Spring Training Miscellany: Diamondbacks 3, Cubs 1 – Schwarber Outfield, Rollins Solid, More

If you didn’t stay up late for this one (full disclosure: I did not), it doesn’t seem like you missed too much excitement, as the Diamondbacks scored three early off of starter Jake Buchanan, and that was pretty much the ballgame.

Cubs batters had just three hits in the game, and struck out 14(!) times while walking zero times. The numbers were nine and two for the Diamondbacks, too, so I’m think it was a generous zone last night.

  • Kyle Schwarber switched things up at the last minute and wound up playing left field instead of DH’ing. In his five innings out there, he caught the one ball that came his way. It’s been a quiet Spring so far for him in the outfield, which is mostly fine, though you’d like to see him getting a variety of in-game looks by the time April rolls around. It was a quiet night at the plate for him again, too, with an 0-3 and two strikeouts. After the World Series, it’s going to be difficult to ever question Kyle Schwarber’s readiness at the plate.
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  • But, he did do this, which, since Spring Training is all kinda fake anyway, I’m going to count it:
  • Matt Szczur got his nightly hit, this time a double. He’s just about the only Cubs regular-ish batter so far this Spring putting up great numbers. Not that a week’s worth of Cactus League games tells you much of anything.
  • Zac Rosscup got another inning of work as he comes back from a season lost to a shoulder injury. He struck out two.
  • Fellow lefty David Rollins pitched two perfect innings against mostly Diamondbacks regulars, and notched two strikeouts.
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  • A thank you from the Cubs:
  • The park at Salt River Fields (Diamondbacks and Rockies share it) is really nice:
  • Earlier in the day, the Cubs lost the first half of the kinda-sorta doubleheader against the Reds.
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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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