Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Wednesday: Same Ol' Story - Brew Crew Looks For Sweep; Brault v Aaron Wilkerson, Lineup, Notes

Tonight: Wednesday Milwaukee at Pittsburgh 7:05 AT&T SportsNet and 93.7 The Fan.

Lineup: Adam Frazier 2B, Starling Marte, Cutch CF, Josh Bell 1B, David Freese 3B, Jordan Luplow RF, Elias Diaz C, Jordy Mercer SS & Steven Brault P.

Steven looking to impress (image Pittsburgh Pirates)

Pitchers: Steven Brault (1-0, 4.38) closes the set against Aaron Wilkerson (0-0, 0.00). Brault replaces Chad Kuhl in the rotation tonight; Gerrit Cole is the only guy whose can hasn't been kicked yet. Since the Bucs are running out of starts, Tyler Glasnow will work after Brault (we'd expect a five-or-six inning limit) in a sort of piggy-back arrangement for tonight's sidebar. Clint said that Tyler will get to start with a clean frame; no messy mid-inning mop-ups as they want to evaluate him as a starter, not a reliever. The 25-year-old Brault will be making his third start/ninth appearance of the season, and he's coming off a great outing. He gave up one hit in six scoreless innings Monday night in Milwaukee to pick up his first MLB win. Steven is otherwise 0-2/4.20 in three career starts against the Brew Crew, all in 2016. Don't ask about Tyler; he's seen them twice and given up eight earned runs (nine overall) in nine innings on 10 hits with eight walks. Wilkerson was recently called up after having a very good year at AA Biloxi (11-4, 3.16, nine K/game, 1.075 WHIP), though at 28 he was a bit gray to be at that level. Still, he's a great baseball story - he was an NAIA ace at Cumberland College but had TJ surgery while in college. Wilkerson was in his second season on indie league ball after his recovery before Boston signed him in 2014. Now he's 12 pitches deep into his big league career; he worked a 1-2-3 frame with two K against Miami on the 15th.

Notes:
  • This game decides the season series; Milwaukee and Pittsburgh are 9-9 against one another this year.
  • The only other time that the Pirates scored 22 or fewer runs in 13-game span, their current production, was between 7/15-29/1959 when they mustered 20 runs (s/o @joe_block).
  • Wilkerson will be the 13th starter for the Brewers this year; the Pirates have used just seven. Interestingly, the Brew Crew bypassed Matt Garza and Junior Guerra, who have been bumped to the Milwaukee pen, to give Wilkerson the ball.
  • 1B Edwin Espinosa of Indy/Altoona and 3B Ke'Bryan Hayes of Bradenton were named to the Rawlings Minor League Gold Glove Team.

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