Cubs Recap for April 15, 2012

And I'm back from the high seas...

@Cardinals 10 - Cubs 3; Maholm is gonna look like the goat in this game and he certainly didn't pitch particularly well, but he also wasn't helped out one tad bit by his manager or his defense. Sveum puts out the B-squad against the right-hander Jake Westbrook including Jeff Baker, Joe Mather, Reed Johnson and Blake DeWitt with the team having an off-day anyway tomorrow. Then in the second I counted three plays that in my humble opinion a better second basemen would have turned into more outs. The first run scoring single by Matt Carpenter looked like a makeable play for a more rangey second basemen, let's call him Darwin Barney. The next a ground ball to Castro that looked like two, but DeWitt couldn't turn. And then another groundball to DeWitt that he fumbled out of the glove costing yet another double play. Nonetheless, Sveum was essentially giving this one away with the lineup he put out there as is. Good news is that the farm system should look great over over the next few seasons with all the losses the major league team is going to accumulate.

@Round Rock 11 - Iowa 10 (13 innings); The Iowa offense pounds out 22 hits, but loses in extra innings. Let's start with the bad and that means their starting pitcher Randy Wells who goes 2.1 IP and gives up 8 ER including one long ball. Ryan-Rowland Smith gave up 2 in his 2.2 innings of work, but Caridad and Maine combine for 5 shutout innings to keep the game alive. Corpas had to go 2.1, presumambly to save some arms and got saddled with a loss that he probably didn't deserve. All the starters managed a hit on the offensive side with Amezaga managing a 5/7. Others with multi-hit games included Campana (3/4), Rizzo (3/7), Valbuena (2/4), Cardenas (4/7), and Tolbert (2/5). Campana, Valbuena and Lalli each took one over the fence. Campana stole his 6th base but also got caught for the 2nd time this year. Brett Jackson still walking(2) and still striking out (3).

@Huntsville 5 - Tennessee 4; Elliot Soto with the only multi-hit game, both doubles, although he was also caught stealing. Watkins reached base in all 4 of his plate appearances including 3 walks and stole a base, but did commit an error. Nick Struck goes 5 IP and gives up 2 ER on 3 H, 4 BB and 1 K. M. Hatley gets the dunce cap and the loss giving up 3 ER in 2 innings of work.

@Dunedin 2 - Daytona 1 (12 innings); Rubi Silva and John Andreoli manage the only multi-hit games for Daytona in the loss. Szczur managed the only successful stolen base of the night while 3 Cubs get nabbed (Silva, Andreoli and Eliessar Bonne). Solid pitching though as Austin Kirk goes 7 innings giving up just a run and 4 H, 1 BB and 1 K. A.J. Morris(0.2 IP) and C. Harman combine for 3 scoreless innings. L. Suarez gets the loss with 1.1 IP, but 5 hits allowed and giving up the deciding run in extras.

Peoria 5 - @Wisconsin 3 (11 innings); Devoss gets on-base three times including a triple. Oliver Zapata with the other multi-hit game including a long ball in the 11th to win it. Willengton Cruz starts and goes 5.2 IP with 5 K, 4 H, 3 BB and 3 ER. Luis Liria, A. McKirahan and Yao-Lin Wang combine for 5.1 innings of scoreless ball and Wang gets the win and saves it for himself.

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Keith Law on upcoming mlb draft, discusses what he thinks the current buzz will be the 5th pick (KC at 5, Cubs at 6):

There's a fair amount of industry speculation that Gausman is Kansas City's target with the fifth overall pick, although I assume that's based on the assumption that the first four picks are, in some order, Byron Buxton, Mark Appel (who was 97-99 early last night, but threw an arm-numbing 149 pitches), Kyle Zimmer (who was rained out) and Mike Zunino. The Royals did want a college starter last year, only to have their top four choices (including Dylan Bundy, the high school pitcher who was as polished as a college guy) taken in the top four spots. This year, they should get one of those three college arms if that is indeed still their goal.

Law top 10 rankings for the draft as of April 10th:

Buxton, CF (high school)
Zunino, C
Appel, RHP
Zimmer, RHP
Correa, SS (high school)
Gausman, RHP
Marrero, SS
Almora, OF (high school)
Fried, LHP (high school)
Smoral, LHP (high school)

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