Saturday Lineup & Notes

Kevin Correia starts against Boston's Josh Beckett at 1:05 PM; the game will be shown on FSN Sports.

Lineups: Jose Tabata LF, Neil Walker 2B, Andrew McCutchen CF, Lyle Overbay 1B, Pedro Alvarez 3B, Matt Diaz RF, Ronny Cedeno SS, Dusty Brown C and Kevin Correia P.

Pitchers: Kevin Correia, Joel Hanrahan, Joe Beimel, Fernando Nieve and Justin Thomas.

-- Steve Pearce is expected to enter today's game as a sub for Pedro and play the hot corner.

-- Brad Lincoln's bruised arm is wrapped; he may miss his next start, although that hasn't been determined yet.

-- Jose Ascanio will throw BP today according to Jen Langosch of MLB.com; if all goes well, he may be able to pitch for real next week, further complicating the Pirates' pitching decisions, as he's out of options.

-- Hard Ball Talk has a vid preview of the NL Central by Tiffany Simons and Craig Calcaterra. They pick the Cubs to win it, and Calcaterra believes the Bucs at best will be a 70 win team, with the potential to lose 100 games again. He says that there's "just not enough there."

-- Jim Callis of Baseball America says if the Pirates take 3B Anthony Rendon or RHP Gerrit Cole in the 2011 draft, they would immediately become Pittsburgh's top prospect over Jameson Taillon. And BA ranked Taillon as the #8 prospect in baseball earlier this year.

He believes there's not much to separate them, writing that "Rendon and Cole are 1 and 1A." Callis feels that Rendon would "compare favorably to No. 2 overall pick Pedro Alvarez, who isn't going to stick at the hot corner for long."