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| Huh, that's how they do that. |
We have had
some interesting weather the past few weeks here in Des Moines. On March 3rd, it was 12 below zero and I had
two piles of snow in my yard that were almost as tall as I am. On March 10th, it was 70 degrees and by this
last Saturday, it was approaching 50 and nearly all of my snow was gone. Then I looked out my window Saturday night
and it looked as if it were the middle of January. Thankfully, I love “extreme” weather (if you
can call an inch of snow extreme but it looked blizzard-like out there) so it
was neat.
Ok, so if
you have frequented Cubs blogs in the past few years or have hung around
Twitter, I am sure you all know of Michigan Goat. If you pay attention to him long enough (I
try not to, I kid…) you learn that he suffers from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and
the terrible, awful things that come with that.
Kudos to
him, he has started a campaign to help increase awareness and fundraise for a
cure. Whenever I get a chance, I will be
inviting you to take a gander at what he is doing.
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Rusin appears
to have been very sharp as the Cubs topped the Mets 6-3. Rusin went 4 scoreless and struck out 2 while
walking no one and only giving up a single.
Good to see Alcantara and Vogelbach with home runs and at least they got
a few more runners into scoring position in this one.
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Speaking of Rusin, Carrie Muskat had a good writeup
about the lefty and his diligent efforts to learn and become a part of the
rotation. It’s fairly standard Spring
Training fluff but it’s a nice read.
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Those left behind in Mesa didn't fare so
well. Wood was shaky in the first but
managed 8 strikeouts over the 5 frames he pitched. If he can even be 80% of the pitcher he was
last year, that will be a huge win going into 2015 and suddenly the rotation
isn’t nearly as scary. Brett Jackson
BJak’d all over the game with 2 Ks in his 4 PA and a double. It was also a very Cubs offensive game, 0-13
RISP, 10 baserunners but only 2 runs. Oh
Cubs.
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Diamondbacks Patrick Corbin left
a game recently and an MRI showed damage to his UCL. That means Tommy John surgery is likely (if
you ever read forearm strain, just Google Translate that into non-PR speak and
it will come out as “Pitcher X left the game to delay Tommy John surgery for a
couple weeks while they wait for 2nd opinions”) and the D-Backs are
suddenly out a high profile starting pitcher.
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Impact to the Cubs? The Diamondback *MIGHT* pony up for Jeff
Samardzija now. Maybe. Spring Training trades are rare and the
Diamondbacks do have a decent staff even without Corbin but if they have a
starter or two that isn’t quite where they wanted? Eh, I’m guessing they are going to let it
ride. The difference between Samardzija
and a replacement level pitcher might be 2 wins between now and mid-June. Which could be huge for the Diamondbacks as
they look up to the Dodgers but the price is sky high on Samardzija right
now. While Corbin won’t be back to 100%
until mid-season next year but they do have Archie Bradley that could make a
big step forward this year.
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Speaking of pitcher injuries, ever notice how
they don’t seem to be decreasing? Ken
Rosenthal noticed
the same thing. The problem is two-fold:
the first is that pitching a baseball overhand isn’t a natural motion, at least
throwing max effort a couple hundred times every 5 days. Sure, humans have been throwing rocks and
spears to kill food for millennia, but that is a few times a day or over a
week. With pitchers going max effort
from the first pitch of the game, that’s a lot of strain on joints that aren’t
built for it. Second: No one knows how
to avoid them. Teams have tried cutting
pitch counts and increasing rest for decades but injuries keep piling up. Pretty much the only thing they know is that
you shouldn’t abuse arms.
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Tsuyoshi Wada appears
to remain in the mix for the 5th starter spot out of Spring. But Bruce Levine seems
to think that Carlos Villanueva has the leg-up on the competition for the 5th
spot. Villanueva makes some sense but, so
does McDonald. They are both candidates
for flip at mid-season but I see Villanueva having just a smidge more value
than McDonald but a few good starts from him isn’t going to change much where,
if McDonald shows some stuff over the first couple of months, they might be
able to draw water from the stone.
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From the Tsuyoshi Wada link above…Javier Baez is
going to get some work in at 2nd base this week and, apparently,
Baez used to prefer playing 2B (that was until (probably) someone told him a
good hitting SS makes much more $$$ than a good hitting 2B). It’s good to see he has some comfort there
already. Although, some folks will still
wonder why the Cubs just don’t trade Castro already.
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Speaking of Jake Arrieta, Jesse Rogers states
that Jake threw a combined 65 pitches between warmup and live BP…and felt good
afterwards. That is a positive step but
I still don’t see him in big league action until mid-April at the earliest and
if McDonald is looking good to Cubs scouts, they certainly wont want to rush
it. From here, Jake is scheduled to
throw again today, provided everything goes smoothly.
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The pic/gif/whateverthehellIfeellikeposting of
today: Jake Masterson proving that
pitchers have to be top-notch physical specimens in order to perform well:
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