Friday: Pirates at Nats, Cole v Strasburg, Lineup, Notes

Tonight: Pittsburgh at Washington, round two, to begin at 7:05. AT&T SportsNet and 93.7 The Fan will air the game.

Lineup: Adam Frazier 2B, Starling Marte LF, Cutch CF, Josh Bell 1B, David Freese 3B, Gregory Polanco RF, Elias Diaz C, Sean Rodriguez SS, Cole P. Jordy's knee must have been pretty banged up; his absence shows the bench hole at middle infield, especially with J-Hay out. Hopefully, after an offseason of rest, we'll get the 2016 S-Rod back to fill it.

Cole Train closing it out for the season (photo Pittsburgh Pirates)

Pitchers: Gerrit Cole (12-11, 4.23) and Stephen Strasburg (14-4, 2.68) are the gunslingers. It may be a meaningless game for the standings, but it's tough not be juiced up over a Cole v Strasberg head-to-head. Gerrit is making his career-high 33rd start of the season and should break the 200 IP mark for the second time. It's been a roller coaster season for Cole Train. He's dropped his last two road games and has given up 31 home runs (amazingly, he had never given up more than 11 in a season until this year), which is one shy of the club record of 32 allowed by Murry Dickson in 1951. Cole is finishing up on a winning note, going 9-5 over his last 19 starts. He's 3-1/2.56 in five career starts against the Nats and won a 6-1 decision in May in his only 2017 outing. The Nats are giving Stephen an extra day or two between starts to preserve his arm for the money games. Strasburg is still one of the elites with 10.5 K/nine, a 1.038 WHIP, and the rest of his peripherals equally shiny. He has a win over the Bucs this year, though it wasn't one of his better outings (six IP, three ER), when he took an 8-4 count over Chad Kuhl.

Notes:

• Starling Marte extended his hitting streak to nine games with a 2-for-4 performance last night.

Finishing strong... (photo Pittsburgh Pirates)

• Bryce Harper should be available for the rest of the series after missing yesterday's game w/hyperextended knee.
• Love that dirty water: The Bucs have gone 29-49 on the road this season, having lost six in a row and 12 of their last 13. The club hasn't won back-to-back games away from PNC Park since late August. Pittsburgh posted a 40-41 record on the road last season.
• Pete Mackanin will not return as Phils manager next year; he's being kicked upstairs to serve as a special assistant to the GM. Mac managed the Pirate farm clubs Hickory Crawdads and Lynchburg Hillcats in 2001 and 2002, then became Lloyd McClendon's bench coach for the for the 2003 season. After Lloyd was fired, Mackanin served as the Pirates' interim manager for the last month of 2005 and spent the next season managing at Bradenton before moving on in 2007.