MESA, Arizona — The most important innings of early spring games are the early ones, when regular players are in the game and starting pitchers are beginning to get stretched out.
Thus it wasn’t great that Jon Lester served up a long home run to Travis Shaw in the first inning, after a bloop single by Christian Yelich. (Man, can that guy please stop hitting Cubs pitching?)
Lester settled down and allowed just one more walk and a single, throwing a decent three innings. It was Cubs non-roster invitee relievers who got hit hard by Brewers subs in the middle innings, and the result was a 7-4 Milwaukee win over the Cubs.