MESA, Ariz. – Javier Assad’s World Baseball Classic performance was a topic of conversation around Cubs camp, both while he was with Team Mexico and since he’s returned to Mesa.
“He was electric,” veteran right-hander Kyle Hendricks said. “And he was so fired up out there too, the emotion and all of it. Everybody was so excited for him when he walked back in that door, man.”
Assad wasn’t touching 97 mph in his return to Sloan Park, like he had in the World Baseball Classic. But a middling outing Friday against the Rangers, in which he allowed two runs and five hits in three innings, didn’t tarnish his otherwise dominant spring.