Lineup, Notes, News As Cubs Come To Town

The Cubs' LHP Travis Wood (4-11, 4.64 ERA) takes on RHP AJ Burnett (15-5, 3.63) tonight. Wood has lost a career-high eighth straight games, while AJ is trying to get over the August doldrums. The first pitch is scheduled for 7:05 and the game will be shown by Root Sports.

The lineup: Brock Holt 2B, Starling Marte LF, Andrew McCutchen CF, Garrett Jones RF, Gaby Sanchez 1B, Pedro Alvarez 3B, Rod Barajas C, Josh Harrison SS, AJ Burnett P.

Marte is back, and J-Hay is at short; he and Brock have already shared the middle infield duties on Sunday, so that shouldn't be a problem

The Cubs have started out the month with five straight losses and are giving up long balls at a prodigious rate. So either it's a good time to be catching them, or the pair of bench-clearing brawls they had against the Nats last night might give them a little spark that they've been missing. We'll find out which soon enough; either way, it's a set of games that the Bucs can't afford to squander away. Seven of their next 11 games are against the Cubs, so they'll have a lot to say about the Bucco playoff hopes.

• Neil Walker and Travis Snider are likely out for the Chicago series. Starling Marte is returning tonight, and Chad Qualls is expected back Sunday.
• Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com updated his Top 100 Prospects List, and now their are six Bucco pups on the sheet: RHP Gerrit Cole, RHP Jameson Taillon, OF Starling Marte, SS Alen Hanson, RHP Luis Heredia and OF Gregory Polanca. The last three names are new additions; OF Josh Bell fell off the early list after missing most the season because of a partial tear of his meniscus.
• The GCL Pirates manager Tom Prince was named 2012 GCL Manager of the Year, and catchers Jin-De Jhang & Wyatt Mathisen were named to the All-Star team from the 2012 league champs.  
• The DSL Pirates won their championship.  Indy is down two games to none in their best-of-five series against Charlotte.