You know things are getting serious in spring training when Buck Showalter actually has one of his regular starting pitchers facing off against a divisional opponent, as he is doing with Chris Tillman today.
Maybe it's because the Orioles won't face the Yankees in the regular season until May, so there's not necessarily much advantage to be gained by them seeing him today. Maybe it's also because the Yankees have a lot of non-regulars in their lineup today - although they probably won't be in danger of getting fined for this lineup either.
The Orioles, on the other hand, have a very regular season-looking lineup going here today, especially if Matt Wieters opens the season on the disabled list. I doubt we'll see many games where Chris Davis is the DH and Pedro Alvarez is in the field, but other than that, this could be right on. It's not how I'd order the squad, but it looks like how Buck would order them in a game that counts.
The lineup:
1. Manny Machado 3B
2. Pedro Alvarez 1B
3. Adam Jones CF
4. Chris Davis DH
5. Mark Trumbo RF
6. J.J. Hardy SS
7. Hyun Soo Kim LF
8. Jonathan Schoop 2B
9. Caleb Joseph C
SP - Chris Tillman RHP
This game will actually be televised on MASN, sparing us from only being able to follow a game on a crappy Pirates radio broadcast where one guy openly brags about not looking at spring training stat sheets and the two broadcasters spend a lot of time trying to figure out why a door is locked.