Good afternoon from PNC Park where the Pirates (14-20) begin a three-game weekend series with the St. Louis Cardinals (18-17). Francisco Liriano (0-3, 4.54 ERA) will again look for win #1 tonight against Michael Wacha (2-3, 2.55 ERA), who is making his first start at PNC since his dominating performance in game 4 of last seasons NLDS.
Suspensions Handed Out
MLB has made a ruling on the appeals from Travis Snider and Russel Martin. Both rulings were upheld and Snider will serve his two games tonight and tomorrow while Martin will serve his one game once he comes off of the DL.
Martin on if surprised about ruling: “Yes, because I didn’t win. From my understanding, I made contact with the umpire and that’s illegal, so i’ll just make sure not to come in contact with umpires. [MLB] were in accordance with me that there was no malicious intent towards the umpire. The umpire didn’t want me to apologize, he didn’t feel like I needed to apologize to him but, MLB felt the need to suspend me one game just because of my actions.”
Snider on his suspension: “First of all, I take full responsibility for my actions during what took place on that particular day. Most importantly, the reason why I appealed the suspension was just based on comparison of other fines that were handed out for other people that were involved. I’ve seen video a lot, I still haven’t seen myself throw a punch. Obviously, there was some physical action take during that, but if you compare the number of punches thrown and using the helmet and different things, we just discussed it’s kind of unfair in terms of how you compare a punch. Two games is something I don’t feel is unfair, it’s just something I have to accept and move forward with my career.”
Hurdle’s Quotes
On Brent Moral being the call-up: ” This was the move we felt we needed to make cause there’s lot of other things beside a guy just being a left-handed bat calling him up, weather it be roster, availability, if he’s on or not, you have to create room or designate if you’re going to activate somebody if he’s not on the active roster. We have talked about it all.”
DL Update
Russell Martin joined the team for their pre-game routine as he is working back off of the DL.
“I’m going to go on the field and stretch with the guys,” said Martin. “I’m going to start running a little bit and swing the bat and throw, so i’m going to do all of the baseball activities and we’ll see how I feel after that. If it all goes well, which I assume it is going to go well,you still have to wait till how I respond the next day, so tomorrow, we’ll see how I feel.”
Wandy Rodriguez and Jason Grilli also threw bullpens today and Clint Hurdle says Wandy is feeling good.
“[Wandy] felt fine, physically,” said Hurdle. “He was out throwing a bullpen today. I haven’t got the feedback from the bullpen session today. Grilli also was throwing a bullpen today and he was just finishing his up. From a physical standpoint, I think Wandy is in a good place.”
Tonight’s Pirates Lineup
First pitch is set for 7:05.
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