Pirates option Andrew Lambo

The Pirates made a series of cuts today. Most importantly, they optioned Andrew Lambo to Indianapolis, which means Gaby Sanchez and Travis Ishikawa will start the year at first base. They also optioned Jared Hughes and Jaff Decker, and reassigned Jay Jackson, Daniel Schlereth, Adam Wilk, Robert Andino, Omir Santos, Chris Dickerson and Michael Martinez.

This is, obviously, disappointing. Neal Huntington says Lambo needs to take "a deep breath," by which he seems to mean they want him to go to Indianapolis and hit the reset button. This move has much more to do with Lambo than with Ishikawa. It's still not impossible that the Pirates could make a trade, and I'm holding out hope that they can make one before Opening Day. If they don't, I wonder how they'll distribute playing time between Sanchez and Ishikawa -- a typical platoon arrangement would dictate that Ishikawa would get the majority of the at-bats, but I'm not sure I see that happening, given that he's a pretty run-of-the-mill minor-league veteran. My guess is that we'll see Sanchez get lots of at-bats against righties. Regardless of who gets them, the Pirates aren't likely to do well from the first base spot in the lineup with righties on the hill.