Jay v Josh Smith For Home Field; Lineup & Notes

Today's Game - Jay Happ (10-8, 3.74; 6-2, 2.04/Pittsburgh) closes the regular season against Josh Smith (0-3, 7.22). Jay was quite sharp in his last outing, tossing just 56 pitches while shutting out the Cards for six frames, and has been sharp pretty much all month. he has one start against the Reds this year, a 5-4 win on September 9th.

Jay's spinning the ball in a big one today (photo Wilfredo Lee/AP)

Smith’s lack of control is pretty striking - he's issued 21 walks in his 28-2/3 IP, and has lots of trouble getting even modestly deep into games. He's another Cincy youngster on audition and so far it looks like he's more bullpen rather than rotation material. Smith has faced the Bucs twice. He was clobbered in June when he couldn't find the dish, and put up a pair of zeroes last month when he threw strikes. The game begins at 3:05 and will be on Root Sports and 93.7 The Fan.

Today's Lineup - Gregory Polanco RF, Josh 3B, Cutch CF, Neil Walker 2B, Starling Marte LF, Pedro 1B, Fran Cervelli C, Jordy SS, Jay P.

Josh for A-Ram is the big switch; that moves The Kid to cleanup.

• CBS Sports captured a couple of nice moments during AJ's start last night.
• A pretty poorly kept secret: Clint finally quit playing coy and officially announced Gerrit Cole as the wild card starter.
• Saturday night's crowd of 34,180 broke the Pirate attendance record; the Bucs have drawn 2,463,234 to PNC Park and will add on today.
• The last game having some meaning is a carry-over from last year. if you recall, the Bucs had a chance to catch St. Louis for the NL Central, but fell short.
• It's just not Pittsburgh; eight teams have something to play for today.