The Cubs dropped one heartily today, 7-0 to the Padres. The Cubs got beat in all phases of the game, to borrow from football parlance.
Jon Lester wasn’t at his sharpest, giving up six of the Padres’ seven runs in his 3.1 innings of work. The defense didn’t help much behind him, but the two homers and seven total hits were partly the product of location troubles. No biggy. Even on a down day, Lester still walked only one and struck out four. Some days, even when he doesn’t have his best command, that kind of day (in terms of the K/BB ratio) will result in only a handful of runs for the other team – such is the benefit of a great pitcher like Lester. Today, though, he got smacked around.
Ask me if I’m even a little bit concerned about Lester’s performance. “Brett, are you even a lit…” NO.
Jason Motte pitched a scoreless frame, as did each of Drake Britton (with one K (still 0.00 ERA on the Spring)), and Blake Parker (with two Ks).
Joe Ortiz, who is likely to head to AAA Iowa to start the year, thanks to the crowded bullpen competition and his remaining option, got two uneventful outs, lowering his Spring ERA to 1.69.
Each of Chris Coghlan and Jorge Soler had errors on the day – it’s rare to see two errors in the outfield in one game. Soler had a single and a walk in three plate appearances, while Coghlan was 0-3 with a couple strikeouts.
Kris Bryant DH’d again, knocking a double, but also striking out twice. Ditto for Mike Olt’s day, less one strikeout.
As if in response to today’s fawning piece, Matt Szczur struck out in both of his at bats today.
Arismendy Alcantara got on base a couple times today, but more importantly, I understand that he looked good at third base (he didn’t get any action in what I was able to watch today – I’ll confess that I was doing some family pool time for a good stretch of the game).
As for the Cubs’ goose egg on the day, they were 0-12 with runners in scoring position. Remember the fun they had with that last year? Don’t worry about it for today.
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 dropped one heartily today, 7-0 to the Padres. The Cubs got beat in all phases of the game, to borrow from football parlance.
