Good afternoon from PNC Park where tonight the Pirates (1-0) take on the Cubs (0-1) in game 2 of the opening series of the 2014 campaign. Charlie Morton (7-4, 3.26 ERA in 2013) will make his first start of the season and will face Edwin Jackson (8-18, 4.98 ERA in 2013).
Hurdle’s Quotes
On the platoon situation at first base: “It won’t be a cookie cutter platoon. I do believe there’s better match-up opportunities for Gaby than this particular one today. Based on the spring he had last year, based on the spring Travis has had this year, I do try and read something into spring training swings to get some momentum to get some traction with the lineup. It’s a similar situation as right field, it won’t be a cookie cutter platoon as well. We’ll look at a bunch of different numbers, hard numbers, past history, analysis, projections and go from there.”
On the young landscape of the NL Central and the success of those teams: “Time will tell. Everybody plans on being in, everyone is building towards it. That’s the way we feel. The Cardinals have proven it for double-digit years. The Reds have proven it for the last handful. Brewers are just a few years removed from a playoff opportunity as well. The Cubs are mindful of what they need to do and how they need to get to a more competitive place and they are putting their best effort forward every day I do believe that the division will continue to be challenging. It will be strong. How strong? Time will tell. There’s good talent all over the game, so we’ll give it time to unfold.”
On the use of replay in Mondays game: ” I keep my expectations in check because this is all new and we had five opportunities in spring training to have practice games and three of them were rained out, one of them there wasn’t even a call and then there was a game in Little Fenway in Fort Myers where we did have a call and that went as I expected and the one game in Philly. Short sample size, I know the umpires are in, they are making every effort to make this work. I know the managers that I have spoken with are. We are going to make sure that we approach this representatively. We’re all going to learn a lot on this journey together and we’ll see where it goes. It’s already proved itself to be very interesting.
Other Notes
— Neil Walker’s walk-off home run on opening day was his first career walk-off home run of his career. Travis Ishikawa knew the ball was gone once it left Walker’s bat. “My arms went up faster than Walkers,” said Ishikawa.
In his last 10 regular season games, dating back to September 19, Walker has homered seven times, which includes a two-homer game in the 2013 finale on 9/28/13. He has gone 12-for-38 (.316) at the plate in that time.
— With A.J. Burnett and Francisco Liriano doing so in the past two years, the Pirates are just the third team in Major League history to have a pitcher strike out 10 or more batters on Opening Day in back-to-back seasons.
Walter Johnson was the first to do it with the Washington Senators in 1916-1917 and Randy Johnson was the most recent, doing so with the Diamondbacks in 2000-2001.
— In his last five starts at PNC Park in 2013, Charlie Morton went 2-0 with a 2.14 ERA (33 2/3 IN, 8 ER). He posted a 2.85 ERA (53 2/3 IN, 17 ER) in nine home starts overall last season.
Here is tonight’s lineups for the 7:05 first pitch:
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(Photo Credit: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
