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It’s here. The first Orioles game of the spring training schedule is happening today in Sarasota. The game will be aired on both MASN (TV/streaming) and WBAL (radio) in Baltimore, so if you have access to either of those, you can even follow along. It’ll feel a little warmer with baseball going on somewhere.

This being the Grapefruit League, no questions about anything will be answered today. If someone does well, it doesn’t matter. If someone sucks, it doesn’t matter. Everything over the next month is just about getting everyone prepared for the real games come Opening Day.

As nice as it will feel to have good results, particularly the closer we get to Opening Day, really all that matters is getting through the camp season without more injuries piling up on top of what was already there when players reported. There’s already bad injury news here on Friday with the Orioles having announced the official diagnosis for Jordan Westburg, revealing an elbow injury that’s cropped up during his oblique rehab.

Here’s the lineup for the opener:

1. Gunnar Henderson – SS
2. Pete Alonso – 1B
3. Samuel Basallo – C
4. Tyler O’Neill – RF
5. Colton Cowser – CF
6. Adley Rutschman – DH
7. Heston Kjerstad – LF
8. Coby Mayo – 3B
9. Jeremiah Jackson – 2B

Trevor Rogers is the starting pitcher for this opening game. Pitchers expected to be used after him are: Keegan Akin, Jose Espada, Rico Garcia, Trey Gibson, Jean Carlos Henriquez, Enoli Paredes, and Grant Wolfram. They will probably not appear in alphabetical order by last name. Dean Kremer is set to start tomorrow. Further than that has not been lined up (or at least not revealed publicly) just yet.

New manager Craig Albernaz has already offered caution not to read too much into any spring lineup. We certainly should not make assumptions about how the team is leaning for regular season lineups based on this first spring game.

My question for you is, how much do you think this lineup will resemble the one we’ll get for Opening Day? I think there’s probably seven out of the nine Opening Day players here. This being the first game of spring, we’ll probably only see them for four or five innings and then it will be time for the reserves. Some of the reserves might even be players you’re excited to get to see a bit in the early games.

Friday notes…

• CUBS vs. SOX: According to my research, this will be the 601st game of all kinds between the Cubs and White Sox. They have met in 152 regular-season games, six World Series games and 442 exhibition games, including pre-season, in-season and post-season. Of all exhibition games, the Cubs have won 204, lost 226 and tied 12. Of the 197 pre-season games outside Chicago, they have won 103, lost 87 and tied 7. Of all pre-season games, including those in Chicago, they have won 128, lost 113 and tied 7. (Courtesy BCB’s JohnW53)
• THE NEW GUYS: Of the 60 players in Cubs camp, 20 were not in the Cubs organization at all last year.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup:

White Sox lineup:

Jameson Taillon will start for the Cubs. Other Cubs pitchers scheduled today: Porter Hodge, Gavin Hollowell, Connor Noland, Grant Kipp and Connor Schultz. Also, minor leaguers Frankie Scalzo, Zane Mills, Vince Reilly and Nick Hull.

Jonathan Cannon will start for the White Sox. Other Sox pitchers scheduled today: Tyler Schweitzer, Zach Franklin, Jairo Iriarte, former Cub Tyson Miller, Ben Peoples, Garrett Schoenle and Frankeli Arias.

Today’s game will be on Marquee Sports Network. There will also be a radio broadcast on 670 The Score, as well as on the White Sox radio channel, ESPN 1000.

MLB.com Gameday

Please note that during spring training, Gameday sometimes doesn’t go pitch-by-pitch as it does during the regular season — if not, it will update after each at-bat.

Here is the complete MLB.com live streaming page for today.

Please visit our SB Nation White Sox site South Side Sox . If you do go there to interact with Sox fans, please be respectful, abide by their individual site rules and serve as a good representation of Cub fans in general and BCB in particular.

As we have done in the past, we’ll have a first pitch thread at five minutes to game time and one overflow thread, 90 minutes after game time. For today, that will be 2 p.m. CT and 3:30 p.m. CT.

These threads will not post individually onto the front page; instead, you can find links to them in the box marked ”Chicago Cubs Game Threads” at the bottom of the front page. There will also be a StoryStream on the front page with all the game thread links, as well as the recap after the game is over. The pitcher photos and regular-season stats will return on Opening Day.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Kazuma Okamoto is a 29-year-old, right-handed hitting corner infielder from Gojo, Japan. He’s played 11 seasons in the Nippon Professional Baseball. The Jays signed him to a four-year, $60 million contract (Ben Clemens at FanGraphs figured him to sign four years and $72 million).

