during the Cubs' run to the National League playoffs, in which they would come up five outs shy of the World Series, losing to the eventual world champion Florida Marlins.
He is a career .220 hitter with 12 home runs and 31 RBIs. He tied the club record for home runs by a pitcher in a single season after clubbing six round trippers in 2006. Ferguson Jenkins is the other Cub great who compiled six home runs in one season as a pitcher. Zambrano is one of only two ballplayers who pitched in the NL in 2007 who won at least 13 games in each year from 2003-07, the other being former teammate Greg Maddux.
