2 min read General Cubs Information

Cubs Split

By Tim Sheridan
March 15, 2011

Wells looking strong today – Photo by BOS’s John Antonoff

The Cubs had their final split-squad day of the spring season today, at Hohokam they lost to the Colorado Rockies 4-2 in front of 10,246 fans. The Cubs other squad was in Phoenix and that looked like the place to be as the Cubs pounded the A’s 8-1 with home-runs by Brett Jackson, Tyler Colvin, and Wellington Castillo.

In Mesa, Randy Wells started for the Cubs and had his longest outing of the spring going 5 innings. He gave up 3 runs, 2 earned. Carlos Marmol followed Wells and made it interesting as he is known to do at times, walking 3 batters to load the bases before recording the 3rd out with no damage. Kyle Smit tossed a shutout inning, Justin Berg trying to get his ERA back down below the 20’s went one and two thirds innings giving up a run and walked a couple batters.

The Cubs didn’t do much at the plate until the later stages of the game, in fact Rockies starting pitcher Esmil Rogers faced the minimum number of batters until the 6th inning. The Cubs as they’ve been doing this spring worked on a late inning comeback. In the 8th with Koyie Hill on base after a Rockies error followed by a Jim Adduci base hit, Cubs minor leaguer Ryan Flaherty drove a ball to the deepest part of the park in center at the 410 feet mark, unfortunately it was caught at the wall. The Cubs did end up scoring 2 in the bottom of the 9th as Josh Vitters and Jae- Hoon Ha sparked a mini rally both hitting doubles.

Adduci gets Cubs second hit of game in 6th   

Earlier in the game Alfonso Soriano caught Rockies pitcher Esmil Rogers pop fly in the 5th inning and was lining up for a throw to the plate as Rock’s catcher Chris Iannetta was tagging up at third base. Unfortunately Soriano air-mailed it about half way between home and 3rd base with the ball going into the Rockies dugout allowing Iannetta and also Hernan Iribarren to score on the play.

Cubs Hall of Fame Pitcher Ferguson Jenkins tossed out a ceremonial pitch today and is looking forward to pitching in the Fergie and Friends game tomorrow night.  Other notables on hand for today’s game: Mr. Cub Ernie Banks, Pulitzer prize winning author and Cubs fan George Will, and devout Cubs fan Brian Doyle-Murray (“You owe me one gumball machine”). Our Hohokam ticket manager Nancy Hunter’s daughter Kylie Hunter sang the 7th inning stretch today on her 16th birthday, she always does a great job, I think she’s been doing it every spring since she was about 5 years old.

The Cubs cut the spring roster by 18 players today, given the split-squads today many of those cut played in this afternoon’s games.

Today’s photos by BOS’s John Antonoff.

Pena lays down the tag
No Comments

Leave a Comment