Spring Training Game V: Cubs at Royals

The defending champs will make the one-hour trek from Mesa, Arizona to Surprise, Arizona this morning to take on the Fighting O’Brien’s at 2:05 PM CT.

In other words, the Cubs are playing the Royals in a Spring Training game.

Royals fans will get their first look at Nathan Karns, who will take the mound for the 3-1 Royals, after coming to Kansas City from Seattle in the Jarrod Dyson trade.

Today’s lineup is as such:

No Wade Davis or Ben Zobrist for the Cubbies though.

Some Random notes:

• Peter O’Brien is knocking the crap out of the ball. On a side note, O’Brien’s dinger derby lead to what I believe to be the best tweet of my otherwise lackluster Twitter career, but none of you *neanderthals thought it was funny. Alas, O’Brien is still knocking the crap out of the ball. Maybe this is all just one big conspiracy.

*It is your choice whether you want to believe me or not, but somehow I **spelled neanderthals correctly without spell check. I literally copied the word into google, thinking that I had screwed it up so bad that it broke spell check. But I got it right. The magic of O’Brien continues

**It is also worth noting that I misspelled “spelled” as “spelt” the first time through. It is Spring Training for bloggers as well.

• The Vengeance of Peter O’Brien also brings up another topic for discussion that probably wouldn’t be a topic for discussion if we weren’t talking about the fifth game of Spring Training. Alas, after yesterday’s game, I got a text from a family member asking if O’Brien will be on the Opening Day roster. Obviously, at this point, it is beyond a longshot. However, if he does continue to be Babe Ruth reincarnated, Christian Colon and company’s lack of option years could suck more than they already do.
• Here is a good read from Rustin Dodd about the Legend of Peter O’Brien’s power

• We saw Danny Duffy for the first time this Spring in yesterday’s 6-3 win over the Brewers. Duffy gave up two runs over 1.2 innings, one via the long ball, while striking out one Brewer.
• As noted in the lead, Royals fans will get to see Nathan Karns for the first time since coming over from Seattle this past winter. Karns is coming off a rough 2016 campaign, but is still just a year removed from posting a 3.67 ERA over 26 starts for the Rays in 2015. He also struck out 145 batters in his 147 innings that season.

You can listen today’s game on 610 KCSP in Kansas City, or online if you have an MLB.com subscription.