GLENDALE, Ariz. — It appears the Cubs dodged a bullet with second baseman Nico Hoerner’s back injury.
Hoerner was scratched from the Cubs’ spring game Sunday against the Angels with tightness in his lower back, but manager David Ross said the team isn’t concerned about his status going forward.
Hoerner is the leading candidate to win the Cubs’ second-base competition and has had a strong camp. He’s 9-for-18 with a home run, two stolen bases, four RBI and four runs scored.
‘‘He’s feeling much better,’’ Ross said Monday. ‘‘I think the work he got done [Sunday], he was fighting for me to put him in the lineup today. Didn’t make a lot of sense to me with the off-day [Tuesday].
‘‘He’ll be in the lineup [Wednesday], the same amount of at-bats. He’s not missing any at-bats he wouldn’t have already gotten. He was gonna have two days off on the back side of the off-day, so I just flip-flopped him and David [Bote] and made it really easy.’’
Wieck back in action
The Cubs’ bullpen is still in flux with a little more than two weeks to go before the regular season begins, and left-hander Brad Wieck is working to get back into game shape. Wieck threw a 1-2-3 sixth inning with a strikeout Monday against the White Sox.
Wieck, 29, is one of several lefties who might be a factor in the Cubs’ bullpen. He made only one appearance for the Cubs in 2020 because of a strained right hamstring and an injury to the meniscus in his left knee and spent the rest of the season on the injured list.
But after having a setback with the hamstring early in camp, the 6-8 Wieck looked comfortable in his first taste of game action this spring.
‘‘Brad has looked really good in live BPs,’’ Ross said before Wieck’s outing. ‘‘I’m anxious to see him face some other opponents. He’s had a long road of coming back [from injury] and a little bit of a setback early in spring training, and now he’s completely healthy and feeling good. Some really bad swings [by] guys that are swinging the bat well in some live BPs, so I’m anxious to see him.
‘‘Everybody’s different. I think everybody bounces back and is able to build up differently. He’s put a lot of work in during the offseason. So he was kind of ahead of the game, I think, early on. So we’ll wait and see just how the rest of the spring plays out. But I think he’s in a good spot. We’ll judge that as the roster shapes out.’’
Cubs trim spring roster to 47
The Cubs optioned right-hander Keegan Thompson to Class AAA Iowa and assigned infielder Trent Giambrone to minor-league camp, reducing their spring roster to 47 players.
