Cubs 6, Mariners 2: Even more good pitching

The Cubs won their sixth straight Spring Training game Monday afternoon, taking a first-inning lead and holding on for a 6-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners.

In that first inning, Nico Hoerner led off with a single. One out later, Eric Hosmer doubled him in [VIDEO].

Patrick Wisdom struck out and after that, Christopher Morel’s RBI single made it 2-0 [VIDEO].

Hayden Wesneski started off well, with a pair of scoreless innings, then got sloppy in the third. A single and a pair of throwing errors, one by Wesneski and one by catcher Tucker Barnhart, led to a Seattle run on an RBI double by Cal Raleigh. So, pitching-wise, Wesneski was fine, striking out three. The run was unearned due to the errors.

The Cubs made it 3-1 in the seventh. Brennen Davis doubled and scored on a triple by Edwin Rios. Rios has put himself in the conversation for the Opening Day roster. I don’t know how to rate his fielding as he hasn’t played that many innings, but the man can hit:

Ryan Borucki, Brad Boxberger and Rowan Wick all had scoreless outings, but the Mariners crept to within 3-2 on a home run by Cade Marlowe off Tyler Duffey. The Mariners nearly tied the game in the bottom of the eighth, but Seattle runner Kean Wong (brother of Kolten Wong) was ruled out of the baseline trying to score and called out.

The Cubs put the game away in the ninth. Kevin Alcántara — who has tremendous talent, even if he’s still some time away from the major leagues — led off with a double, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a double by Bradley Beesley. Yohendrick Pinango, who had walked before Beesley batted, scored on yet another wild pitch to make the score 5-2. Beesley took third and scored on a groundout by Jake Slaughter to complete the scoring.

In case you were wondering — I was — Beesley was signed in 2020 as a non-drafted free agent out of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo and played last year in South Bend and Tennessee.

Trey Mancini went 2-for-3 and is now hitting .563 (9-for-16) this spring with a home run and four runs scored.

There were two pitch timer violations in this game. One was on Eric Hosmer for not being ready at the correct time, eight seconds to go [VIDEO].

Hosmer wound up popping out to second base in that at-bat.

The other was on Seattle’s Cal Raleigh for disengaging after the eight-second mark, which a batter cannot do [VIDEO].

Raleigh made the most of that at-bat, hitting an RBI double off Wesneski. One or two violations is about it for most games this spring, and I suspect that number will drop during the season as players get more accustomed to the clock.

The Cubs head to Surprise to take on the Rangers Tuesday afternoon. Adrian Sampson will start for the Cubs and Cole Winn gets the call for Texas. Game time is 2:05 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.