Pittsburgh Pirates Decision On Wandy Rodriguez Lingers

Wandy performs Pilates to try and loosen his hamstring on Tuesday night.

Looking ahead to the weekend series with the Reds, the Bucs have set two of their three starters.  A.J. Burnett will pitch on his free shirt giveaway Friday night.   Lefty Jeff Locke will pitch on Saturday.  It’s not been ruled out that Wandy Rodriguez won’t go Sunday, but it would seem unlikely after the southpaw left his start on Tuesday with a hamstring.

After an off day tomorrow, the Pirates have a 20-game stretch and skipper Clint Hurdle has gone on record as wanting everyone to get an extra day of rest so should Rodriguez not be able to go, James McDonald won’t be an option as reported by Tom Singer.

"“We have every inclination to keep McDonald and (today’s starter) Jonathan Sanchez in place for St. Louis, I don’t want to move them up. As we get into this 20-game set, I want go get everybody an extra day [of rest].”"

Gerrit Cole isn’t an option, but Phil Irwin, Kyle McPherson and Kris Johnson are the options from Triple-A Indianapolis.

"“We want to give Wandy time to see if he can make that start.  We’ll know as we get close to the weekend whether he’ll be able to go. If not, we anticipate a spot start — we’ve got options internally, or it may be one of our guys in Triple-A.”"

Spot starter options would be:  Chris Leroux, Jeanmar Gomez and Justin Wilson.  We really like the Wilson option if he doesn’t have to pitch today in Arizona.