Gamethread: Liriano faces Twins

The Pirates will play their third straight game at McKechnie Field, facing Minnesota at 1:05 PM.  The lineup that was posted yesterday, again courtesy of piratesprospects.com, was:

1.  Josh Harrison, 2B
2.  Gregory Polanco, RF
3.  Andrew McCutchen, CF
4.  Starling Marte, DH
5.  Francisco Cervelli, C
6.  Jordy Mercer, SS
7.  John Jaso, 1B
8.  Sean Rodriguez, 3B
9.  Cole Figueroa, LF

The Twins' starter, Tommy Milone, is a lefty, but that counts for little as he'll probably just go through the order once.  The Pirates definitely seem to be taking Figueroa seriously as a potential utility player.  Also of interest was Neal Huntington's appearance on the FAN, in which he said Alen Hanson could start at second while they wait for Jung-Ho Kang to get ready.  Huntington said Hanson wasn't ready for the majors, but they wouldn't have a problem bringing him up to play for a few weeks.

The Pirates will send out a lefty for the fourth straight time, in this case Francisco Liriano.  Of course, again it's only for two innings so it doesn't really matter.  The other scheduled pitchers are Mark Melancon, Neftali Feliz, Curtis Partch, Rob Scahill and Trey Haley.  Haley was reaching the upper-90s in his first spring appearance.