The Cubs played baseball — just an intrasquad scrimmage, but it sure felt good

Yu Darvish pitched Saturday in the Cubs’ first scrimmage of Spring Training 2.0. | Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images

On a Fourth of July when there were no major league games for the first time since the strike of 1981, the details of the scrimmage kind of matter. If only a little.

Kris Bryant lined a single to left on a 3-2 pitch, loading the bases with one out to end the inning.

Wait, what?

It’s true. Just when the “visiting” Cubs had a nice, juicy rally going against Kyle Hendricks and the “home” Cubs Saturday at Wrigley Field, manager David Ross had the temerity to nip it in the bud. Something about a pitch count. Doesn’t Ross realize it’s July?

Boos cascaded across the field at the rookie skipper from the visiting dugout. Anthony Rizzo and Willson Contreras may have had something to do with it.

In all, it was a pretty good time. There was baseball at Wrigley, even if it was merely the Cubs’ first live intrasquad scrimmage since spring training was halted in March due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Hendricks got dinged some, including a pair of sharp singles by Victor Caratini, but he struck out newcomer Steven Souza twice on good-looking breaking balls.

The opposing pitcher — some guy named Yu Darvish — looked a bit sharper, striking out Ian Happ (swinging) on a slow bender and Kyle Schwarber (looking) on a sizzling fastball, though he did surrender a double into the left-field gap to Javy Baez.

Each pitcher recorded seven outs, for those of you scoring at home.

Do these details even matter?

On a Fourth of July when there were no major league games for the first time since the strike of 1981, yeah, they kind of do. If only a little.

“It was just fun to get back out there, to be honest with you,” Hendricks said. “Obviously, we do it for the fans, and that’s such a huge part of the game, having them there and the cheers, the roars, all that. But, at the end of the day, at least we get to play baseball. We’re out here with all our friends. It’s just good to see all the guys, get back a sense of normalcy with everything that’s going on.”

It wasn’t baseball as usual, but, on a day when the Cubs were originally scheduled to be hosting the Rays, it was baseball. And to make it feel a bit more authentic, Ross made sure there was music pumping through the Wrigley sound system. Players stretched and took batting practice before the scrimmage to 1980s songs — from Van Halen, AC/DC, Supertramp, Guns N’ Roses — they almost surely don’t love.

No walk-up music or video displays on the giant board above the left-field bleachers yet, but plans for that are in the works, too. The more outings like Saturday’s feel like the real thing, the closer the Cubs might be to being ready for the start of a 60-game sprint — for them, slated to begin July 24, according to reports — through the regular season.

Hendricks spent the down time in Arizona and got in lots of work with a handful of Cubs pitchers and hitters. He threw bullpen sessions, live batting practice and kept his pitch count up. That doesn’t mean he’s ready for the season, but he isn’t far off and doesn’t believe the Cubs’ staff is on the whole.

“There will be a few guys that are a little behind, a little ahead, but for the most part, as a group, we are locked in,” he said.

And — for the record — Hendricks would’ve been just fine if Ross hadn’t pulled him off the field before Rizzo had a chance to follow Bryant into the batter’s box with the bags jammed.

“I wasn’t wanting to get off the field, no,” he said. “I’m sure [Rizzo] wasn’t, either.”

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