Today’s Seiya Suzuki news: Here

Saturday notes…

• SATURDAY CUBS ROSTER MOVES: The Cubs returned BJ Murray Jr., Jefferson Rojas and Jeff Brigham to minor league camp. The current camp roster has 41 players, comprised of 22 pitchers (four non-roster invitees), four catchers (one non-roster invitee), eight infielders (two non-roster invitees) and seven outfielders (three non-roster invitees).
• TODAY’S TIME SCHEDULE: The Spring Breakout game at Sloan Park begins at 8:05 CT and the Cubs vs. Mariners game at Peoria begins at 8:10 p.m. CT.
• CUBS SPRING BREAKOUT ROSTER:Here are the 27 Cubs players eligible to play tonight. Almost all of them have appeared in some MLB Spring Training games.

Here are today’s particulars.

Cubs lineup at Peoria:

Mariners lineup:

Cubs Spring Breakout lineup:

Padres Spring Breakout lineup:

Colin Rea will start for the Cubs at Peoria.

Will Sanders will start the Cubs Spring Breakout game.

George Kirby will start for the Mariners.

Luis Gutierrez will start for the Padres in the Spring Breakout game.

Here’s the broadcast schedule for tonight. Both games will have TV and radio broadcasts.

Cubs vs. Mariners: Mariners TV/Marquee (streaming only), WSCR The Score

Cubs vs. Padres Spring Breakout game: Marquee Sports Network/Padres TV, KWFN 97.3

MLB.com Gameday for Cubs vs. Mariners

MLB.com Gameday for Cubs vs. Padres Spring Breakout game

Here is the complete MLB.com live streaming page for today.

Please visit our SB Nation Mariners site Lookout Landing and Padres site Gaslamp Ball. If you do go there to interact with Mariners or Padres fans, please be respectful, abide by their individual site rules and serve as a good representation of Cub fans in general and BCB in particular.

As we have done in the past, we’ll have a first pitch thread at five minutes to game time and one overflow thread, 90 minutes after game time. For today, that will be 8 p.m. CT and 9:35 p.m. CT.

These threads will not post individually onto the front page; instead, you can find links to them in the box marked ”Chicago Cubs Game Threads” at the bottom of the front page. There will also be a StoryStream on the front page with all the game thread links, as well as the recap after the game is over. The pitcher photos and regular-season stats will return on Opening Day.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Sean Manaea will not be part of the New York Mets’ season-opening starting rotation, which the team announced on Saturday.

Manaea, 34, will begin the season in the bullpen while Freddy Peralta, David Peterson, Nolan McLean, Clay Holmes and Kodai Senga form manager Carlos Mendoza’s five-man starting rotation.

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Mendoza acknowledged that he had six candidates for the starting staff coming out of Grapefruit League play, but opted to go with a five-man rotation with a day off after the Mets’ season opener versus the Pittsburgh Pirates. However, that follows with a stretch of nine games in nine days. That might make a six-man rotation necessary.

“If everyone was healthy, we were going to have to make some tough decisions,” Mendoza told reporters on Saturday, “and one of them was going to be pitching in that type of role.”

The Mets skipper added that Manaea will likely pitch during that first turn through the rotation, piggybacking on one of the starts. But he didn’t say when that would be.

As could be expected, Manaea wasn’t pleased with the decision but says he’ll do whatever the team needs from him.

“I consider myself a starter,” Manaea said, via MLB.com. “To not be that is frustrating. But at the end of the day, I’m just going to let my pitching do the work in whatever capacity that is, and go from there.”

Growing concerns with Sean Manaea’s velocity

Manaea compiled a 3.72 ERA in 9 2/3 spring innings with nine strikeouts. He also allowed seven hits. There has been some concern that Manaea’s velocity has gone down since struggling through left elbow and oblique injuries last season. His fastball is 3 mph slower, averaging 88 mph, while his sweeper has lost 5 mph, according to The Athletic.

However, Mendoza insisted that Manaea’s velocity was not a factor in him not being in the season-opening rotation. Manaea told reporters that he believes he’ll throw harder once the regular season begins and the adrenaline develops from games that count in the standings.

Last season, Manaea finished with a 5.64 ERA in 12 starts (and 15 overall appearances). With 75 strikeouts in 60 2/3 innings, he registered the highest strikeout rate of his career with 11.1 Ks per nine innings.

An Oklahoma City Thunder-Washington Wizards game got heated at the end of the first half on Saturday, and the result was four players getting ejected.

