Notes

James McDonald goes against Jeremy Guthrie in game two of the Oriole series tonight. The match will start at 7:05 PM and be aired by Root Sports. It will feature a pregame celebration of the 1971 championship club; 19 old timers from that squad are expected to attend. Root Sports will rerun the seventh game of the 1971 Series on Wednesday night at 7 PM, following the afternoon get-away game with Baltimore.

The lineup: Jose Tabata LF, Josh Harrison 3B, Garrett Jones 1B, Andrew McCutchen CF, Neil Walker 2B, Xavier Paul RF, Ronny Cedeno SS, Mike McKenry C, James McDonald P.

Ok, today McCutch is at cleanup. Sometime we wonder if his occasional hitting funk is because they keep batting him in RBI roles, and he's trying too hard to live up to the lineup spot. The rest of the order is the usual one against a righty now that Lyle Overbay is sitting.

• Luis Heredia made his first pro start today for the rookie league GCL Pirates. He went 2-2/3 innings, giving up two runs on a hit, three walks, and a hit batsmen with no K's. Heredia ran out of gas in the third, yielding a hit following two walks and a hit batter that jammed the sacks after two outs. The 16 year old Mexican RHP is the Bucs' top international signing of the Huntington era.
• The Bucs signed 33rd round 3B Chris Lashmet of Northwestern. The senior hit .353 this season for the Wildcats and has a good eye, but not much power.
• Wilbur Miller of Pirates Prospects reports in a two-part series on the progress of the Bucco hotshots. Some new names are breaking into the prospect list; some pitching expected to be MLB ready isn't producing as hoped. Just another season of the good, bad and ugly of player development.
• Hey, if you think the Pirates have been hit hard by the injury bug, tale a look at St. Louis. Try to replace Adam Wainwright and Albert Pujols on the roster as opposed to Ross Ohlendorf and Pedro Alvarez..
• Evan Drellich of MLB.com has a piece on the transition from baseball to the real world. It's not the smooth path some would think, especially for guys who were career minor-leaguers.
• Chad Cordero, who saved a league-leading 47 games as a 23-year-old in 2005, announced his retirement at age 29. He followed up with 29 saves in 2006 and 37 saves in 2007 while with the Nats, but had pitched just 14 innings in the majors since then because of arm injuries, reports Aaron Gleeman of Hardball Talk.