Not that it means much, but he’s shown a nice sense of humour (he is serious and manly) and sense of fun in the few days he’s been at the Jays spring camp.

Rogers hopes to grow the Blue Jays’ brand in Japan. We are going to Japan next month. I’m going to bring a bunch of Blue Jays caps with me. Every holiday, I end up trading a Jays cap for something

Career he’s hit .277/.361/.521, with 248 home runs. Last year, he was limited to 69 games with the Yomiuri Giants because of an elbow sprain, but he hit .327/.416/.598 with 15 home runs. FanGraphs notes that he has the second-most homers in NPB since 2019.

He’s lowered his strikeout rate the last two seasons (15.9% in 2024, 11.3% last year). And there is a note that he’s hitting better against fastballs the last couple of years. He’s a pull hitter.

There are questions about his defense at third. FanGraphs says this:

Okamoto can show you nimble lower body stability and has feel for bouncing off the dirt and spinning into accurate throws, but he lacks range and struggles making plays to his glove side.

Baseball America likes his defense more:

In the field, Okamoto is an above-average defender at third base, and he’s won multiple NPB Gold Glove equivalents. He’s a plus-plus defender at first base and offers his signing team defensive versatility.

With Vlad at first, third is Kazuma’s spot. I am interested in seeing his defense this spring. I’m guessing he’ll move to first on Vlad’s DH days.

How will he hit? I’d like to think he’ll be around 25 home runs, maybe a .250ish average, .340-.350 OBP.

Steamer? They have him playing 130 games, 22 home runs, a .251/.323/.446 batting line with a 2.3 fWAR.

One of the best days of the year is here! Spring training has officially opened, the Yankees kicking off their Grapefruit League exhibition series with a trip to Sarasota to take on the Orioles. The offseason may have been “brutal”’ and “frustrating”’ at times as Aaron Judge put it, but baseball is back and we can finally look forward to the season. Let’s take a look at the players who will be suiting up for both division rivals.

Elmer Rodríguez takes the mound as the Yankees’ top ranked pitching prospect according to several publications. The 22-year-old righty vaulted his way to becoming a consensus Top-100 Prospect in baseball after being named Baseball America’s New York Yankees Minor League Player of the Year. In 26 starts between Double-A and Triple-A, Rodriguez went 11-8 with a 2.58 ERA across 150 innings, finishing with the second-most strikeouts (176) in the minors behind the Mets’ Jonah Tong. He has a chance to impact the big-league club season, and gets his first true audition this afternoon.

Trevor Rogers was one of the biggest stories for the Orioles last season, going from a Triple-A demotion following his 2024 Trade Deadline move from Miami to one of the most effective pitchers in baseball when he was one the mound in 2025. Among starters with at least 100 innings, Rogers was second only to Nathan Eovaldi with a 1.81 ERA, also placing in the top-ten league-wide in FIP (2.82) and home runs per nine (0.49). He made a pair of starts against the Yankees last year, pitching six shutout frames of one-hit ball in their first encounter before getting tagged for six runs across three innings a week later. The 28-year-old southpaw leads with a four-seamer that sits 93, backed up by a pair of nasty breaking balls, his slider and sweeper both inducing whiff rates in excess of 37-percent. In 18 starts, Rogers went 9-3 with a 1.81 ERA (223 ERA+), 2.82 FIP, 103 strikeouts, and 3.3 fWAR across 109.2 innings.

For those disappointed not to see Aaron Judge’s name in the Yankees lineup, the captain generally has not travelled to away games during spring training. We will at least get to see four major leaguers start, with Austin Wells, José Caballero, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Amed Rosario making up the top four of the batting order. The rest of the lineup consists of non-roster invitees: Ernesto Martinez Jr., Marco Luciano, Duke Ellis, Kenedy Corona, and Ali Sánchez

The Orioles meanwhile go with a starting nine that could very well resemble their Opening Day lineup. Gunnar Henderson bats leadoff while Pete Alonso takes his first competitive swings in an Orioles uniform after his big money move from Queens to Baltimore in free agency. The rest of their expected infield has taken a hit, however, with both Jackson Holliday and Jordan Westburg absent after suffering a broken hamate and partially torn UCL, respectively.

How to watch

Location: Ed Smith Stadium — Sarasota, FL

First pitch: 1:05 pm ET

TV broadcast: Gotham Sports App, MASN, MLB Network (out-of-market only)

Radio broadcast: WBAL 1090 AM (Orioles broadcast)

Online stream: Gotham Sports App

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The long wait is almost over. After an active offseason for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Spring Training is getting ready to kick off games this coming weekend, with the Grapefruit League getting rolling on Saturday afternoon. The Bucs will play 31 Spring Training games, running all the way up until March 23. They will play 16 home games and 15 away and open up on Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles.

