Cubs vs. White Sox at Mesa preview, Friday 3/6, 2:05 CT

MESA, Arizona — Yu Darvish, who was scratched from Thursday’s start due to illness, is home and apparently feeling much better:

That followed an encouraging assessment earlier in the day from Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein, who said the early feedback from doctors was that Darvish was not likely to miss much time.

“They think he’s going to be fine,” Epstein said.

If Darvish is able to get his scheduled workload in over the next day or two, it would keep him on target for the opening series against the Brewers, and potentially for an Opening Day nod.

The article indicates that manager David Ross isn’t quite ready to announce his Opening Day starter. As always, we await developments.

Also, the first roster cuts were announced. Absolutely no surprises here:

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

Hoerner 2B, Schwarber LF, Contreras DH, Heyward RF, Caratini C, Almora CF, Bote 3B, Descalso 1B, Perez SS

White Sox lineup:

Moncada 3B, Anderson SS, Abreu 1B, Grandal C, Encarnacion DH, Jimenez LF, Robert CF, Garcia 2B, Engel RF

That could very well be the Sox’ Opening Day lineup.

Jon Lester will start for the Cubs. Cubs scheduled relievers: Adbert Alzolay, Rex Brothers and Rowan Wick.

Lucas Giolito will go for the White Sox. This is Giolito’s first start of the spring. Other Sox pitchers on today’s list: Aaron Bummer, Steve Cishek, Jimmy Cordero, Carson Fulmer and Adalberto Mejia.

Also of interest (note, time listed is ET):

Today’s game is on the Marquee Network. Here is a complete channel guide for all the providers currently signed up with Marquee. Note that it is possible some of these channels might not be up and running right away. This is new to all of us and I would anticipate glitches. Hopefully it all gets squared away by Opening Day, including Marquee deals with Comcast and YouTube TV, among others.

Radio today: 670 The Score. (Also 720 WGN with the White Sox announcers.)

MLB.com Gameday

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.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

Please visit our SB Nation White Sox site South Side Sox. If you do go there to interact with White Sox fans, please be respectful, abide by their individual site rules and serve as a good representation of Cub fans in general and BCB in particular.

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 2 p.m. CT and 3:30 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. There will also be a StoryStream on the front page with all the game thread links, as well as the recap after the game is over. The pitcher boxes and regular-season stats will return on Opening Day.

Discuss amongst yourselves.