High heat? The Cubs will be facing it this week in Arizona
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The heat is on!
It’s on the Cubs to win in a season in which they’re built to go above their 2025 runner-up status in the National League Central, to achieve more than a one-series-and-done postseason. But it’s literally on the Cubs and every Cactus League team getting ready for the season in the desert as spring training heads into its last full week.
If you thought the record high of 92 Friday was unseasonably warm for spring-training games and workouts, just wait till next week, when an unprecedented forecast of five consecutive days with 100-degree temperatures looms, including 105 on Friday.
AccuWeather had been showing a high of 108 for Friday but lowered it to 105. Who’ll know the difference?
The normal high for this date in Phoenix is 77 degrees, but an extreme heat watch already has been issued for Thursday through Sunday, and ballparks have plans in place for cooling centers, free sunscreen, relaxed restrictions on bringing water into stadiums and even splash pads for kids.
Big heat is no stranger here, but these sweltering temps are too soon, even by standards in Arizona, where residents are used to frying in the sun or taking cover indoors in July and August, but not in March. The same goes for Cactus League teams prepping for the season over six weeks. The Cubs and others don’t want to wilt, or make fans suffer unnecessarily, so they’re changing selected game times from afternoon to evening.
The Cubs against the Mariners on Saturday in Peoria has been pushed to an 8:10 p.m. start.
The White Sox are now playing the Reds at night on Saturday, too.
“You don’t make too much of it, but you obviously have to prepare with hydration and certain other things,” said Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty, who’s subbing for manager Craig Counsell for a couple of days. “So we’ll just deal with it.”
Counsell was in Wisconsin, where Sunday blizzard warnings could make his return travel plans dicey, watching his daughter play in the finals of a state basketball tournament.
That chilly air might remind Counsell of what the Cubs will feel when they open the season against the Nationals on March 26 at Wrigley Field, where the temperature forecast calls for a high in the upper 40s with 23 mph northeast wind gusts (with a low of 34).
The typically abrupt change Chicago players experience — potentially a 60-degree difference in a matter of days for the Cubs — when the season starts will be more startling than usual.
“It’s going to be really hot, and then at the end of the month, it’ll be really cold, so just kind of go along with it,” Flaherty said.
Veteran right-hander Vince Velasquez recalls the drastic climate change pitching four innings for the Sox on Opening Day on the South Side in 2022. That’s worse than big heat, players say.
“It’s a shock all the way around; I was freezing my butt off,” said Velasquez, who’s pitching in Cubs minor-league camp. “It was not fun. I was thinking, ‘This is ridiculous.’ Windy, cold. I think it had just snowed a couple of days before.”
There’s no chance of that in Arizona, so there’s only one thing to do now.
“Hydrate,” catcher Moises Ballesteros said. “Hydrate a lot, starting the night before, and take all the supplements. It’s never easy to play in the heat, but staying hydrated is the key.”
He knew it was going to get really hot next week.
“But I didn’t think it was going to get that hot,” he said.