Today was an exciting day in the Cubs’ system! It began early in the morning as Myrtle Beach announced that Cole Roederer would be joining the roster of the Pelicans. It’s a little bit warmer there and that should help Cole in finishing his rehab over the next week or two before he probably heads to South Bend.

On the day, Cole went 2-for-4 as he played his first game in almost a year. I was really happy to see him do well even if he wasn’t the hitter of the Day.

In addition, Myrtle Beach also brought Kevin Made off the injured list and Bryan King was assigned to the Pelicans as well. With the Pelicans playing a 10 o’clock game in the morning, that’s sort of lessened the load for tonight‘s viewing habits.

As soon as the Tennessee game started it was very evident that Cam Sanders had it going on. Sanders did not allow a hit over five frames and he only allowed one base runner on a walk. He struck out nine and the outing was very reminiscent of his 2021 opening night game where he went five no-hit innings and struck out 10. It’s clear that Cam has nasty stuff and he’s really starting to put it together this year. Today’s outing dropped his ERA for the year down to 3.26. It is easy to see why we picked him as our Pitcher of the Day.

When it came to the Hitter of the Day, it was tough to pick between Dixon Machado and Nelson Maldonado of Iowa as both went 3-for-5 with two RBI. It’s also hard to not recognize the ninth-inning HR fireworks of Alexander Canario and Matt Mervis. South Bend came back from three runs down in the bottom of the night to walk it off in the tenth on a single by Bradlee Beesley. However, It was a little hard to pick between Maldonado and Machado as they had the bigger days. So, we decided to go with our second tie of the year.

When it came down to Reliever of the Day, Iowa’s Ben Leeper edged out South Bend’s Bailey Reid. Reid had one of his best outings of the year going two innings and striking out three and not allowing a run. As for Leeper, he looked really sharp in polishing off the Saint Paul Saints in the eighth and ninth innings. Leeper struck out two on 32 efficient pitches, 20 for strikes.

I will be back in the morning with my look at how April could influence the next prospect list that I do