Matt Garza will likely be just fine after being hit in the midsection yesterday by a ball hit by the Royals' Jeff Francoeur. However, it would be nice if the Cubs could avoid any future such occasions, which led to someone in the comments yesterday nicknaming the Cubs' new starter "Garza-lanny" after Tom Gorzelanny, who got hit by flying baseballs twice last year.
Rick Morrissey of the Sun-Times weighed in on the Carlos Silva/Aramis Ramirez dustup and this quote reminds us that this kind of thing happens more often that we might think:
Baseball players aren’t exaggerating when they say conflicts occur periodically during a season and that we just happened to see the one caught by cameras.
"I can’t think of a team it didn’t happen to," said former Cubs outfielder Todd Hollandsworth, who played for eight clubs over 12 seasons. "If it didn’t happen, that team probably didn’t care very much. If it didn’t happen, that to me was a show of no team. They show up, put in the time and just get out of there.
"Guys typically care. It’s virtually impossible to spend 16 hours a day, seven days a week for eight months without there being conflict. These things happen. It’s just that the media is not privy to most of it."
This is undoubtedly true. If this incident had happened in the clubhouse, instead of in clear view of tweeting beat writers, we'd probably never have heard a thing about it.
Andrew Cashner will start for the Cubs this afternoon as they face the Padres in Mesa. Randy Wells is also scheduled to go, followed by Jeff Stevens, Scott Maine, Jay Jackson & Robert Coello. The Padres counter with Wade LeBlanc, followed by Simon Castro, Anthony Bass, Jeremy Hefner, Colt Hynes, Brad Brach and Aaron Poreda.
Today's Cubs lineup:
Today's Padres lineup:Fukudome RF Castro SS Byrd CF Ramirez 3B Pena 1B Soriano LF Baker 2B Hill C Cashner P
Will Venable RF Kevin Frandsen SS Ryan Ludwick LF Brad Hawpe 1B Chase Headley 3B Nick Hundley C Everth Cabrera 2B Luis Durango CF Wade LeBlanc P
Today's weather forecast in Mesa is outstanding:
Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 78. East northeast wind between 5 and 7 mph.
In past years on a similar date in similar weather, this would have generated a sellout. We'll see how today's attendance compares.
Here's all the media information for today.
MLB.com Gameday for today's game
Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today. Today's game is on WGN radio.
Please visit our SB Nation Padres site Gaslamp Ball.
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Discuss amongst yourselves.