Off to Williamsport - Mitch v Jose Quintana, Lineup & Notes

Game: The Little League Classic starts at 7:15 at BB&T Ballpark and will be aired by ESPN & 93.7 The Fan. Maybe; the storms that passed through Pittsburgh headed toward Williamsport, hitting at about 4 PM but the weather is supposed clear up well before game time.

Lineup: Kevin Newman SS, Adam Frazier 2B, Starling Marte CF, Josh Bell 1B, Bryan Reynolds LF, Pablo Reyes RF, Colin Moran 3B, Jake Stallings C, Mitch Keller P. We see what you did with Fraze and B-Rey, Clint.

Pitchers: RHP Mitch Keller (1-1/7.94) drew a tough nut to crack in RHP Jose Quintana (10-7/4.11). Mitch was strong in his last outing; maybe now that he knows he’s here to stay, he’ll relax on the hill and zero in on the strike zone. Quintana has been hot this month, going 2-1/1.89 in three starts, and is 3-0/2.70 against the Pirates this campaign with a strikeout per inning.

Notes:

• This is weird. The Pirates recalled RHP Montana DuRupau from Indy, then optioned and recalled Cole Tucker from the Tribe as the 26th man for tonight’s Little League Classic game. It was thought that OF Jason Martin would get a call for today; guess the Pirates are going with what they got until September.
• The Bucs have been historically bad with bases loaded: the last three times a team has batted five times with the bases loaded and still been shutout have been Pittsburgh (yesterday), Pittsburgh (9/11/2016) and Pittsburgh (9/28/2015). The last team to go 0-for-6 with the sacks drunk was the Mets on April 26th, 1980.
• We jumped the gun on JHK’s joining Milwaukee; it’s not a done deal, as previously had been reported, per Brewer beat man Tom Haudricourt and his status is covered by Brew Crew Ball.