Hooray for more in-person baseball! I’ll be at Cubs Park today to watch the Cubs take on the Rockies, and I hope to see a few of you there. I’ll once again be in a blue BN shirt and the blue/yellow shoes, but one lesson I learned yesterday is that Cubs Park is so easy to just walk around in, you might not find me in any one particular spot at any one particular time. I will exist in quantum superposition all around Cubs Park.
You can expect heavy updates on Twitter once again, and then here at the site later today.
As for the game, Jeff Samardzija gets his second Spring start, and Chris Rusin will follow with a couple innings. Among the other pitchers scheduled to appear: Jose Veras, Pedro Strop, and Armando Rivero (whom I will watch with *great* interest). There will be audio for the game on Cubs.com.
Lineup (Baez!):
- Ryan Kalish, LF
- Luis Valbuena, 3B
- Junior Lake, CF
- Ryan Roberts, 1B
- Javier Baez, SS
- George Kottaras, C
- Brett Jackson, RF
- Chris Valaika, 2B
- Darnell McDonald, DH
Most of the prospects are available to play later in the game, too. I find that lineup pretty darn interesting, especially the outfield. There can be no doubt that the Cubs are looking at Junior Lake as a true center fielder at this point – he has yet to play a corner outfield spot in a Spring game, and obviously Brett Jackson is a more natural center fielder than a right fielder. Ryan Kalish, too, can play center. And yet it’s Lake who gets the spot, while the other two guys are being considered as reserve outfielders who can play all over.