This is all in leadup to the regular season Opening Day, when the Bucs take on the New York Mets at Citifield on March 26 at 1:00pm eastern. They have their home opener on April 3, taking on the Orioles once again, with a 4:00pm eastern start.

The Bucs will again play live on Pittsburgh Sports Net, and they are set to televise 15 of Pittsburgh’s preseason games, including 9 home broadcasts and 6 away.  You’ll also be able to catch the Buccos on 93.7 The Fan, 100.1 FM, AM 1020 KDKA as well as the Sports Net Pittsburgh app, SNP 360.

Here’s the Pittsburgh Pirates 2026 MLB Spring Training Schedule:

Hope springs eternal this time of year, particularly if you’re a hitter in the hot, dry air of Arizona. The Royals typically perform pretty well in the Cactus League, which means absolutely nothing since the games don’t count. But you can be excused for getting a teensy bit excited about a player who seemed to figure things out in spring training. Hope is a good thing, after all!

I am usually quite dismissive of guys launching bombs in Arizona. But I couldn’t help but get a bit excited about Peter O’Brien in 2017. I had liked O’Brien as a college player at Miami, and when the Royals picked him up, I thought there was a chance he could help the team. Then he got to Surprise and started launching bombs. He smacked seven home runs – the only players in all of baseball who hit more that spring training were Greg Bird and Bryce Harper. Could O’Brien be our Bryce Harper? No. O’Brien was sent to the minors and hit .162 with three home runs in 27 games before being released.

The next year, it was Frank “The Tank” Schwindel. He tied for the most spring training home runs in baseball with seven (Salvador Perez and Jorge Soler each hit six, giving Royals fans visions of a Murderer’s Row). His line of .366/.381/.976 wasn’t enough to make the team, so he hit 24 home runs for Omaha. He made the Opening Day roster the next year, but lasted just six games before it was back to the minors. He would find some limited success in 2021, hitting 14 home runs with the Cubs.

Hunter Dozier had a terrific 2019 season, and although his pandemic-shortened 2020 season had mixed results, he was rewarded with a four-year, $25 million deal in February of 2021. That seemed to be a potential steal when he destroyed Cactus League pitching that year, smashing five home runs with a line of .289/.373/.733. But it proved to be fool’s gold as he posted a career-worst OPS+ of 76 that year, part of a rapid decline that turned that contract into a dud.

Ruben Gotay, Mike Jacobs, and Kila Kaaihue are some other Cactus League MVPs. Who was your favorite performer in Royals spring training?

Dalton Rushing got his first taste of the major leagues last season, and all of its ups and downs. Now, he heads into potentially his first full season in the majors.

As the backup to Will Smith, it’d be tough for anyone to find a rhythm at the plate playing once or twice per week behind the plate. That proved true for Rushing last year, hitting just .204/.258/.324 with a 37.4-percent strikeout rate in 155 plate appearances. His highest strikeout rate in the minors was only 21.5 percent, in Triple-A Oklahoma City before his call-up in 2025.

Dalton Rushing as a professional

• 2022: Class-A (all but two games), 134 PA, 213 wRC+
• 2023: High-A, 381 PA, 147 wRC+
• 2024: Double-A & Triple-A, 503 PA, 146 wRC+
• 2025: Triple-A, 149 PA, 143 wRC+
• 2025: MLB, 155 PA, 62 wRC+

Rushing’s calling card has always been his bat, and he found time in the minors to get more reps at the plate by playing first base, designated hitter, and sometimes left field in addition to catching. Now on the Dodgers, he joins a depth chart with those positions suitably filled, with Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman plus Kyle Tucker and Teoscar Hernández in the corners.

Katie Woo at The Athletic on Friday wrote about some spring storylines, including a bit about Rushing’s role:

Rushing is in line to be the backup catcher behind Will Smith again, but Roberts would like to find ways to get Rushing more at-bats. That could mean using Rushing at first base on days when Freeman needs a spell. The outfield, Roberts said, will not be an option for Rushing.

Ohtani started 317 of 324 games at designated hitter the last two seasons, and while Freeman has been an ironman for most of his career, his last two seasons have proven more challenging. Freeman started 147 games in 2024, and 145 games in 2025.

That still leaves some time at first base for Rushing to at least occasionally play. Last season he played eight games and 28 total innings at the position with the Dodgers, but his lone start at first came in the final weekend of the season, the day after the team clinched the division.

Today’s question is how many non-catcher starts will Dalton Rushing make in 2026?