SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Rowan Wick needed a clean inning. The reliever has earned the benefit of the doubt based on his emergence as a setup man last season, and there is an Opening Day bullpen job lined up for the big right-hander, but a rough run of spring results can still get in a pitcher's head.

"Obviously, it's not ideal," Wick said on Tuesday morning.

By the afternoon, Wick was on the mound at Scottsdale Stadium, slamming his right hand into his glove after a much-needed strikeout to end a scoreless seventh inning. In Chicago's 16-3 victory over the Giants, Wick sidestepped the potential harm of a leadoff double and a walk on a borderline fastball and escaped unscathed.

The Cubs' evaluators can look at the data and determine that Wick is right in line with where he needs to be at this point in Spring Training. Bullpen coach Chris Young can point to the fact that the environments in Arizona -- and in Las Vegas, where Wick worked Saturday -- are not great for pitchers who rely on spinning breaking balls.

Wick does not want to cite anything that could be viewed as an excuse. He just wants outs.

"When we come out here every day, we don't take this [stuff] for granted," he said.

Wick's latest inning trimmed his Cactus League ERA to 17.36 in the slim sample of 4 2/3 innings. Within that, he has relinquished nine runs on 11 hits, including a pair of home runs. On Saturday against the Reds at Las Vegas, Wick gave up four runs on four hits (one homer and two triples mixed in).

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What impressed Young was what happened after that performance.

"He's coming in begging me to pitch again on Sunday and wanting to go again," Young said. "So, I just love his enthusiasm to pitch, and I love his aggression. I just love that he wants the ball."

Wick said the primary source of his troubles this spring has been his four-seam fastball, which he featured 66.3 percent of the time in 2019, per Statcast. The reliever explained that the heater has been running more than staying true (or straight). That has led to some hard contact. On Tuesday, he induced a groundout and flyout via fastballs.

Another factor has been that Wick has been working on his slider/cutter. According to Statcast, he threw pitches categorized as either a slider or cutter just 5.9 percent of the time in 2019. For the most part, the offering would stay tighter like a cutter. This spring, Wick has tried to see if he could create more depth with the pitch to make it move more like a slider.

"I'm still in between about it. It could still be two pitches," Wick said. "I could use [it] to my advantage. I could throw one to lefties and one to righties. It's not so much worrying about the shape. It's just throwing it in certain situations and making it effective. Whatever it is that day, make it effective."

What that can lead to in the spring, however, is throwing a third pitch in counts or situations that would usually be reserved for other options.

"It's a Spring Training adjustment to be made," Young said. "Maybe during the regular season, that's a heater or a curveball and the results would be different."

Using mainly that two-pitch mix, Wick helped stabilize the Cubs' bullpen last season, posting a 2.43 ERA with 35 strikeouts against 16 walks in 33 1/3 innings. He developed a knuckle-curve under Chicago's watch, fired that pitch 27.8 percent of the time and limited batters to a .108 average and .162 slugging percentage, per Statcast.

Even with a wide-open bullpen competition this spring, Wick's performance last summer put him in good standing when camp opened. That has not changed, either.

"I don't put too much in stats here," Cubs manager David Ross said. "All the metrics seem to say he's fine. So, we'll just continue to let him go about his process and understand that you do have to prove yourself each and every year, right? You get to make the team on some merits of what you did last year and pitch in big innings.

"But, especially in that bullpen role, guys continue to have to [back it up]. And he's got a lot of good guys around him that he can pull from [their] experience that have been down in that bullpen and done it for a long time. So, I'm not worried about Rowan at all."

Wick is also trying not to worry too much about the results, either.

"It's important to have a couple good outings here going forward," Wick said. "But, I don't worry about it too much. It's spring, right? Let them have it in spring and beat them up during the season."