The Brewers chose to go Split Squad in their Spring Training day/night doubleheader this year with one team, comprised of almost all the Double A guys, and the other nearly all the Major Leaguers. Both teams came up empty by equal 5-3 scores as they lost to the Cubs and the Diamondbacks respectively.
The Double A squad plus Jonathan Lucroy, Mat Gamel, and Nyjer Morgan couldn’t solve the Cubs in the 5-3. In fact that game was over from the start as Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro hit a bomb of a home run off of Brewers prospect Kyle Heckathorn in the first inning and the Northsiders never looked back. But you’ve got to credit this team as they took on a Cubs team that was made up of almost it’s entire opening day starting roster. Expecting a win, even in a Spring Training game, would’ve been asking a bit much.
In the nightcap at Chase Field the scoring was started in the third inning as Travis Ishikawa was allowed to score on a grounder hit by Carlos Gomez that couldn’t be turned into a double play by the Diamondbacks. The very next inning shortstop Alex Gonzalez hit a two run home run and the score became 3-0 and proved to be the final runs for the Brewers who took a decent 3-1 lead into the 8th inning.
From there it was all downhill as Amaury Rivas struggled mightly giving up four runs, three of them earned in taking the loss and spoiling an otherwise great night for the Brewers pitching staff.
Randy Wolf went four innings of two hit baseball that yielded just one run as he struck out five in his final spring tuneup against the Diamonbacks. As a whole the pitching staff minus Rivas gave up only five hits and only allowed two walks as a group.
Here are some highlights not mentioned above:
– Corey Hart showed he’s very much back by stretching out his double and going to 3rd when he really didn’t need to, but that’s a great sign that he’s fully ready to go come Friday.
– Braun continued his struggles as he went 0-for-4 in the nightcap game, let’s hope none of this means anything come the regular season, but getting a hit or two tomorrow would be really nice, huh?
– While Hart had a great day, shortstop prospect Scooter Gennett had an even better day. He went 3-for-5 that included a double and just his 4th RBI of the spring in the game against the big league cubbies.
– Heckathorn’s outing was less than stellar as he gave up all 5 runs to the Cubs in his 5 innings of work. Those runs came off of 8 hits and 2 walks. Kyle did strike out 6 batters in the loss though.
Tomorrow is the final game of Spring Training as the Brewers are scheduled to throw Shawn Marcum on the hill for just his 2nd official start of Spring Training. The game will also be agains the Diamondbacks at Chase Field and first pitch scheduled for 2:40pm Central time.
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