Pittsburgh Pirates: Club Finalizes Their Opening Day Roster

With today marking Opening Day 2021, the Pittsburgh Pirates have officially finalized their 2021 26-man Opening Day Roster. Here is how it will look.

Over the last few weeks, the Pittsburgh Pirates have made moves to finalize their Opening Day roster.  The club assigned Wilmer Difo, Chase De Jong, and Brian Goodwin to minor league camp.  They further told Todd Frazier would not make the Opening Day team, with the club choosing Phillip Evans, but after opting out Frazier was brought back and will be at the Alternate Site.

The team still had some moves to make, having 28 on their active roster so two additional moves were coming.  Well, those moves were announced today with Jason Mackey tweeting the following:

Steven Brault to the 60-day makes sense given that he won’t be back for at least two months between the injury and the revamp process.  Him being moved to the 60 opened up the 40 man spot for Clay Holmes, who pitched to a 0.00 ERA in 9.2 innings this Spring.  After missing almost all of last year, Holmes was a non-roster invite to Spring.  The other move was Cody Ponce to the 10-day as Ponce has experienced some forearm issues, though he hasn’t stopped throwing.  Luis Oviedo made sense to make the club being a rule five pick, so the Pirates would have had to offer him back to Cleveland if not on the club.

This leaves the following as the 26-man Opening Day roster: Jacob Stallings (C), Michael Perez (C), Colin Moran (1B), Phillip Evans (UTIL), Adam Frazier (2B), Erik Gonzalez (SS), Kevin Newman (SS), Ke’Bryan Hayes (3B), Bryan Reynolds (LF), Anthony Alford (CF), Gregory Polanco (RF), Dustin Fowler (OF), Tyler Anderson (SP), Mitch Keller (SP), Chad Kuhl (SP), JT Brubaker (SP), Trevor Cahill (SP), Richard Rodriguez (RP), Chris Stratton (RP), Michael Feliz (RP), Sam Howard (RP), David Bednar (RP), Duane Underwood Jr (RP), Wil Crowe (RP), Luis Oviedo (RP), Clay Holmes (RP).

In terms of the Opening Day lineup, Chad Kuhl will get the start against Kyle Hendricks with the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup:

1. Adam Frazier (2B)
2. Ke’Bryan Hayes (3B)
3. Bryan Reynolds (LF)
4. Colin Moran (1B)
5. Kevin Newman (SS)
6. Gregory Polanco (RF)
7. Jacob Stallings (C)
8. Anthony Alford (CF)
9. Chad Kuhl (P)

The game starts at 2:20 PM EST on AT&T Sports Network.  With the season getting underway, be sure to follow along on the site and the Twitter account (@rumbunter) to keep up to date with news and analysis of the 2021 Pittsburgh Pirates.