SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- Here's how desperate the Cubs appear to be for relief help:

Cubs sign Shawn Camp to minor league deal after Seattle released him last wk.

— cst_cubs (@cst_cubs) March 26, 2012

Shawn Camp. Who is 36 years old, and had a pretty mediocre (4.21 ERA, 1.523 WHIP, 4.3 K/9) season in 2011. And who was released by the Mariners last week. I guess he must have impressed the Cubs brass when he threw 2⅓ scoreless innings against them in this game, after which Seattle let him go.

It's a minor-league deal, so it probably means Camp gets stashed at Iowa to help out if someone else fails.

Cubs lineup vs. Padres:

Johnson cf, Barney 2B, Castro ss, LaHair 1b, Soto c, Baker rf, Gonzalez 3b, Campana lf, Maholm p

Cubs lineup vs. Diamondbacks:

DeJesus rf, Byrd cf, DeWitt 2b, Stewart 3b, Clevenger c, Sappelt lf, Lalli 1b, Amezaga ss, J Jackson p

Padres and Diamondbacks lineups were not available at posting time.

Paul Maholm will start at Mesa against the Padres' Tim Stauffer. I'll be at that game. Carlos Marmol is expected to pitch today at Mesa for the first time since Thursday. Also scheduled at Mesa: Trever Miller, Casey Coleman, Rafael Dolis and James Russell, although Russell threw on Sunday, so might not go today.

The other half of the team heads to Talking Stick, where the Diamondbacks' Ian Kennedy will face Jay Jackson. Also expected to go for the Cubs against Arizona are Scott Maine and Esmailin Caridad. Other Diamondbacks pitchers will be Brett Lorin, Joe Paterson, Bryan Shaw and J.J. Putz.

Today's game in Mesa is on cubs.com with Len Kasper and Mick Gillispie. Here is the MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday for Cubs/Diamondbacks

MLB.com Gameday for Cubs/Padres

Note that for spring training gameday links, you probably will not get pitch-by-pitch as during the regular season; these are unofficial links. Each play will be posted, but might not be updated until after each half-inning.

There will be one overflow thread, which will post at 4:30 pm CT. The "Recent Stories in Game Threads" box on the sidebar is where you'll find it.

Please visit our SB Nation Diamondbacks site AZ Snakepit and Padres site Gaslamp Ball.

Discuss amongst yourselves.