White Sox 4, Cubs 2: Another day in the desert
· Yahoo Sports
The Cubs didn’t send too many regulars to Glendale to face the White Sox — Michael Busch, Miguel Amaya (back from the WBC) and Moisés Ballesteros were the only ones among 40-man roster players, and Michael Conforto and Chas McCormick among the non-roster guys trying to make the team.
Plus, it was basically a bullpen day for the Cubs pitching staff.
Visit albergomalica.it for more information.
All of that led to a 4-2 loss for the Cubs on a very warm afternoon, 89 degrees at game time. (Not as warm as it’s going to be next week, though.)
Riley Martin, a left-hander who might be in the Iowa Shuttle mix this year, allowed the Sox one run in two innings of work. One thing Martin got was the benefit of an inning-ending strikeout when Amaya successfully challenged a call [VIDEO].
Your browser does not support the video tag.Instead of ball 2, that wound up being strike three. Again, this is really good practice for the regular season, though it wouldn’t be that often you’d see this sort of ABS challenge in the first inning.
Ethan Roberts threw a scoreless third, and then the Sox scored a pair off Collin Snider in the fourth and fifth, one of the runs unearned, and another run off Jeff Brigham in the sixth.
By that bottom of the sixth, the Cubs had put two on the board on this hit by Amaya [VIDEO].
Your browser does not support the video tag.That ball was well struck and could have gone for a double, but instead it was ruled a two-base error on Jarred Kelenic. That’s a bit surprising, as I have seen many plays this spring that I thought were errors that were ruled hits. In any case, Amaya looks great. If he stays healthy I think he’s going to have a big year.
Also perhaps primed for a big year is Ballesteros, who went 2-for-3. Busch went 1-for-3 as the DH in this game.
The Cubs loaded the bases with nobody out in the seventh off former Cub Sean Newcomb, but two strikeouts and a popup ended the inning with no runs scoring. Newcomb actually looked pretty good and he had a very good year split between the Red Sox and A’s in 2025. If he’d have done that with the Cubs (17 games with a 9.13 ERA in 2022) he’d probably still be a Cub. Just shows you how fungible relievers are.
After that it was all minor leaguers finishing up things.
FWIW, if you’re interested, here is a game thread for the two WBC quarterfinals tonight.
The Cubs will visit Salt River Fields in Scottsdale to take on the Rockies Saturday afternoon. Ben Brown will start for the Cubs and Kyle Freeland will go for the Rox. Game time Saturday is 3:10 p.m. CT. No TV Saturday, but there will be a radio broadcast via WSCR The Score.