Remember when we joked about Matt Garza’s lat injury leaving him out far longer than the Chicago Cubs were first saying? As it turns out, we were right. What started as a week off turned into two, and when he played catch on Saturday, things didn’t go well. The team is now expecting him to miss the first month of the season.
“He’s pretty down about it,” Sveum said of the latest news. “He was obviously looking forward to it going well and it didn’t go so well. He’s pretty down right now about it.”
But don’t worry, it’s not really that bad!
Garza played catch on Saturday and they tried to pick up the intensity. That’s when he felt some discomfort. Lat injuries can linger but Sveum said this isn’t as serious as some which hurt when you sneeze or laugh.
“It’s just to the point where he’s just not ready to throw a baseball yet,” Sveum said. “It’s not torn or real bad. It’s just not quite ready to throw. It’s not a setback, it didn’t get worse, it’s just not ready — it’s like an evaluation process. Obviously, the evaluation was that he’s not ready to step up any extra intensity throwing.”
Bad news for Matt Garza became good news for Jeff Samardzija, as he was named opening day starter.
“I am excited,” Samardzija said. “The best thing as an athlete is to work hard and see positive gains from it. That (helps) you continue to work hard and keep improving. You get a little taste of success and you want to keep it going.”
But don’t worry about Samardzija getting a big head.
“You don’t take anything for granted in this game, it is a long season,” Samardzija said. “You don’t want to look ahead to next year or the year after that. Nothing is in stone. I will go start-to-start and go from there.”
In other injury news, Starlin Castro and Ian Stewart continue to progress from their respective leg injuries. Castro says he’d be available to play were it the regular season, but he’s not willing to take the chance of injuring it further in a spring game. He took batting practice over the weekend.
“I don’t want to be, ‘OK, I’m good,’ and then get hurt again,” Castro said. “I want to be good for 162 [games].”
Stewart is now swinging a bat and playing catch, but is on no timetable to return.
“We’ve come this far and I don’t want to take a chance at a setback now,” Stewart said. “We’re taking it each day and seeing what kind of progression we make from the day before and going from there.”
But Ian’s really upset, y’all. He’s worked so hard to be the best third baseman he could be.
“It is very frustrating,” Stewart said about being sidelined. “I worked hard this offseason, spent a lot of time away from my family this offseason, going back and forth from California to North Carolina. It is tough and I guess the only positive is that the season is six and hopefully seven months long. If you’re going to be hurt this time of year, and not something to take you away from meaningful games in the middle or latter part of the season. Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer.”
His time away from his family over the winter was made up by the time he spent with them most of last summer.
An “intense” game of catch knocked him out for 2 months??? Oy. Who’s the asshole who was telling him, “throw HARDER, you wuss!!”
Longest spring training ever…
At least it seems like it.
I wish they would just cut Ian Stewart and start the regular season.
“Ian, we’re going to make it possible for you to make up all that time you spent away from your family this offseason”…
FanGraphs with a nice write-up on Jorge Soler.
Reason to be excited?
Yes. Especially if he’ll be playing on the Cougars on his way up!
Do we know where Soler and Baez are going to start the season? Please say “Kane County.”
If Baez stays in single A…it will probably be a short stay. I think the Cubs will look to move him to Tennessee before too long.
Soler should be there for a good part of the season I would think.
Cut Stewart.
Wasn’t that a Beavis and Butthead episode?
I guess Keith Law isn’t a Ronny Cedeno fan . ..
“The Cards’ options at shortstop right now are Ryan Jackson and a bunch of guys who can’t play short. #toughcall”
Ronny Cedeño’s parents aren’t Ronny Cedeño fans.
Someone must have been a fan once. How did he end up on the Cubs?
Oh . . right. Hendry.
Actually…I’m going to guess it was Ed Lynch that actually signed him.
Via Carrie Muskat:
#Cubs sign all 21 pre arb eligible players to new deals, including Barney ($562,000), TWood ($527,500), Rizzo ($498,000)
That’s a lot more money than I make in a year.
Yeah and who’s going to pay $60 to $120 to watch you work?
Work at what?
Twood got more than Mike Trout of the Angels.($510,000) All weekend long, L.A. sportspeople were trying to figure out how the #2 player in the MVP race gets $510k. Now you are telling me TWood gets even more?
The Cubs should draft the kid that makes this catch…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x99-jLCNLPM
The very definition of “spectacular catch.”
Or maybe this guy… THAT’S showing fighting spirit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwG-84B7UbQ
Saw that one the other day…honestly, the guy had bad tackling form…I don’t think we want him on our team unless he could learn to tackle better.
Anthony Rizzo in his Italia uni:
WHOA. That’s seriously big.
Um…
You just teed that one up, Julie.
5,4,3,2,1…GO!!!
She misses AJ
I would have though Italy’s uniforms would be black pinstriped silk suits with black shirts and white ties.
(Continuing my racist string of comments revolving around all Italians being in the mafia…except Julie.)
And every day I imagine you, sitting at your laptop, typing away in your lederhosen.
We German’s don’t have laptops. We just invade France and make those pansies write our Facebook posts for us on their laptops. But we sometimes wear lederhosen when we invade other countries.
So when do you go back to Italy to elect a new pope?
O.K., what did you guys do to the thumbs up? When you hit the thumb, a big green checkmark appears instead of the number counter…
Hit refresh.
Sounds like Castro will be shut down for another week or so.
Tell me if this sounds familiar to you.
I’ve been told the Cubs have only given out about 50 wristbands from 7 am to 1:30 pm today. Yesterday was the same.
This is why the practice is being discontinued after this season. I don’t think it it entirely due to lack of interest…but more to do with the fact that there are so many other ways to get good tickets right now.
Even so, remember when this blog started? People were in line for HOURS and were excited to be in the first few hundred wristbands picked.
yeah.
It was actually a really fun event.
I was down at Wrigley once on the first day tickets went on sale…right after the strike in 1995. My friend and I got boat loads of bleacher tickets that season.
Then that season ended, I moved to Wisconsin and my life has sucked ever since.
Ok…my life hasn’t totally sucked. There have been some nice highlights…but still, even after over 17 years, I’m still extremely homesick. (Christ….17 years? I’ve got to move out of this state.)
So just move already.
I know…I know…
Your children will be excited to read that one day.
I’ve got a ton of stuff that’s going to piss off my children some day.
Casey Coleman is pitching for the Cubs.
With tickets selling for $.30 on the net last season this surprises you….HOW????
Hey Doc, I see you returned Guido, the Italian Sausage suit you borrowed from that fundraiser.
I knew it was you when I heard two guys ran into the bar, dropped the suit and told the bartender “You didn’t see anything”.
For those who didn’t hear, The Sausages who race at Brewer games were at a fundraiser and someone lifted Guido and wore the suit at 2 different bars that night.
And no I don’t have a link, but I read a couple of versions of the story.
Since it was up in Wisconsin I knew who it had to be.
Clever move Doc.
You can’t prove it was me.
“I don’t have a link”
Hehehe