A Tip of the Recap March 30th
The Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants by a score of 8-5 Monday afternoon.
The Good
Dexter Fowler is heating up at the right time this spring as he went 2 for 4 with a triple and single, an RBI, and run scored.
Starlin Castro, Welington Castillo, Tommy La Stella, and Jonathan Herrera each drove in 2-out RBI. Beef even later added a suicide squeeze in the 8th for an insurance run.
La Stella worked the count well and had a double and a single while making a couple solid plays at 3rd. He did have a throwing error, but otherwise handled some tough balls hit his way.
Kyle Hendricks was very good through 5 innings, but the wheels fell off in the 6th and he was removed after only getting one out. In the first 5 innings though he gave up 3 hits, no runs or walks and struck out 5. He also helped on offense, going 2 for 3 with 2 runs scored.
Phil Coke came in with 2 men on in the 6th and got the left-handed hitter out to get out of the inning.
Jason Motte finally put it together and threw a perfect inning of relief. He seemed so much more in control of himself than he has all spring, hopefully a sign of things to come.
Joe Ortiz will not go quietly in the competition for left-handed reliever and he threw another scoreless inning of work to bring his ERA down to 0.87.
Zac Rosscup is making things interesting as well in the race for lefty-reliever. He came in for the save and shut the door with a perfect inning of relief, striking out the side.
The Bad
Jorge De Leon came in for relief of Hendricks in the 5th inning and allowed all the runners he inherited to score before being replaced by Coke.
Bad Kyle Hendricks saw things get out of hand after he gave up a solo HR to in the 6th to Joe Panik. He then proceeded to not retire another Giant before being removed.
The Ugly
Not much ugly with the game today that saw a Cubs’ victory. They even struck out only 5 times and walked 4 as a team, so that was also positive.
On Deck
The Cubs will finish out March tomorrow with a game against the Texas Rangers at 3:05 PM (CST). Eric Jokisch will get another start with Jon Lester getting some work in a minor league game again.
