Rocket Homers for Jimenez and Happ, WBC Excitement, and Other Bullets

Mar 12, 2017

With apologies, you probably noticed there was no Spring Training Miscellany last evening after the Cubs’ win over the Rockies, so I’ll amend that here in these Bullets. It was probably the time change. Somehow. Yeah. That was it …

The Cubs held on late this time to win a Spring Training game, after three strong innings from Jon Lester, who talked after the game about being glad he was able to go three innings as he works up his arm strength, as well as having the opportunity to work in some jams. Lester also got an assist from Willson Contreras, who threw out a runner trying to steal (remember that, other teams!).

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Regular relievers Pedro Strop, Hector Rondon, and Carl Edwards Jr. each got in an inning of work, followed by lefty Caleb Smith, who worked a clean inning. Rather than following Lester, Eddie Butler was given the final two innings of the game (which makes sense, because you’d rather have your regular relievers facing the big leaguers before they’re taken out), and he cruised with five groundouts and one fly out. He was reportedly sitting at 95mph with his fastball, which would be very nice, especially if he’s getting that good sinking action.

The damage for the Cubs came via a trio of homers, first, Kyle Schwarber’s moon shot. And then you had top Cubs prospects Eloy Jimenez and Ian Happ tagging into the game so they could take turns firing off rocket homers to basically the same spot (thanks to Cubs Insider for sharing the videos on YouTube):

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Joe Maddon believes Kyle Schwarber can become a good defensive left fielder if he stays healthy, and will hopefully get in a couple innings of catching this spring to gear him up to be the third catcher in the regular season.

Javy Baez’s crushed homer and very gentle bat treatment wasn’t the only definitely-worth-watching homer from yesterday/this morning’s WBC action. Michael’s got three more of them here, including an EXTREMELY excited Wladimir Balentien celebrating a shot.

Speaking of excitement in the WBC:

No way "act like you've been there before" approach to baseball is better than the genuine joy that the Dominican team showed tonight.
— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) March 12, 2017

That joy came after a huge comeback win against the United States team last night.

Team Israel won AGAIN, beating Cuba last night – that means if they win one of their next two games against Japan or Netherlands, they may very well move on to the semifinals. Another darling of the tournament, Team Italy, was an extra-innings loss away from being in the same position.

Also, I think I forgot to share this on Friday, which was an egregious mistake on my part:

https://twitter.com/flippingbats/status/840005873829318657

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New shirt:

New shirt for St. Patrick's Day: AuthentiCity pic.twitter.com/C8M840lVQV

— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) March 11, 2017

Another flurry of Bears signings to check out at TYL, if you’re into that kind of thing.

The small version of the Mohu Leaf antenna (it’s what we have at home for local channels) is under $15 today at Amazon.

written by

Brett Taylor

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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