With yesterday's split-squad cancellations, many of the minor leaguers and non-roster invitees who were going to get a chance to throw in Cactus League action will have to get their work in elsewhere; the two pitchers who were to start yesterday will throw in relief today. Full pitching rotation for the Cubs today after the jump. It'll be cool today and tomorrow -- only in the low 60's -- but then warming up rapidly toward the weekend.
Before you go there, a few links of interest today:
- Ed Sherman of Crain's Chicago Business interviews new Cubs marketing chief Wally Hayward.
- Joe Posnanski, an excellent writer, posted about the Rule 5 draft on his site. The post explains how the draft works and also gives some interesting history about the draft. I note, however, that Posnanski fails to explain the reason that Josh Hamilton wound up with the Reds. (He makes it sound like the Cubs could have kept him -- let's not start that falsehood again.)
- USA Today posted about a roundtable discussion including baseball people from many areas of the game about how to improve baseball.
Ryan Dempster will make his scheduled start today, his first of the spring. Tom Gorzelanny and Jeff Samardzija, who were supposed to start the split-squad games yesterday, will both throw in relief. Sean Marshall is also expected to throw in today's game. Brett Anderson will start for the Athletics; among relievers for Oakland in today's game will be former White Sox farmhand Gio Gonzalez.
Today's starting lineup, via tweet from Carrie:
SS Theriot, RF Fukudome, 1B Lee, 3B Ramirez, CF Byrd, LF Soriano, DH Soto, C Hill, 2B Baker
There is no radio or TV coverage for today's game. Here's the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.
First pitch thread will post at 2 pm CST. An overflow thread will post at 3:15 CST.
Discuss amongst yourselves.