Our friends at weatherunderground.com tells us that there’s a 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms tonight at City Stadium for the opener of a three-game series between the Lynchburg Hillcats and Salem Red Sox. In theory, it’s a rematch of last year’s Mills Cup championship series, won by Lynchburg three games to none. In reality, it’s not. Salem is playing against the same uniforms, but of course, those uniforms are filled by players from an entirely different organization.

Just took a look at the radar, and there isn’t a whole lot of action right now, just a blob of green just to the northwest of Lynchburg. But rain tends to pop up out of nowhere at this time of year, so we’ll see.

Let’s first look at the lineups for tonight:

SALEM (3-1)

Peter Hissey cf (.188, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 1 SB)

Tim Federowicz c (.176, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 0 SB)

Anthony Rizzo 1b (.278, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 0 SB)

Ryan Lavarnway dh (.462, 0 HR, 1 RBI, 0 SB)

Will Middlebrooks 3b (.364, 0 HR, 1 RBI, 0 SB)

Alex Hassan lf (.222, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 0 SB)

Oscar Tejeda 2b (.462, 0 HR, 4 RBI, 1 SB)

Mitch Dening rf (.143, 0 HR, 1 RBI, 1 SB)

Jon Hee ss (.100, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 0 SB)

Stolmy Pimentel RHP (0-0, 0.00 ERA)

LYNCHBURG (2-2)

Dave Sappelt cf (.231, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 1 SB)

Josh Fellhauer lf (.308, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 0 SB)

Devin Mesoraco c (.429, 0 HR, 2 RBI, 0 SB)

Carlos Mendez 3b (.385, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 1 SB)

Alex Buchholz ss (.267, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 1 SB)

Neftali Soto 1b (.222, 0 HR, 1 RBI, 0 SB)

Kyle Day dh (.333, 0 HR, 1 RBI, 0 SB)

Cody Puckett 2b (.200, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 0 SB)

Justin Reed rf (.000, 0 HR, 0 RBI, 0 SB)

Lance Janke RHP (0-0, 0.00 ERA)

* Some lineup notes: Hillcats manager Pat Kelly tinkered with the order, batting Mesoraco third (he had been batting fifth). Clearly, the offense needs a jolt. The Hillcats scored 10 runs in the four games against Frederick, scoring no more than four runs in any one game. The Cats drove in just seven runs in the four-game series, struck out 27 times and walked 11. The team batting average is .239, and the only power came on solo home runs from Fellhauer and Puckett.

* The player in the deepest funk on the team? That would be Reed, who is hitless in nine at-bats and has struck out six times. Puckett has struck out five times in 10 ABs.

* SS Miguel Rojas was in the original lineup, batting ninth. But his right knee, hurt Saturday during a bang-bang defensive play at second base, is hurting, so he’ll sit out tonight.

AROUND THE ORGANIZATION
Monday’s results
MLB—Cincinnati 6, Florida 5 (10)
Scott Rolen homered twice and drove in the winning run with a 10th-inning single.

AAA—Columbus (Indians) 5, Louisville (Reds) 3
Daniel Dorn drives in all three runs for the Bats.

AA—Birmingham (White Sox) 7, Carolina (Reds) 3
Mudcats led 3-0 heading into the bottom of the fifth, but the Barons rally for seven unanswered runs.

HiA—Lynchburg was off

LoA—Bowling Green (Rays) 3, Dayton (Reds) 1
Andrew Means has two of Dayton’s three hits.

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Since this is Salem’s first trip to the Hill City this season, let’s look at the Baseball America top 30 prospects on Salem’s roster:

—No. 8 Anthony Rizzo, 1B: I wrote about Rizzo last year (check out the story here). He missed nearly the entire 2008 season while battling back from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He battled back last season, hit .298 with 9 homers and 42 RBIs in Greenville before moving to Salem, where he hit .295 with three homers and 24 RBIs in 55 games. He’s nearly matched that homer total in the first weekend this year, belting two against the Potomac Nationals. He’s competing with Lars Anderson to be the Red Sox’s first baseman of the future.

—No. 11 Stolmy Pimentel, RHP: Tonight’s starting pitcher, Pimentel has one of the odder names in minor league baseball. The Dominican Pimentel signed for $25,000 at age 16 and just turned 20. In three seasons in the lower levels of the Sox organization, he went 18-10 with a 3.41 ERA, 68 walks and 224 strikeouts. He was outstanding last year in the South Atlantic League, so the Carolina League should be a telling sign of where he goes next. He projects as a solid No. 3 starter in the majors. At his best, his four-seam fastball sits at 90-92 and touches 95. It features “explosive life up in the strike zone,“ Baseball America writes. He has one of the best changeups in the system and could be in the bigs by 2012.

—No. 19 Will Middlebrooks, 3B: A fifth-round pick in 2007 out of high school in Texarkana, Texas, Middlebrooks has been slow to develop. Baseball America’s assessment: “His power shows up more in batting practice, when he crushes balls to all fields, than it does in games. He falls behind in the count after passing up pitches he should drive. He can get confounded by breaking pitches, struggling against good ones and laying off hanging ones that are begging to be pounded.“ The struggles with pitch selection show up in the stats. Last season, Middlebrooks walked 48 times and struck out 123 at low-A Greenville.

—No. 21 Alex Wilson, RHP: Wilson was a second-round pick out of Texas A&M last year, but he started his career at Winthrop. Wilson’s best pitches are a curveball and a wipeout slider. He got a chance to get his feet wet last year in the New York-Penn League and dominated at Lowell, going 0-1 with a 0.50 ERA in 13 starts. He walked seven, struck out 33 and held opponents to an .085 average. The Hillcats will miss Wilson during this series. In his first start this season against Potomac, he was pounded for seven hits and five earned runs in 3 2/3 innings, one more earned run than he allowed in 36 innings in the NYPL.

—No. 22 Tim Federowicz, C: Federowicz is back after reaching Salem at midseason last year. He’s the best defensive catcher in the Red Sox system and hit well at low-A Greenville (.345, 10 HR) but struggled at the plate last year at Salem (.257, 4 HR). “He’s a streaky hitter who can get pull-happy,“ writes Baseball America.

—No. 28 Ryan Dent, 2B/SS: Dent’s not in the lineup tonight. A first-round (supplemental) pick out of Long Beach State in 2007, Dent has slowly moved his way up the organizational ladder, but hitting has been a major struggle. He hit .154 in 58 games at Lowell in the NYPL in 2008 and improved to .252 last season in Greenville. In a short stint in Salem, he hit .268. Dent was voted Boston’s minor league defensive player of the year last year.