The Tampa Bay Rays will welcome the Pittsburgh Pirates Wednesday at Charlotte Sports Park, with Shane McClanahan getting the start against Steven Brault. First pitch is scheduled for 1:05.
Rays Starting Lineup
Meadows LF
B. Lowe 2B
Zunino C
Choi DH
Tsutsugo 1B
Wendle 3B
Franco SS
J. Lowe RF
Brujan CF
Pirates Starting Lineup
Goodwin CF
Tucker SS
Evans RF
Moran 1B
Difo 3B
Perez C
Wolters DH
Kramer 2B
Stokes Jr. LF
Local Broadcasters Back On the Tube, MLB Stream
Today’s game will be the first of 13 games televised by Fox Sports Sun, and the first of ten games to feature the Rays television crew. Dewayne Staats will have the play-by-play and Tricia Whitaker will provide in-game reports and interviews.
Neil Solondz will also have the call online, with the broadcast available on Raysbaseball.com and the MLB At Bat app (free account required)
Brujan The Center Of Attention
One of the team’s top infield prospects will get an opportunity to play at a different position, as Vidal Brujan, who has come up through the organization as a middle infielder, will start in center field today.
“I think we would have explored it a lot more last year if we were in more normal conditions,” manager Kevin Cash said Wednesday. “He’s a pretty electric player, physically with the speed, the arm, all those things.”
Cash said Brujan would only be used in center field when he’s not playing middle infield, and the 23-year-old seems excited that adding to his versatility will help him achieve his goal of making the big leagues earlier.
“Hopefully I can be the next [Kevin] Kiermaier, or even better,” Brujan said through translator Manny Navarro.
Even though he has been used exclusively as an infielder with the Rays, playing the the outfielder isn’t foreign to Brujan.
“I grew up playing all the positions, but as I got older I developed more as a shortstop obviously,” he said. “I got to play some time in the outfield in all three positions in the Dominican, and you just got to go out there and work hard.”
Steve Carney is the founder and publisher of St. Pete Nine. One of the people most associated with baseball coverage in Tampa Bay, he spent 13 seasons covering the Rays for flagship radio station WDAE, first as producer of Rays Radio broadcasts, then as beat reporter beginning in 2011. He likes new analytics and aged bourbon, and is the owner of one of the ugliest knuckleballs ever witnessed by baseball scouts.
