The Week In Cubs Baseball

It’s starting to feel more like spring here in Mesa! With a game time temperature yesterday of 77 degrees, long gone is last week’s rain and highs in the 50’s. It was Mesa Chamber of Commerce weather at Sloan Park for yesterday’s sunny St. Patrick’s Day extravaganza.

The Cubs have another Monday off today, as they did last week. Since last Monday’s off-day the Cubs have gone 3-3, with wins over the Rangers, White Sox, and Diamondbacks. As I always say here at BOS, wins and losses don’t matter in spring training, however it just feels better seeing that W!

We are ten days away from the Cubs opening day against the Rangers – TEN DAYS! This is the time in spring that the starting position players will play a few more innings each game and pitchers are increasing their pitch counts.

I still sense some uneasiness from Cubs fans out on the interwebs, but I’m feeling there is a real drive and desire with this year’s North Side 9, and I mean the whole roster!

Sure there are some injuries the team is dealing with, Morrow and Strop, to name a few, but these are not catastrophic in nature. And I’m not saying a healthy Kris Bryant and Yu Darvish will make this ballclub perfect, but it sure would help. After being around Chicago Cubs spring training for 36 years, I can generally get a good feel for the make-up of a squad.

There are still plenty of questions. Do they have enough depth in the bullpen? Can they score runs when needed? Will the injured players come back to previous form? The answers will start coming ten days from now. However, I see this Cubs team coming out strong and hungry, with a chip on their collective shoulder, and ready to battle all the “improved” teams in the N.L. Central.

Here are some photos from the past week to enjoy on the Cubs day off. Go Cubs!