Third Round at Chase Field, Williams v Taijuan Walker, LIneup, Notes

Tonight: Pittsburgh and Arizona get it on for a third time at 8:10 with the Pirates hoping for a turn of the worm tonight. The contest will be carried by Root Sports and 93.7 The Fan.

Lineup: Adam Frazier LF, Josh Harrison 2B, Cutch CF, Gregory Polanco RF, David Freese 3B, Josh Bell 1B, Fran Cervelli C, Jordy Mercer SS & Trevor Williams P. For the foreseeable future, this is the Buccos A-List lineup.

Pitchers: Trevor Williams (1-2, 7.98) gets the ball against Taijuan Walker (3-2, 3.83). Trevor has got nowhere to go but up; it would be a big boost for him to get through the first, a disastrous frame in his last outing that he helped fuel by mishandling a pair of balls in the field. He hasn’t had a lot of work; maybe a second start will shake loose the cobwebs and butterflies. Williams has never faced the D-Backs. Walker was once a can’t-miss prospect and shows elite stuff (he’s a strikeout-per-inning guy), but he’s had career-long battle with command. The MO used against him is patience and working the count; he’s gone more than six innings once in seven starts and been up and down in effectiveness. Taijuan will be making his first appearance versus the Pirates.

Notes:

• J-Bell’s six homers rank second among NL rookies behind Los Angeles’ Cody Bellinger.

• Cutch is in a 4-for-31 spell at the dish. Gift has also gone south lately with an 0-for-10 performance; eight of those outs have been whiffs. Fellow rook Jose Osuna is 1-for-14 on the western trip so far. 
• The Bucs have lost six straight games and are in a 3-10 funk, dropping their record to 14-22.
• Chris Iannetta was in the hospital overnight as a precautionary measure after being beaned by Johnny Barbato last night in the face and losing a tooth. We hope he’s OK; it was a scary moment. We’ll see if anything develops. You may recall in 2014 when Kirk Gibson was the D-Back manager that Cutch was drilled in the middle of the back by Randall Delgado the game after Paul Goldschmidt was hit (his hand was broken and he sat out the last few weeks of the year) by Ernesto Freiri.
• The teams will wear Mother’s Day uni’s tonight and Sunday, with pink worked into the logos and caps.
• IF/OF Ian Happ, a Mt. Lebanon HS grad and the Cubs #1 pick (ninth overall) in 2015. was called to the show today.