I'll feature some notes from Ben Cherington's weekly radio show here: 

• Cherington on the atmosphere of yesterday's game with a sellout crowd on hand to watch Paul Skenes pitch: "The event was something else. Seeing those lines, you can start to think ahead to a playoff game. That's what you want this environment to be. That's incredibly motivating because we want to get there. We want to win more games so we can do that, and believe we will." 

• Cherington compared it to when Pedro Martinez pitched for the Red Sox and games at Fenway Park felt like events. 

"There was an energy around the ballpark. ... We want to see those events because we're winning a lot and playing in October." 

• Cherington on what David Bednar worked on in Indianapolis: "It was really about locking those pitches in, both in terms of the quality of those individual pitches and getting into a consistent delivery where the quality of those individual pitches is on par with where we've seen him in the past. Then also being able to use them in the way he wants to be able to use them." 

• Cherington said Bednar went down and "absolutely sold out" to what he had to do on the field and as a teammate. He checked the boxes and did it pretty quickly. In his return appearance last night, he overcame allowing two hits to strike out two in a scoreless ninth inning. 

"We always knew we wanted him back on the team, but we thought he'd sort of tell us when that was going to happen, and he did. I was really encouraged with his outing yesterday, especially after that first hitter. I thought he did exactly what we know he's capable of doing." 

• Cherington on the confidence the club has in Carmen Mlodzinski as a starter: "We believe he can, but in this game, you're also betting on human beings, and he is a human being that we want to bet on because he has such a strong will to do things. When something's in front of him, he's shown an ability to take on the challenge, accomplish it and figure it out. This is the thing that's in front of him now. He's being given an opportunity, which is kind of a golden opportunity to get to do this in the big leagues. He's wanted that, he's done the work and he has the physical capacity to do that. Now he's got this challenge in front of him to figure out inside a major-league game, 'How do I get myself into the fifth and sixth inning and give this team a chance to win?' Looking forward to seeing him take that challenge."

• Cherington expects Brett Sullivan to head to Class AAA Indianapolis with Joey Bart getting past his back issue and Henry Davis on the team. After the injuries to Bart and Endy Rodriguez, the Pirates needed to find a competent major-league catching option and felt like they found that in Sullivan. Cherington said they'd feel confident calling Sullivan back up and utilizing him if they had to.

• He's not in the starting lineup, but Cherington said Enmanuel Valdez's shoulder injury is "relatively minor" and that he could appear in today's game if needed.

• Cherington said Tim Mayza felt something on the last pitch he threw on Friday night. They believe his injury is also "relatively minor."