[adinserter block=”2″]The Cubs will play a game tomorrow at 2pm CT! It’s their Cactus League opener, and you can already see the lineup.
More injury news in the reserve portion of the outfield today, as Carrie Muskat reports that Matt Szczur has been dealing with an oblique strain, from which he hopes to return next week. The timing couldn’t be worse for Szczur, who has a legitimate shot of winning a job on the Cubs’ bench … but must do so if the Cubs want to keep him without subjecting him to waivers. Because Szczur is out of options, he cannot simply be sent to AAA Iowa at the end of Spring Training – he either makes the 25-man roster (something that’ll be an uphill climb as it is), or the Cubs must put him on waivers, where a rebuilding club might snatch him up and take a chance on his upside.
Obliques are a peculiarly tricky beast for baseball players, with some strains getting better within a matter of a couple weeks, and others costing players months. It sounds like Szczur’s is not of the more serious variety, but we’ll see.
Szczur’s injury comes on the heels of word that Matt Murton had an appendectomy this past weekend, but it sounds like he’s going to be both fine and back very quickly (Tribune). Murton’s chances of winning a bench job with the Cubs are even slimmer than Szczur, but depth remains an important thing.
I’m not exactly sure what this is, but it kinda looks like the style of a ‘This is SportsCenter’ commercial:
@KrisBryant_23 and I made it official today #bryzzo pic.twitter.com/Ep3kjHJUDA
— Anthony Rizzo (@ARizzo44) March 2, 2016
Definitely looks like a commercial of some kind:
It's official today #bryzzo @ARizzo44 pic.twitter.com/EdKJdxeuvF
— Kris Bryant (@KrisBryant_23) March 2, 2016
I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Friendship:
.@ARizzo44’s showing off for @KrisBryant_23. https://t.co/hNKzFANWZN
— MLB (@MLB) March 2, 2016
Meanwhile, Bryzzo was also up to some good in the clubhouse, “helping” David Ross get from point A to point B.
Bryant must be pretty good at golf, by the way, because he and Eric Jokisch won the team’s golf tournament yesterday (Jesse Rogers).
As for old friends, we recently saw that Darwin Barney had a huge game for the Blue Jays, but today it was Starlin Castro, looking strange but impressive in pinstripes:
Welcome to the #Yankees, Starlin Castro pic.twitter.com/uBlNMHdTRv
— Ben Diamond (@_BenDiamond) March 2, 2016
Castro also had two hits in the game, scored a run, and drove in a run. Also, Jim Harbaugh coached first base for the Tigers because Spring Training.
This is fun, because I say so:
When you realize that every MLB team will be in action tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/3lT3EvPG16
— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) March 2, 2016