With most all of the Cubs front office personnel, Scouting Department, and Player Development staff watching from the picnic area high above the third-base dugout, Michael Brenly singled twice and scored once, Starlin Castro singled twice and drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, and four Cubs pitchers combined to throw seven innings of one-run ball, as the Mesa Solar Sox dropped the Peoria Javelinas 8-1 in Arizona Fall League action at HoHoKam Park in Mesa this afternoon.
The Cubs brain-trust had a bar-b-que at HoHoKam Park today because this week is the annual Cubs "organizatoinal meetings" in Mesa (sort of a "Cubs Convention" for club employees). This is the one time every year when all the scouts and coaches and managers and execs all get together in the same place at the same time, drink a lot, and decide that the team is"too right-handed." .
RHP Andrew Cashner was supposed to have started last Tuesday in Peoria, but his start was pushed back to today, apparently to allow the Cubs brass to get a first-hand look at threir prized phenom. That's also probably the reason six of the seven Cubs players assigned to the Solar Sox saw action in today's game. (Josh Vitters had the day off).
Cashner worked four shutout innings again this afternoon, on the heels of his last start a week ago yesterday when he tossed four innings of no-run, no-hit ball at the Scottsdale Scorpions. He scattered five harmless singles and hit a batter today but he didn't walk anybody, and struck out four.
LHP James Russell followed Cashner to the mound and had a 1-2-3 5th inning interrupted only by an E-3 on a two-out grounder, but he then retired the side withiut further incident. He mixed his fastball & change-up very well today..
Hard-throwin' LHP John Gaub worked the 6th, and struck out the only lefty batter he faced on three pitches, Otherwise, he pitched a shutout inning, allowing just one hit (a single).
RHP Blake Parker drew the 7th, and got into immediate difficulty when the Mesa CF lost a pop fly in the sun, allowing the Peoria batter to reach 2nd base on a cheap double. Parker would later surrender an RBI single, but he should have escaped the inning with no run scoring.
On offense, Starlin Castro was the Solar Sox shortstop and hit 2nd, and Michael Brenly (with dad Bob in attendance, sitting just a few feet away from me) got the start at the catcher and hit 9th.
Castro grounded a single between the shortstop and third-baseman with a runner on 1st base and no outs in his first AB in the bottom of the 1st inning, but was erased on a DP.
Michael Brenly singled sharply through the box into CF with a runner at 1st base and one out in the bottom of the 2nd, and advanced to 3rd on a throwing error by the Peroria CF, before scoring on a one-out F-8 SF hit to medium-deep CF by Castro.
Brenly would later single again, as would Castro,.with Brenly's second hit a line-drive ripped to CF, and Castro's an infield grounder backhanded by the Javelina SS deep in the hole with no play at 1st.
Castro, Vitters, Parker, and Cashner were named to the AFL "Rising Stars Game" roster earlier this week (the game will be televised "live" on the MLB network Saturday night), but I believe Cashner will be unavailable to pitch in the game since he threw four innings today. If he had pitched last Tuesday in Peoria instead of today in Mesa, he could have thrown in the Rising Stars game on Saturday.
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