Today’s win was excellent in at least one respect, though, as Travis Wood held the Reds scoreless for five innings. We said it this morning, and it’ll be the case for the rest of March: since Wood is viewed as the favorite for the fifth starter spot anyway, it would be nice to see him run away with the thing this Spring. Days like today help instill some confidence.
Wood allowed just three hits and one walk over his five innings, and he struck out four, as he was facing mostly Reds regulars. That’s excellent.
Brian Schlitter followed Wood with a couple scoreless innings of his own (finally), lowering his Spring ERA to 18.00. He struck out two, and allowed only one hit.
Corey Black threw a scoreless, uneventful inning, too, which is nice to see. He struck out one.
Zac Rosscup gave up the Reds’ only run on a few hits in the 9th – it would have been two runs if not for a nice throw to the plate by Rubi Silva and great diving tag by Kyle Schwarber behind the plate. Rosscup struck out two, as he does. If Tsuyoshi Wada starts the year on the DL, and if Phil Coke makes the bullpen, it wouldn’t absolutely shock me to see the Cubs also bring along Rosscup. He’s good. The only thing that’ll really hold him back is the fact that he’s got a minor league option left.
Offensively, there’s not much to say, since Chris Denorfia’s two-run homer was the team’s only hit. Hopefully the Cubs manage to win a few games like this in the regular season, too. They always strike me as satisfying – like the Cubs stole one.
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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NEWSLETTER
The Cubs have now won five of seven, and suddenly Spring Training wins and losses are definitely predictive of regular season performance. I kid.
