In case you're not following today's Pirates/Blue Jays spring training game, the Pirates used Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon back-to-back in the first four innings today. Cole struggled a bit in the first, but breezed through the second. Taillon was apparently awfully impressive in the third and the fourth, as it lead to this tweet from Jayson Stark: 

Taillon zipped thru 2 IP so easily, may not need to shower, allowing just check-swing IF single. "Like him better than Cole," said one scout

— Jayson Stark (@jaysonst) February 28, 2014

It's like the Pirates let them pitch back-to-back today just to tantalize us. Indianapolis doesn't come to Durham until the end of June; on one hand I'd love for Taillon and Polanco to both be on the team then, and on the other, I won't mind at all if they're not. 

This interview with Stetson Allie at FanGraphs is really honest and awfully interesting. 

I suspect that Chris Stewart vs. Tony Sanchez is a discussion that a lot of us are going to be having for quite a while this year. For his part, Sanchez seems to have accepted that he's not going to make the team out of camp and doesn't have many hard feelings about it. 

Joe Posnanski interviews Michael Schur (better known by some as Ken Tremendous). Internet baseball nerds rejoice!

I wanted to say something about Nick Adenhart yesterday, but I couldn’t really find any words that felt right for something so sad and senseless. Vin Scully (as transcribed by Will Leitch) put things into perspective.

Via DK’s blog, here’s the local recap of Pedro Alvarez’s professional debut.

And while we’re on the Minor League watch, Andrew McCutchen and Brian Bixler both had two hits last night, and both of them tripled in the Indianapolis Indians’ opener. And Indy lost 16-5.

The Pirates will honor the three fallen police officers by wearing PBP caps and a patch at the home opener on Monday.