Notes: Pirates Roll 8-3; Visit Phils; Camp & Bucco Stuff

Today: The Pirates play the Phillies at Spectrum Field in Clearwater at 1:05. Steven Brault takes the ball v Jerad Eickhoff. Also in the queue are Dovydas Neverauskas, Richard Rodriguez, Casey Sadler and Tyler Jones. The game will be on the MLB Network with audio streaming on Pirates.com.

Yesterday: Starling Marte and David Freese homered in the first to make it 3-0 Pirates, but the lead didn't last very long. Nick Kingham gave up a three-spot in a trio of kinda ugly frames with a lot of help from his friends - he surrendered five hits and two walks while his teammates contributed four errors behind him, so only one run was earned. But that was the Tigers' shining moment - they got one hit in the last six innings off Felipe Rivero, George Kontos, Edgar Santana, Kyle Crick, Jack Leathersich and Brett McKinney while whiffing eight times and went down 8-3.

The gloves warmed up and the bats stayed hot. Bryce Brentz added his initial Pirates bomb to the attack while Fran Cervelli went 2-for-2, Corey Dickerson 2-for-3 with his first Bucco knocks, and David Freese had three RBI to lead the Bucco batsmen. Outside the first, Pittsburgh continued with its chip-away offense, which was an issue last year when they had problems adding on runs after a quick break out of the gate. Hopefully it remains a thing once the contests count.

Notes:

• Kevin Siegrist is slated to hit the hill tomorrow.
• Ivan Nova tossed four frames in a minor league scrimmage yesterday. Jameson Taillon (four innings) and Joe Musgrove (two innings) will toss in Pirates City today.
• The Bucs culled the herd a bit today. P Dario Agrazal was optioned to Altoona, P Luis Escobar was optioned to Bradenton, and C Jin-De Jhang, who is rehabbing an elbow injury, was reassigned to minor league camp.

Jin-De Jhang (photo Altoona Curve)

• Taillon joined the Taylor Hooton foundation's advisory board, which helps educate young people about the dangers of PEDs. In Pittsburgh, the seat was previously held by Mark Melancon and then Tony Watson, who are still Hooton board members.
• The Steelers' Mike Tomlin, Kevin Colbert and other grid guys were in camp yesterday swapping notes about analytics & coaching with Clint. 
• Inside Edge has their 2018 Bucco preview; it's not so much a predictor as it is a smorgasbord of tasty little facts on the players.
• Jason Dill of the Bradenton Herald wrote a fun piece on the Pirates favorite road parks; lots of fields chosen for lots of reasons.
• Pirates president Frank Coonelly stepped into the political arena, ala late Steelers' owner Dan Rooney, by speaking at a GOP dinner that was a pep rally for congressional hopeful Rick Saccone. He brought the Pirate Parrot with him, and as Suzanne Elliott of the Trib noted, that ruffled some feathers.