Pirates Pitchers With Plenty To Prove Face Orioles, Electric Stuff Vs Red Sox

Charlie Morton will start against the World Champion Boston Red Sox today.

The Pirates spring training 2014 has been an early success.  The Bucs split squads today.  The bus heads to Sarasota with a majority of regulars at the top of the lineup.   Edison Volquez gets the start. The game will be on 93.7 The Fan if you’re out and about today.  Neil Walker will get some at-bats against another lefty.  Well that’s the goal at least, it didn’t work as planned yesterday when the Bucs jumped all over Matt Moore.

The Orioles lineup is still missing some pieces, but will be a good test for the Bucs.  Pitchers with plenty to prove could be the storyline for this game as following Volquez will be Brandon Cumpton, Jared Hughes, lefty Andy Oliver and Jake Brigham.  Volquez is still looking for a solid outing.  Cumpton can put some pressure on the fifth starter power rankings with Jeff Locke on the mend.

In the Shark Tank, Jared Hughes is fighting for a spot despite having an option left.  Andy Oliver just needs to somehow throw strikes.  Jake Brigham might have the worst career small sample size spring training career in the Bucs pen–10IP, nine walks, three hits batsmen, eight strikeouts and eight earned runs  Brigham has pitched three innings this year for Pittsburgh and given up three runs.

(tweets aren’t embedding correctly today–apologies)

Today’s #Orioles lineup vs#pirates: Lough 8,Cruz 7 Davis 3, Jones DH, Markakis9 Hardy 6, Wieters2, Flaherty 5, Schoop4 — Chen LHP

— Orioles 101 (@Orioles_101) March 9, 2014

The Red Sox will come to Bradenton to take on the game which will be televised on ROOT.

#Redsox vsPIT: JBJ CF, Hassan LF, Carp DH, Ross C, Holt 2B, BrentzRF, Cecchini3B, Shaw 1B, Marrero SS, Buchholz RHP. #RedsoxNation

— Mike Collins ⚾ (@collinsz10) March 9, 2014

Mar 4, 2014; Lakeland, FL, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Charlie Morton (50) throws to first base during the third inning of a spring training game against the Detroit Tigers at Joker Marchant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports

The Bucs lineup against the World Champions will feature plenty of left handed hitters for Bucholz to battle. The Bucs bench is bolstered with  Gregory Polanco who looked horrible yesterday, the red hot Russell Martin, Nevin Ashley, and Chris McGuiness who is still trying to open eyes.

Electric Stuff  Charlie Morton will take the hill.  Be sure to look for the new split change #ElectricStuff is working on against left handed hitters.

Southpaw Tony Watson is scheduled to be on the mound today as is closer Jason Grilli.   Right handed set-up man Mark Melancon, Zack Thornton and lefty Yao-Hsun Yang are also on the lineup card.

The morbid curiosity in me would like to see Volquez on television today. I just want to see if he can keep his head from bobbling as Pitching Coach Ray Searage spoke about this week. Sorta the anti-bobblehead?