James McDonald Goes For The Pirates Against Red Sox

The Pittsburgh Pirates play the Boston Red Sox today, and James McDonald gets the start. JMac has pitched two innings against the Braves, three innings against the Orioles (six hits, three bombs as he focused on fastball command, four runs), four scoreless, one-hit innings against Tampa Bay (3 walks), and 5.1 innings against the Toronto Blue Jays in which he allowed five hits, three runs, and struck out five.

The innings-per-start keeps growing, and – when not looking lights out – JMac has used the old adage, ‘working on stuff.’ That seems fair to us and with the Bucs desperately needing a solid start of the season for their right-hander, it’s one we can believe in.

The lineup (in case you can’t see it on your mobile device) is as follows:

Starling Marte has hit safely in five of his last seven games gets the start in center, Felix Pie, the RBI leader with seven is in left field, Russell Martin has reached base safely in all nine games will be at catcher, Pedro Alvarez at third base, Neil Walker at second, team HR leader Gaby Sanchez at first, Brad Hawpe in right field, Ivan DeJesus (who we featured this morning) at shortstop and JMac on the bump.

Also scheduled to pitch are Jason Grilli (RH), Mark Melancon (RH), Bryan Morris (RH), Vin Mazzaro (RH) and Chris Leroux (RH).

The Pirates are off tomorrow, and get back into action on Wednesday with a 1:05 game against the Braves at the Wonderful World of Disney.

#McFear Kyle McPherson is expected to get the start in the land of the giant rat against the Braves Mike Minor.