MESA, Ariz. — Left-hander Justin Steele returned to the United States jet-lagged but jazzed that he would get the start Thursday against the Diamondbacks in the Cubs’ domestic opener.
It’s a relief after the outing he had in his season debut Wednesday in Tokyo.
In Game 2 of the Cubs’ season-opening series this week against the Dodgers, Steele (0-1) was tagged for five runs and five hits, including home runs by Kike Hernandez and Tommy Edman, in four innings. Steele walked one and struck out five.
Righty Jameson Taillon will get the Game 2 nod in the four-game opening series at Chase Field. Manager Craig Counsell hasn’t announced when Shota Imanaga will start against the D-backs. Imanaga pitched four scoreless innings in the opener against the Dodgers, walking four and striking out two.
In the domestic opener, Steele will face Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen, who will be making his third consecutive Opening Day start. Steele was the Cubs’ Opening Day starter last season, but it wound up being his last start until May after he injured his hamstring in the fifth inning.
As the Cubs returned to Arizona to finish Cactus League play and make some adjustments before the domestic opener, the club granted the release Friday of non-roster infielder Nicky Lopez.
Lopez, who spent last season with the White Sox, already has reportedly attracted interest from the Rockies. The move came after the Cubs didn’t include the veteran on their Japan travel roster. Lopez, who requested his release, was battling for a utility role with Jon Berti and Vidal Brujan.
The Cubs returned to Cactus League play Friday, while the Dodgers returned directly to Los Angeles, deciding not to play until Sunday, when they face the Angels in their annual Freeway Series.
The Cubs’ lineup in a 5-1 loss to the Padres at Sloan Park featured mostly minor-leaguers and the Cactus League debut of Nico Hoerner, who went 0-for-3 as he returns from flexor tendon surgery on his right arm.
Counsell said the Cubs will ease their way back into action.
“Let everybody kind of recover on a case-by-case basis,” Counsell said. “Everybody has got to listen to their bodies in this situation. Today [and Saturday], we’re just getting everybody running around . . . and we’ll start some normal spring-training games on Sunday. There is a challenge of playing regular-season games and then going back to spring training, I think we have to acknowledge, apart from the travel.”
The first game of the Tokyo Series on Tuesday averaged more than 25 million viewers in Japan, according to Major League Baseball, making it the most watched major-league game in the country’s history.
The audience for the Dodgers’ Game 1 victory over the Cubs surpassed the 18.7 million viewers who tuned in for the first game of last year’s Seoul Series in South Korea, which featured the Dodgers against the Padres.
This year’s game featured the first all-Japanese starting-pitching duel between the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Imanaga.
The Dodgers’ 6-3 win Wednesday, which featured a homer by Shohei Ohtani, averaged more than 23 million Japanese viewers. The second game also featured pitcher Roki Sasaki making his Dodgers debut.
The two games in the United States — which started at 5 a.m. in Chicago and 3 a.m. in Los Angeles — averaged 590,000 viewers. Tuesday’s game on Fox averaged 838,000 viewers with Wednesday’s on FS1 drawing 361,000.