Spring Training Miscellany: Cubs 3, White Sox 15; Japan 5, Cubs 7 – March 15, 2013

cactusToday the Cubs were blasted by the White Sox, and held it tight with a very good Japanese team. In the latter game, the Cubs tied it late, and walked off on Javier Baez’s second homer of the game. Yes, you read that correctly.

  • We actually got to watch Scott Feldman today, and his ugly line – 7 ER on 7 H and 2 BB over 3.2 IP – was pretty much earned. His sinker was up in the zone (and probably didn’t have as much sink as it will have next month outside of Arizona), and he wasn’t really hitting his spots. Of his five outs in play, only one came on the ground. That pretty much tells the story. As always, caveat Spring: you don’t know what he was working on.
  • Feldman wasn’t the only one who had a lousy day against the White Sox. Hector Rondon gave up his first earned runs of the Spring – two of ’em on two hits and a walk (the big damage was a grand slam to Dayan Viciedo. Nice relief prospect Tony Zych gave up an earned run of his own, and allowed all three of his inherited runners to score. That came after lefty relief prospect Zach Rosscup faced three batters, walking them all.
  • Largely unheralded outfield prospect John Andreoli (whom Luke highlighted in his ranking series) offered pretty much the only highlight against the White Sox with a 9th inning homer.
  • Against Japan, Travis Wood was in the zone all day, but he got slapped around while he was there – 7 H, 5 R (4 ER) and 4 K over 4.2 innings.
  • The bullpen shut things down, though, with each of Cory Wade, Casey Coleman, and Rafael Dolis throwing scoreless frames (Wade actually went 1 and a third).
  • Dave Sappelt had a huge day against Japan, which can’t hurt his chances to lock down that 5th outfielder job. He had three hits in four at bats, including a double.
  • Alfonso Soriano, with scouts in attendance, went 0-2 with a sacrifice fly.
  • Javier Baez hit a 400+ foot bomb, and a walk-off bomb AND took a walk. That’s a good day, young man. Nobody noticed the error.
  • Dan Vogelbach had a single in four tries, and Jorge Soler went hitless in his four. Vogelbach was thrown out at home at one point, but I don’t have any details on that.
  • Josh Vitters got back into game action after missing a long time with a quad injury, and went 1-3, driving in a run. He did make an error at third, though.
  • Christian Villanueva finally got a hit that wasn’t a homer … it was just a very deep double to the left center gap.
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    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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