Cubs' lefty Lilly: WBC a learning experience

MESA, Ariz. - Lefty Ted Lilly met with reporters Tuesday for the first time since returning from the World Baseball Classic.

Lilly pitched for Team USA, which fell to Japan in the semifinals. Tuesday morning, and threw about 70 pitches in what he jokingly referred to as a "stimulated" game. He'll start Sunday against the Indians.

"It was certainly one that I'll never forget," he said of the WBC experience. "Like I felt going into it, it's definitely an honor and a privilege. There's still, to be honest, some expectations that I had for us to win the whole thing. That was certainly something that was a goal going into it from the get-go, and it's still disappointing not to. And at the end of the day, there's really no excuses why we couldn't have gotten it done."

However, Lilly didn't agree with Commissioner Bud Selig's televised comments that the U.S. has to get better players to the WBC and turn up the intensity.

"There were a lot of good players on the team," Lilly said. "There's no guarantee that you're going to win. Anything can happen in the game of baseball. Looking around, the Dominican Republic didn't have Manny Ramirez or Alfonso Soriano or some of their star players, either, Aramis Ramirez, whoever it was.

"I'm sure that there are other countries out there who said, 'If we had this guy or we had that guy.' The bottom line was that there were good teams put together, and Japan played the best baseball."

Speaking of that, Lilly said he learned from watching Team Japan.

"I learned a lot, watching the way they played, too, going out there early, watching the way they practice before the games," he said. "And I liked it. They spend a lot of time on their defense. They work on difficult defensive plays, not the routine ones, something that I don't see so much here. Obviously, their style of hitting is much different. It's not so much the power teams we have here. They don't tend to strike out very much."

Gaudin goes long: Chad Gaudin started Tuesday's 9-8 victory over the Rockies and threw 54 pitches in 2 innings. Thirty-seven pitches came in the second, when an error by second baseman Aaron Miles extended things. Gaudin is battling for a bullpen job.

"I really don't look at it personally," said Gaudin, whose ERA is 10.03. "All I can do is go out there and pitch and try to do the best I can. Whatever happens is going to happen. I know I can go out there and pitch and get outs."

"He had decent stuff; his command wasn't really good," said manager Lou Piniella. "He kept the ball down. He hadn't pitched in awhile. I liked his stuff. We just need to get him out there."

Roster cuts: The Cubs got their spring roster down to 37 Tuesday. They optioned pitcher Jose Ascanio, outfielder Sam Fuld and infielder-outfielder Jake Fox to Class AAA Iowa. They also returned nonroster infielder Bobby Scales and nonroster relief pitcher Jason Waddell to minor-league camp.

Lou Piniella praised the hitting of Fox (.350, 4 homers) and the improvement of Fuld.

"To me, he was the most improved player from one camp to the other," Piniella said of Fuld. "I told him to work a little bit on stealing bases. Just keep playing and stay injury free. That's been a problem for him. He's another kid that's not too far from the big leagues."