Cubs News: Marcus Stroman will start the spring training opener

The Chicago Cubs are going to get the exhibition portion of their schedule underway this weekend. They will be taking on the San Francisco Giants at Sloan Park in their first game of the season.

We learned on Thursday who the starting pitcher in that game will be. David Ross announced that Marcus Stroman will get the start with Adrian Sampson going after him.

This is a good way for the Cubs to get the spring exhibition season going as they are using one of their best pitchers to set the tone.

In 2022, Stroman had an up-and-down season. He had his moments where he struggled but he ultimately had a good year. It wasn’t as good as his career bests but he did have a 3.50 ERA, 119 strikeouts, and a 2.6 WAR.

The Chicago Cubs are hoping for a big year from Marcus Stroman in 2023.

This is a pitcher that has the ability to impact the entire staff. There are some question marks with the rotation but everyone will look much better slotted behind Marcus Stroman if he is pitching well. Hopefully, as he gets more comfortable with this team, things get even better for him.

It will be interesting to see which Chicago Cubs position players get to go in this one. With Stroman going on the mound and this being the first one, you can probably expect some big names to be in the starting lineup which will be fun to see.

As mentioned before, this game is meaningless but it will set the tone for the rest of the year if they go out there and feel good about themselves in spring training games. You can’t guarantee a winning season in spring training but you can guarantee a losing season.

David Ross has been pretty open about who is pitching for the Cubs so it shouldn’t be long before we find out even more details about the game.