Spring Training Miscellany: It’s a Losing Streak! At Least Javy Baez is Now Up to 110%

Obscured in the dust kicked up by Jake Arrieta finally signing and the creative terms in his deal, the Cubs were playing a baseball game today. And although Kyle Schwarber went really deep, the Cubs lost to the A’s 7-2. Chris Gimenez went back-to-back with Schwarber, and that accounted for all the Cubs’ scoring.

That’s two losses in a row for the Cactus League Cubs! Sacre bleu! How will they rebound?!

  • Yu Darvish had good stuff working today, as evidence by his usual collection of strikeouts, but he ran out of pitches in the fourth inning. He once again allowed guy to reach at the start of the game before ripping off a bunch of consecutive strikeouts. It’s just Spring Training, but the whole thing where he struggles for some weird reason at the very start of the game has continued here.
  • Justin Wilson threw yet another walk-less inning, and I dig that. He did give up a solo home run, but man, for a veteran reliever, I’d much rather see that in a spring appearance than a walk or two.
  • Meanwhile, Justin Grimm continues to get knocked around a bit this Spring. He’s your presumptive favorite for that 8th reliever spot, but because the Cubs could save a couple million bucks if he’s not the guy, I don’t think we can assume he’s going to get the job no matter what happens this Spring.
  • On the health front:
  • That only makes sense, since Javy Baez pronounced himself at 100% immediately after the game in which he felt the hamstring issue late last week. Hopefully Baez and his hamstring are comfortably back in action early this coming week.
  • Elsewhere on the roster, if you missed it, the Cubs came to terms with all their pre-arbitration players except Ian Happ, whom they had to renew.
  • written by

    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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