Cards Visit, Archer v Gant, Lineup & Notes - Kang Surgery, Kela & Dovy Arrive, Kingham & Brault Sent Down

Today: The game starts at 7:05 and will be on AT&T SportsNet & 93.7 The Fan. It's also Friday free-tee night. Should be decent game weather, cloudy and in the low 70's.

Pitchers: RHP Chris Archer (3-5, 4.31) makes his Pittsburgh debut against RHP John Gant (3-4, 3.49). Archer has made just four starts since recovering from an abdominal injury (he was out for five weeks) and gone just 0-1/4.58 in that span covering 19-2/3 IP, giving up 26 hits with 26 whiffs. But he has tossed between 90-100 pitches in his last three starts and gone six innings in his last two outings, so he's rounding back into shape. Archer has faced St. Louis once, holding them to five hits and a run in seven innings last year. Gant flips between the bullpen and rotation. He's been streaky and has made it through six innings twice in eight starts. He lost to the Pirates in May, giving up three runs in 5-1/3 IP on four hits although he did fan seven, his career high.

Arch makes his first Bucco trip to the bump (photo Gene Puskar/AP)

Lineup: Adam Frazier LF, Starling Marte CF, Gregory Polanco RF, David Freese 1B, Colin Moran 3B, Fran Cervelli C, Josh Harrison 2B, Jordy SS & Archer P. J-Hay is back and it looks like a Fraze/J-Low platoon in left.

Notes:

• Kind of a foregone conclusion, but Nick Kingham was optioned to Indy to open a 25-man roster spot for Chris Archer. Keone Kela fills out the active list, and told Clint upon arrival today that he's ready to work out of any role. Like Archer, he said all the right things to the MSM in the pre-game scrum. With both guys in the house, Clint will finally have a full slate of players at his disposal.
• In more pitching remake news, Dovy Neverauskas was reportedly called up from Indy and Steven Brault optioned to AAA (no official announcement yet). Brault had a 4.93 ERA, Neverauskas 11.85. Where's the Clay Holmes love? It also means no southpaw in the pen other than Felipe; we wonder if Clint is going to juggle him in late innings to match up with lefty lineups now than Kela, with closer experience, is here?
• Cervy continued to get work at first during warmups.
• Kevin Gorman of the Trib writes that Jordy is pleasantly surprised to still be a Bucco.
• Korean baseball correspondent Sung Min Kim reports that Jung Ho Kang will have wrist surgery that will end his season and speculates in a linked article that procedure may end Kang's Pirates career, with him returning to Korea or Japan to play ball. The Bucs later confirmed the report, saying he had surgery today to debride cartilage and will be out 4-6 weeks. As for his future here, he has a $5.5M team option with a $250K buy out; we're thinking the buy out will happen, and then he'll decide between a minor league contract somewhere in MLB or playing Asian ball.
• Old Bucco Steve Pearce had himself a day for the BoSox. He hit three homers and chased home six runs for Boston last night in a Red Sox victory. Good intro; he only joined the team Thursday via a deadline trade with Toronto.