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Pirates Spring Training: Chris Snyder To Start Year On DL, James McDonald Pitches Bullpen Session

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Rob Biertempfel has a couple of notes on Pirates catcher Chris Snyder and pitcher James McDonald this morning. Snyder has back issues that the Pirates said yesterday were likely to cause him to have to begin the year on the disabled list. Today, his locker at the Pirates' Spring Training facility in Bradenton is empty, which Biertempfel takes to mean that he's definitely going on the disabled list. Assuming that's the case, Ryan Doumit and Jason Jaramillo will assume catching duties until he returns.

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Also, Biertempfel reports that McDonald (who has an injury to his side) pitched a bullpen session today and didn't have any problems. He'll pitch in a simulated game on Thursday, and after that the Bucs will decide whether he'll be ready to start the season. That could be the last big piece of roster uncertainty for the Pirates, whose entire roster is set other than two bullpen spots (one of which appears very likely to go to Garrett Olson anyway). If McDonald were to have to miss time, an entirely new set of questions would have to be answered.

Photographs by dizfunk used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.