With 27 seconds to go in the second quarter, the Wizards’ Justin Champagnie and the Thunder’s Jaylin Williams exchanged shoves under the basket. The confrontation quickly escalated and spilled over into the baseline stands as multiple players from both teams charged in.

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A photographer got bowled over by the mass of bodies, with some fans appearing to be displaced or jostled as the players exchanged words and hands. Many players stepped in to play peacemaker, including reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who pulled Ajay Mitchell out of the scrum.

One camera caught the action up close, and wasn’t spared from the violence.

After a lengthy review, the officials hit Champagnie and Williams with double technical fouls, triggering an automatic ejection. Mitchell and Thunder teammate Cason Wallace, who was also at the center of the brawl, were hit with a single tech and ejected for “escalating the altercation,” as the official put it.

Why Wizards’ Anthony Gill wasn’t ejected

Wizards forward Anthony Gill surprisingly avoided any discipline, despite getting heated in the middle of the scrum. He could still face subsequent discipline from the NBA, though.

Speaking to a pool reporter after the game, crew chief John Goble said Gill wasn’t at fault:

“It was observed that Wallace pushed Gill into the altercation and after falling to the floor, it was not observed that Gill did anything in an unsportsmanlike manner to assess a penalty.”

Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said he didn’t agree with the lopsided consequences after the game:

“I disagreed with their judgement after talking to them and watching it at halftime. I’ve worked with John Goble a long time, and he worked through it with me. We ended up agreeing to disagree and both moved on.

The Wizards received two free throws from the incident. OKC went on to win the game 132-111 despite missing three rotation players for the second half. It was the Thunder’s 11th straight win and Washington’s 15th straight loss.

Stephen Curry is nearing a return for the Golden State Warriors, but won’t have much time to get right in even a best-case scenario.

The Warriors announced Saturday that Curry, who has missed nearly two months with patella-femoral pain syndrome and bone bruising in his right knee, had been evaluated and will be incorporated into live action and team practices in the coming days.

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He will reportedly be reevaluated when the Warriors’ current road trip ends on March 23. That means he will miss upcoming games against the Atlanta Hawks and Dallas Mavericks, his 21st and 22nd games since exiting his last game on Jan. 30.

Moses Moody (right wrist sprain) was also evaluated Saturday and faces a similar prognosis, with his reevaluation scheduled for Tuesday.

If the 38-year-old Curry were to return immediately after his reevaluation, that would leave only 10 games left for the Warriors in the regular season.

Depleted Warriors face tough road ahead

With Jimmy Butler III already out for the season, the Warriors are facing another disappointing season with their aging core. The team currently holds the final play-in spot of the Western Conference at 33-37 and is in no danger of falling lower, while being 1.5 games back from the eighth-place Portland Trail Blazers for the better play-in game.

Even if the Warriors make it through the play-in tournament, their reward would either be the Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs. in the first round of the playoffs. That leaves them little incentive to push Curry more than needed for the rest of the season.

The Denver Nuggets are poised to get a boost on Sunday when they host the Portland Trail Blazers, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, who reported Saturday that Peyton Watson is expected to return after missing more than six weeks with a hamstring strain.

Watson’s breakout season was interrupted by injury in early February, and that setback sidelined the fourth-year wing the past 19 games.

Before he went down with a Grade 2 left hamstring strain late in a double-overtime road loss to the New York Knicks on Feb. 4, he was playing the best basketball of his young career. 

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From Dec. 31 to Feb. 4, Watson averaged 21.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.5 blocks and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 48.5% from the field during that span, including 43.9% from 3-point land.

That surge began on New Year’s Eve, coinciding with the start of Nikola Jokić’s 16-game absence from an injury that saw him suffer a bone bruise while hyperextending his left knee on Dec. 29.

The three-time NBA MVP returned on Jan. 30. In the four games with Jokić back on the court, Watson kept his foot on the gas. He put up 21, 29 and then 17 points before mustering just 10 in his injury-shortened appearance versus the Knicks.

Key return for Nuggets’ stretch run

Watson’s return is reportedly slated to arrive with just 11 games remaining in the Nuggets’ regular season. Denver is currently 43-28 and fifth in the Western Conference standings, although it’s only 2.5 games behind the third-place Los Angeles Lakers. That said, the Lakers own the tiebreaker over the Nuggets.

Maybe more importantly, Denver is getting healthy at the right time. The key will be maintaining that status the rest of the way.

As for Watson, the 23-year-old UCLA product will try to resume his career season. Prior to the 2025-26 campaign, he hadn’t averaged more than 8.1 points per game or started more than 18 games in a season.

He’s gotten the starting nod 39 times this season and is posting 14.9 points per game.