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Pirates Notes: Pirates Travel to Lakeland to Face Jordy Mercer and Josh Harrison

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The Pittsburgh Pirates and Tampa Bay Rays played to a 6-6 tie on Friday night. Joe Musgrove made his first start of the spring and went four innings, allowing two runs on four hits, with no walks and five strikeouts. He was followed by the back end of the bullpen, with Felipe Vazquez, Keona Kela, Kyle Crick and Richard Rodriguez all getting one inning. Vazquez picked up three strikeouts, while Crick ran into trouble, allowing three runs. Rodriguez gave up the sixth run of the night.

On offense, Jung Ho Kang hit his fifth home run of the spring, while Starling Marte, Josh Bell and Francisco Cervelli each hit their second homer. Erik Gonzalez has been slumping this spring, but he went 3-for-3 last night to raise his average to .214 through 28 at-bats. Adam Frazier had two hits, a walk, an RBI and a run scored.

Austin Meadows was the lead-off hitter for the Rays. He went 2-for-3 with two singles.

Saturday’s Action

The Pirates are in Lakeland this afternoon to take on the Detroit Tigers. Today’s a 1:05 PM start time and Chris Archer will be making his third spring start. The top two hitters for the Tigers today are Josh Harrison and Jordy Mercer.

Here’s the lineup:

  1. Pablo Reyes 2B
  2. Patrick Kivlehan LF
  3. Colin Moran 3B
  4. Jose Osuna 1B
  5. Kevin Newman SS
  6. Jacob Stallings C
  7. Will Craig DH
  8. JB Shuck CF
  9. Bryan Reynolds RF

The late inning replacements (in order, same positions as above, minus the DH spot) will be Kevin Kramer, Alfredo Reyes, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Lucas Tancas, Oneil Cruz, Christian Kelley, Ryan Peurifoy and Brett Kinneman. The rest of the bench includes Arden Pabst, John Bormann, Adrian Valerio, Trayvon Robinson and Hunter Owen. This is the first spring game for Robinson, who signed earlier this month.

Archer will be followed by Michael Feliz, Jake Barrett, Clay Holmes, Geoff Hartlieb and Brandon Waddell. It will be the first appearance by Barrett since he was acquired earlier this month off waivers.

Sunday’s Action

The Pirates will be at home on St Patrick’s Day, likely sporting green uniforms against the Red Sox. Jameson Taillon will get the start, while relievers Nick Burdi, Francisco Liriano and Brandon Maurer will also see action. The game is at 1:00 PM and will be shown on AT&T SportsNet.

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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