MESA, Arizona — It was a windy day in the Valley of the Sun Thursday, but neither Cubs home run needed any help from the wind. Dansby Swanson homered in the third and Carson Kelly added one in the fifth and the Cubs defeated the Diamondbacks 8-1.
The Cubs put two on the board in the first. Michael Busch led off with a double and Nico Hoerner tripled him in [VIDEO].
You can’t really see it in that clip, but the ball rattled around in the right-field corner, allowing Hoerner to take third. One out later,
he scored on a single by Swanson.
Colin Rea gave up a couple of hits in the first but after that retired eight of the next nine D-backs hitters. One of them was on a really nice, PCA-style diving catch in center field by Kevin Alcántara and you’re just going to have to trust me on that because there’s no video available. Rea then allowed a homer to Pavin Smith leading off the fourth, the only run he allowed. Rea struck out six and threw 57 pitches (41 strikes). Here’s more on Rea’s outing [VIDEO].
The Cubs extended their lead to 4-0 in the third. With two out, Ian Happ walked.
Swanson followed with this home run, another opposite-field shot [VIDEO].
That was a good pitch to hit and Dansby got it. It’s really good to see him take pitches like this to right field.
In the fifth, Carson Kelly went deep with two out and Michael Conforto on second [VIDEO].
The Cubs were up 7-1 at this point. They got good relief outings from Phil Maton, Hoby Milner, Caleb Thielbar and Corbin Martin.
You’ll notice I left out Luke Little, who threw a scoreless eighth. Sure, that’s good, but once again he got himself in trouble with walks, two of them. He’s thrown 3.2 innings this spring and walked six and yes he has talent but the walks are likely to send him back to Triple-A Iowa again. Here’s hoping he can figure things out.
Attendance watch: 12,824 attended this game at Sloan Park. That makes the season total 92,201 for eight dates, or 11,525 per date.
The Cubs will play their first spring night game of 2026 Friday at Peoria against the Padres. Ben Brown will start for the Cubs and Germán Márquez will go for San Diego. Game time is 8:10 p.m. CT and there will be TV coverage via Padres TV. It’s also on MLB Network (no blackouts). There will also be a radio broadcast with the Padres announcers on KWFN 97.3.
