Bucs Host Phils; Long Balls Drop Pirates 5-4; Notes

Today: Steven Brault will climb the hill against Philadelphia's Aaron Nola at LECOM Park at 1:05. George Kontos is also penciled in with other pitchers TBD. The game will be on AT&T SportsNet.

Yesterday: It was a nice outing by Cool Chad, who went 5-1/3 IP, giving up two runs (one earned) on five hits (one solo homer) with five K, tossing 84 pitches. In a bit more worrisome appearance, Felipe Rivero served up up a two-run shot to Bo Bichette; Josh Smoker surrendered a solo shot in the eighth and the Blue Jays rode their long balls to a 5-4 win. The other two Bucco hurlers were perfect as Dovy Neverauskas & Michael Feliz faced five batters and whiffed five batters. Colin Moran had three singles for the Bucs and Fran Cervelli added two more knocks. Colin scored once & brought home a run while Cervy drove in a pair with a double, the Pirates only extra-base hit.

Notes:

• Maybe the hardest-to-project man of the spring is Colin Moran. He's hitting .333 with a flip side - the projected big bopper has a sub-.400 slugging % with just three doubles and no homers in 48 at-bats.  
• Josh Smoker has given up four homers in nine+ IP, but it's part of the plan per Clint, who said they're seeing the growing pains resulting from a strategy of throwing more strikes and working on expanding the tool kit to get guys off his fastball. 
• The Pirates have re-signed Daniel Nava to a minor-league deal; no details available. He's expected to be back in the saddle sometime in June after undergoing back surgery.
• The Reds released 36-year-old Ollie Perez.
• Gregg Ritchie, coach at George Washington, was named as hitting coach of Team USA 18U squad. He was in the Pirates organization for seven years as a hitting coach, the last two with the big team in 2011-12 before leaving to take the GWU job.