Thursday: Rain Date at Boston - Cool Chad v Eduardo Rodriguez, Lineup, Notes

Today: The Opening series rain out date has the Pirates meeting the Red Sox at 2:05 in Fenway Park. The game will be on Root Sports and 93.7 The Fan. This starts a grueling seven-game odyssey, but one that doesn’t faze Clint, who told Adam Berry of MLB.com “Well, I get to go to Fenway, then I’m going to Wrigley, then I’m going to Busch…Who’s going to argue with that, if you like baseball?” It will also mark the start of four straight day games.

Lineup: Jordy Mercer SS, Starling Marte CF, Cutch RF, Gregory Polanco LF, David Freese DH, Josh Harrison 3B, Josh Bell 1B, Phil Gosselin 2B & Stew C (Chad Kuhl P). The Goose is loose at Fenway as Fraze takes a seat against a lefty and Stew gets the night-to-day nod. Gregory’s off-day last night wasn’t anything to be concerned over; it was planned. With a quick turnaround, a sore shoulder and back-to-back lefties, Clint figured it was the right spot to give El Coffee a blow after starting all seven previous games.

Pitchers: Chad Kuhl (1-0, 3.60) struggled against the Braves in his first outing; diagnosed simply, his sinker didn’t sink. But a basketful of DPs carried the day for the Pirates and Kuhl will have another chance to get his bread and butter pitch under control. Hopefully he was just a tad too amped during his first start and can get that internal fire to burn in his favor today. Eduardo Rodriguez (0-1, 7.20) is the third lefty in four days to challenge the Buccos. He was smacked around by the Tigers, going five frames and giving up four runs in a pitching performance marked by true outcomes – two homers, three walks and five whiffs. The Bosox can use some innings from Eduardo; their starter last night only lasted 1-1/3 IP before the pen had to eat the remaining frames, so getting to him early would be a big plus. This was, btw, the original pitching pairing for the rained-out game.

Notes:

• One thing that hurt in the Reds series was Adam Frazier’s quiet set. He went 0-for-8 with a walk and three whiffs; he was a spark plug against Atlanta.

• No one is running away from the Bucs yet – the Cubs are two games up at 5-3 and St. Louis is struggling even more than the Pirates at 3-6.
• Stew made his MLB debut at Fenway Park while playing with the White Sox on on September 6th, 2010.
• Indy lost 7-6 as Hutch and AJ Shugel were both hit hard. The bright spot was Elias Diaz, who had three hits and is batting .350.
• Altoona’s Alex McRae (2-0, 0.82) looked strong again, twirling six innings of shutout ball while surrendering four hits and two walks with four strikeouts in a 4-0 Curve win. He’s allowed one run over 11 IP in his two starts.
• Bradenton is off to a 7-0 start after a 4-1 win yesterday. C Kevin Krause and OF Logan Hill each collected three knocks.