Postgame Wrap: Cubs v Royals; Lester Looking Chippy (Pun Intended)

You know I had to do that, right?

The Cubs beat the Royals today by the score of 5 to 2. Jon lester went five innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on five hits and one walk with four strikeouts. Here’s your box score.

Overall he pitched pretty well. He did a good job to get out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the fifth inning giving up only one unearned run in the process. The bases were loaded due to two throwing errors in that inning; one by Anthony Rizzo attempting to field a bunt and throw to first. The throw went wide left and was a play that looked like it should have been made by Lester and perhaps Rizzo was trying to pick up the slack.

The second error was off a poor Lester throw as he tried to field a ball that was hit softly just to his right. It was a throw he should’ve made and these are both examples of the unfortunate continuation of his fielding issues.

The Cubs got their runs in two separate innings today. The first run came in the bottom of the third off a Heyward sacrifice fly after a Fowler triple. Heyward was 1 for 3 with a run and two RBIs. Fowler finished 1 for 2, scoring 2 runs.

In the fifth inning the Cubs got four runs off three hits. After a Juan Perez lead-off single and a Fowler hit-by-pitch, Jason Heyward hit a single to right field scoring Perez with Dex advancing to Third. Rizzo came up and hammered a deep fly ball to center field that almost got out of the park, but instead ended up as a sacrifice fly to drive in Fowler. And then Soler came up to bat. I’ll let you watch the video since words don’t do it justice. (Hint: two runs scored)

Both Hector Rondon and Pedro Strop pitched one inning each today. Both looked solid, giving up no hits, no walks and Rondon struck out two. Good to see both of those guys putting out some quality pitches today. I know there were some fans that were starting to think not-so-positive thoughts about both those guys. They’re fine…it’s spring training which is pretty much glorified practice.

The Cubs also broke another spring training attendance record with 15,523 excited, mostly Cubs fans.

Tomorrow is a rare day off for the Cubs. There will be a minor league game on the back fields starting at 3 PM CDT with John Lackey pitching. We may even see some of the other big-leaguers back there too. I’ll be there and I hope to see you there too.