Bucs v Mariners

James McDonald (2-2 , 5.76 ERA) takes on Aaron Harang (1-3, 8.68 ERA) as Seattle visits the 'Burgh for the first time since 2004. J-Mac has been his old erratic self while Harang had his best outing of the year last time out against the Os, going six and surrendering a pair. Pittsburgh keeps running into hot teams; the Mariners have won 7-of-10. The game starts at 7:05 and will be aired by The Fan 93.7. No TV; the Penguins are playing tonight.

Pirate lineup: Starling Marte LF, Travis Snider RF, Andrew McCutchen CF, Garrett Jones 1B, Russell Martin C, Pedro Alvarez 3B, Jordy Mercer 2B, Clint Barmes SS and James McDonald P.

The A Team lineup, except for the Neil Walker - Jordy Mercer flip.

Mariner lineup: Michael Saunders CF, Jason Bay LF, Kyle Seager 3B, Michael Morse RF, Justin Smoak 1B, Dustin Ackley 2B, Kelly Shoppach C, Brendan Ryan SS and Aaron Harang P.

Jay Bay is back where it started in Pittsburgh for a couple of days; he's hitting .262 with three homers for the M's. Ollie Perez is with Seattle, too, having been reinvented as a LOOGY in the past couple of seasons, and a pretty good one (0.73 ERA in 12 appearances) at that.

• There's no word on JT's leg, so we're assuming no news is good news, as the Bucs were considering DL'ing him if he wasn't available for duty today.
• Jeff Karstens switched agents after watching his salary drop from $3.8M in 2012 to $2.5M this season. He might be better off switching trainers...
• Three Bucs project to 5+ WAR rating (All-Star caliber) so far: Starling Marte (1.7), Russell Martin (1.3) and AJ Burnett (1.3). WAR is cumulative during the season, which is 19% complete, so doing the math sums up the trio as firecracker hot. Cutch is off to a slow start; his WAR is 0.7, which projects to a year-end 3.5, and Jason Grilli is at 0.6, on track for a 3.0 WAR, which is strong for a reliever.
• Charlie Morton's shoulder tightness seems minor, but it has set back his big league return from mid-May to possibly early June.
• Fox Sport's Ken Rosenthal has a good report on Gerrit Cole in his notes column.
• RHP Phil Irwin was placed on the minor league DL due to arm fatigue. He made an appearance on May 2nd for Indy after being shut down for three weeks following his MLB debut.
• Andy Oliver went six for Indy with a line of zero runs, two hits, four walks and five K in the Tribe's 5-1 win yesterday. We keep hoping to see those walks come down; it's the diff between him being a AAA and MLB pitcher. He's given up just 25 hits in 38-1/3 IP - and 23 walks.
• Jameson Taillon is on the bump for Altoona tonight.
• LHP Orlando Castro of West Virginia was named the Sally League Pitcher of the Week. He threw a six inning, three hit shutout last week with 7K. The 21 year old is 3-2 with a 1.36 ERA for the Power.
• Mike Newman of Fangraphs has a candid interview with Wyatt Mathiesen and the youngster's struggles behind the dish.
• If it weren't for bad luck...The Red Sox announced that Joel Hanrahan has right forearm tightness and will be evaluated on Tuesday. Seems like he just returned from a hammy issue.