Austin Meadows has three hits in the Pirates’ spring opener

It seems like spring training games came early this year, so early that it caught me by surprise. So this is a substitute for a gamethread, but we should have gamethreads up for the rest of the spring games.

Anyway, the Pirates, with probably only two regulars in the lineup (Colin Moran and Josh Bell) lost their opener, 6-3, to Tampa Bay. The good news outweighed the bad, though, as Austin Meadows went 3-for-3 with two doubles. Moran went 1-for-3 and the rest of the lineup stayed quiet. The damage all came against two pitchers, Alex McRae and John Stilson, who are deep, deep depth at best. Tyler Eppler fanned three over two scoreless innings, Yeudy Garcia and old friend Casey Sadler each put up one zero. And Damien Magnifico retired the two batters he faced in the start of his bid to become El Magnifico!