Indians Game Thread (Thursday): Justin Masterson will start for Tribe

The Indians host the Cubs in today's Cactus League contest. First pitch is scheduled for 3:05 ET. The game will not be televised, but audio from the Tribe's broadcast team can be found through MLB.TV. MLB.com also has a live box score that can be used to follow the action in (close to) real time.

Justin Masterson will start for the Indians. He's been in the news this week for reportedly asking the Indians for what would be a very reasonable contract extension, which would keep him in Cleveland through at least 2017.

Masterson will be followed by Aaron Harang, Trevor Bauer, C.C. Lee, and Scott Barnes The presence of only five expected pitchers means at least one of the starters is likely to go three innings, longer than any of them have gone to this point.

Today's starting lineup:

1) Michael Bourn (CF)

2) Nick Swisher (1B)

3) Jason Kipnis (2B)

4) Carlos Santana (3B)

5) Michael Brantley (LF)

6) Asdrubal Cabrera (SS)

7) Yan Gomes (DH)

8) David Murphy (RF)

9) Roberto Perez (C)

Eight of those nine have a pretty good chance of being in the lineup on Opening Day, and the batting order is probably pretty close to what we'll see regularly as well. I'd expect most of those guys to play about 5 innings today. Santana made a couple clean plays in his last opportunity at third base, and will hopefully get the chance to make a couple more today.