Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Tuesday: Chad Kuhl v Luis Perdomo, Lineup (Gregory Back), Preview, Notes

Tonight: The game starts at 7:05 and will be carried by Root Sports and 93.7 The Fan. And grrrr...it's Pup Night in the ol' ballyard.

Pitchers: Chad Kuhl (1-0, 4.18) opens the set against Luis Perdomo (5-5, 6.67). Kuhl's mission is simple: get the ball down. He has a rep as a ground ball guy, but so far he's running a 2-1 fly-to-worm burner ratio because he's been up in the zone. Chad has two short minor league starts since his last Bucco outing on July 19th when he had triceps discomfort, so we don't expect a real long outing. Perdomo, 23, features a sinker and a league-leading 57.7% groundball rate. However, those bouncers seem to find a lot of holes - he gives up 13 hits per nine IP with a 1.831 WHIP. Luis is settling in, though - since he's become a rotation regular, he's given up more than three runs just twice in nine calls to the bump.

Chad is back on the bump (image Pittsburgh Pirates)
Lineup: Josh 2B, Starling Marte LF, Cutch CF, Gregory RF, Freeser 3B, JJ 1B, Fran Cervelli C, S-Rod SS, Kuhl P. It was posted late; we're guessing they ran Gregory through some tests to see if his achy shoulder was game-ready yet. Apparently, he's good to go and he's even batting cleanup for the first time in the show. Freeser's back after getting banged on the elbow and Jordy, with a team high 106 games played, is getting a blow.

Preview: San Diego isn't throwing a whole lot of pitching at the Bucs, but then again, the Pirates hitters haven't exactly done a Murderer's Row impression lately, either. The Bucs lost 2-of-3 to the Padres back in April, and up until last year, when they swept the Friars, haven't had much luck at home against SD. The Padres have alternated wins and losses during their last 10 games, and their last four defeats have all been by one run. Pittsburgh is 3-6 over a nine-game stretch against Milwaukee, Atlanta and Cincinnati, and if they want to make a run, this would be a fine time to launch.

  • Curtis Partch was optioned back to Indy to clear a roster space for Kuhl. 
  • Tyler Glasnow threw a 50-pitch afternoon sim game at PNC Park with Stew batting. His next step should be a rehab assignment.
  • Josh Bell hit a grand salami last night, his second of the year for the Tribe. He's the first Indy player with multiple slams in a season since Brandon Moss in 2010 and Jose Hernandez before that in 2007.
  • 25-year-old OF Alex Dickerson, who the Bucs sent to San Diego for Jaff Decker and Miles Mikolas in 2013, is hitting .294 w/seven HR and 21 RBI in 102 at-bats for the Padres. He got a cup of coffee with SD last year and was called up this summer. He's batting clean-up tonight.
  • The Brewers called up Rob Scahill, who they had claimed from the Pirates earlier in the year.

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