Bucs Lose, Play Two Today; Kingham & Diaz Cut, Lineups & Notes

The Bucs dropped a 6-4 decision to the Orioles yesterday. The bats are warming up a bitt: Jordy Mercer went 3-for-3, Corey Hart went 2-for-4 with a home run and even Gorkys Hernandez had two hits, including a triple, and plated twice. The pitching was not so hot, with long balls being a bugaboo. Radhames Liz started (he's being groomed as a long man out of the pen) and surrendered a run on two hits in his two frames. Stolmy Pimentel gave up two runs on three hits in the 8th inning to pick up the loss. The camp's most pleasant surprise, Arquimedes Caminero, had the magic leave him yesterday as he gave up a pair of solo homers. And Steve Lombardozzi didn't do much to aid his cause, throwing a pair of balls away at second.

Gorkys Hernandez trip-trip-triples (photo by Dave Arrigo/Pirates)

Todays Games: The Pirates play a split squad DH, taking on the Phillies in Bradenton at McKechnie Field and the Twins in Fort Myers. Vance Worley faces Philly and Gerrit Cole goes against the Twins today, with both games at 1:05. They'll be carried on MLB.com's Gameday audio feed.

v Phils:

The Lineup: Steve Lombardozzi LF, Jordy Mercer SS, Gregory Polanco RF, Neil Walker 2B, Pedro 1B, Tony Sanchez C, Sean Rodriguez 3B, Vanimal.
The Bench: Gustav Nunez, Deibinson Romero, Sebatian Valle, Jose Tabata and some guys from minor league camp, highlighted by Reese McGuire.
The Pitchers: Clayton Richard, Rob Scahill, Deolis Guerra and several young arms from minor league camp.

The Pirate pitchers are approaching stretch time; we assume that Clint is looking for seven frames between Worley and Richard, and that means the reliever innings are going to become much harder to come by.  Cutch is still out but doing all the drills, so we expect they'll reboot him next week.

v Twins:

The Lineup: Josh Harrison, Francisco Cervelli C, Jaff Decker LF, Jung-Ho Kang 2B, Andrew Lambo 1B, Gorkys Hernandez CF, Austin Meadows RF, Pedro Florimon SS, Cole P.
The Bench: Wilkins Castillo and eight minor-league campers.
The Pitchers: Bobby LaFromboise, Brad Lincoln, Charlie Leesman, Josh Wall and a handful of minor league guys.

The game has a couple of strong sidebars: Gerrit Cole trying to stretch it out a few innings, Kang with his first look at second and hot but young prospect Austin Meadows gets to show his stuff.

• The Pirates continue to pare the roster, sending Nick Kingham and Elias Diaz, both of whom performed well in camp, to Indy. The roster now sits at 45 players.
• True Beliver: Buster Olney of ESPN picks the Bucs to win the World Series. 
• The Bucs Top 30 Prospects as ranked by MLB Pipeline.
• Joely Rodriguez, 23, the soft-tossing lefty that the Bucs sent to the Phils for Antonio Bastardo, was optioned to AAA Lehigh Valley. Philadelphia is a good spot for him; their rotation doesn't have nearly the depth of Pittsburgh's, and he's now part of an organization that's thin in lefty pitching. Don't be surprised to see him earn a call-up this year.