Saturday: Pirates @ Tigers, Lineup & Pitchers; Yesterday's Recap & Notes

Game: The Pirates take a road trip to Lakeland's Joker Marchant Stadium to meet the Tigers at 1:05, with the game broadcast by 93.7 The Fan.

Lineup: Pablo Reyes 2B, Pat Kivlehan LF, Colin Moran 3B, Jose Osuna 1B, Kevin Newman SS, Jake Stallings C, Will Craig DH, JB Shuck CF, Bryan Reynolds RF (Chris Archer P). Kevin Kramer, Ke'Bryan Hayes and Oneil Cruz lead the second wave as most of the A-Team gets the day off and are spared the 70 mile bus ride. Josh Harrison will bat leadoff and Jordy Mercer will fill the two-hole for Motown.

Archie toes the slab (image Pittsburgh Pirates)

Pitchers: RHP Chris Archer goes against LHP Matt Moore, w/Michael Feliz, Jake Barrett, Clay Holmes and Geoff Hartlieb behind him. Barrett gets his first Bucco look; he was a waiver claim a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday's Game: All started well for the Bucs - they broke out the long ball again, with Cervy, Starling, J-Bell and Jung Ho belting bombs against the Rays. Big Joe was nicked for a couple of runs but whiffed five in his four innings, and Felipe Vazquez & Keone Kela put up zeroes to follow. The Pirates were up 6-2 in the seventh w/Kyle Crick on the hill before a groundball single and bopped batter scored with two outs when Tristan Gray went yard to make it 6-5. A single, grounder and another single in the eighth off Richard Rodriguez knotted the score, and after a quiet ninth, the managers called it a day.

Notes:

• Ol' Bucco Austin Meadows went 2-for-3 (he's hitting .343 so far this spring) and ol' farmhand Tristan Gray went 1-for-2 with a three-run jack. Both switched uniforms last year - Meadows was part of the Archie package; Gray was sent to TB with Huddy for Corey D. 
• Shortstop is heating up; with neither candidate hitting a lick, suddenly Kevin Newman broke out with three hits on Thursday and Erik Gonzalez came up with three of his own on Friday. The ball is back in Newman's court today.
• Jung Ho Kang has five hits this year, and all have left the yard. He's batting .200 for the spring with 13 K in 25 at-bats; looks like he's all in on swinging for the fence. JHK is showing his old instincts with the leather and made a couple of pretty nice plays at third yesterday. 
• Jeff Hathhorn of 93.7 The Fan talked to Jamo, the team rep, and Willy about their views on the new rule changes. 
• M-SABR ran their preseason reviews and have the Pirates good for 85 wins; the baseball soothsayers seem to agree the Bucs are basically a .500 club, give or take a couple of victories, with their 2019 Pittsburgh fortunes mostly falling between the upper-70's-to-mid-80's in the win column. 
• Matt Joyce, 34, was told by the Tribe that he wasn't going make the team. They gave him some time to decide if he wants to go to AAA or try to latch on with another club. He was on a minor league deal with Cleveland.
• Yesterday's game started a little late; the Rays bus got caught in Bradenton rush-hour traffic. Of course, the Steverino celebration might have helped it run over; he even threw the first pitch. The Mayor of Bradenton declared it "Steve Blass Day," the Pirates honored him by officially renaming the radio perch at LECOM the Steve Blass Radio Booth, and the Bucco suits - Bob Nutting & Frank Coonelly, no less - presented him with a couple of goodies before the game.