Cubs vs. White Sox at Glendale Preview, Friday 3/20, 3:05 CT

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona -- As I mentioned in the recap to Thursday's games, I'm skipping this one. Partly because 18 innings of baseball Thursday was quite a bit, and the rest because I don't care to drive to Camelback Ranch for the usual reasons.

This is the last game I'm skipping this spring -- I'll be at all the remaining games after today except for the split-squad game against the Reds in Goodyear, and that's because there is a game in Mesa that day (March 28). I'll also not be at the Chase Field games April 3 and 4 -- I'll be back in Chicago by then.

Here are the particulars for today's game:

Cubs lineup:

La Stella 3B, Alcantara 2B, Sweeney RF, Lake LF, Baxter 1B, Almora CF, Ross C, Herrera SS, Wood P

White Sox lineup:

Eaton CF, Cabrera LF, Abreu 1B, LaRoche DH, Garcia RF, Ramirez SS, Gillaspie 3B, Flowers C, Johnson 2B

This looks like more or less the White Sox' Opening Day lineup. Meanwhile, the Cubs give many of the regulars who played Thursday night the day off.

Travis Wood starts for the Cubs this afternoon. Also scheduled: Neil Ramirez, Blake Parker, Brian Schlitter and Jason Motte.

Hector Noesi will start for the White Sox. Other Sox pitchers expected to throw: Zach Putnam, Zach Duke and Dan Jennings. Putnam, you might remember, is a former Cub.

Today's game is on cubs.com with Len Kasper and Mick Gillispie. It's being televised by CSN Chicago -- but with the Sox announcers. Don't say I didn't warn you. If you miss it, you can watch a replay on MLB Network tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. CT.

MLB.com Gameday

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

Please note that during spring training, Gameday doesn't usually go pitch-by-pitch as it does during the regular season -- usually, it will update after each at-bat.

For spring-training games, we'll have a first-pitch thread at five minutes to game time and one overflow thread, 90 minutes after game time (because I know how you all like overflow threads!). For today, that will be 3:05 p.m. CT and 4:30 p.m. CT. These threads will not post individually onto the front page; instead, you can find links to them in the box marked "Chicago Cubs Game Threads" at the bottom of the front page. They will also appear in this StoryStream™. The pitcher box and regular-season stats will return on Opening Day.

Discuss amongst yourselves.