Game over: Chicago Cubs 6, Mariners 4

Another late rally for the M's falls short when Bronson Sardinha strikes out looking with two runners on base. M's go to 4-4 in Cactus League.
Notes
-Betancourt is now batting .400 in the spring (6-for-15).
-Jeremy Reed is 4-for-7 (.571) in the spring after getting a hit today.
-McLaren said Silva had a hard time gripping the ball, though he added it was not an excuse for his performance. The ball was slick from the way the balls are rubbed up combining with the dry weather.
-Wilkerson was thrown out at third base in the 7th trying to stretch a double into a triple, and McLaren said it was a bad baserunning mistake. "There's no excuse for that. He knows he made a mistake and we have to get that out of our system in spring training. We can't have that."
-More good relief pitching for Seattle as three pitchers (Ryan Rowland-Smith, Dickey, Sean Green) held the Cubs scoreless on only two hits over 4 2/3 innings.

Bottom 8
Nice outing for R.A. Dickey. Three innings of scoreless ball, two K's. He was pretty stoked about his effort and took pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre's advice to not rush his delivery of the knuckleball to heart and it helped. Nice peg by Jeff Clement to throw out a runner trying to steal second.

Mariners have cut it to 6-4. Morse got another hit, there was an error, a hit batsman, Yuniesky Betancourt's third RBI of the game and a sacrifice fly. Yes, Ichiro was hitless today, now 0-for-10 officially.

OK, to answer a couple of questions -- nothing official on Bubba Crosby but the minor league position players reported for their spring camp today and Crosby should have been among them. As for a minor-league game schedule, I hope to get that tomorrow but I've been told games don't start for at least another week.

Bottom 7

Johjima, from what I'm seeing, is doing fine with the knuckler of Dickey. Just heard from Carlos Silva and he said he overthrew in the bullpen before the game and missed with his location. He asked if he could go back into the game for the fourth inning to try and find his rhythm and was allowed to do so, it just didn't happen.

UPDATE: McLaren just came out to remove Silva after Daryle Ward's 2-run HR to right.
Silva: 3 1/3 inn., 7 hits, 6 earned runs, 2 BB, 18 batters faced. Yikes. But it's only spring training.

AK: Sexson hit the ball hard against the Angels but has struck out and grounded out softly to third today. He got a few boos when announced for his first at-bats.

Top 4th

Silva is getting hit. All three Cubs singles have been hit hard. It's 4-2 Cubs after a run-scoring ground ball. Silva should ve coming out after this inning. He's allowed six hits, walked two.

END 3rd

The highlights from this game have been Yuniesky Betancourt's home run to left field that he roped around the foul pole. Betancourt showed some patience, hitting a 3-1 pitch as the Mariners continue to give him a look in the No. 2 spot in the batting order.

Mariners starter Carlos Silva ran into some trouble in the first inning after being staked to the 2-0 lead. A single, a walk and a tough break when RF Brad Wilkerson fell down on a Derrek Lee hit made it 2-1.
But Silva did induce a double play, so now we're tied at 2.

Wilkerson showed a nice arm on his throw from right to third base to try and nab the Cubs' Kosuke Fukudome in the third after a fly ball out. It one hopped Mike Morse and Fukudome went in standing up, which made it a closer play than it should have been.

Sorry for the delay on getting this started. I had some computer problems which hopefully I have addressed.

67 degrees at game time.