SLIPPERY ROCK — The Slippery Rock Sliders have arrived.

The Frontier League expansion team makes its regular season debut at 7:05 p.m. today at CONSOL Energy Park in Washington, Pa., against the Wild Things.

Caleb McConnell, a right-hander picked up in the league expansion draft, will pitch for the Sliders against Washington right-hander Aaron Ledbetter.

Ledbetter was 4-1 with a 2.12 earned run average in seven starts with the Wild Things last year and was 12-8 in the league overall. Washington won the league's Eastern Division in 2006 with a 59-37 record.

Slippery Rock High and Slippery Rock University graduate Jason Curry is batting fourth and playing right field for the Sliders. He also is the only Butler County player on the club's 24-man roster.

Curry had a home run, a double, a single and four RBI in the Sliders' first preseason game, a 6-4 loss at Washington.

"I didn't play him anymore after that," Jelks said. "He showed me he can play at this level and I didn't want anybody else to see what we had in him."

Curry is one of the few sources of power in the Sliders' lineup, which sports an attack geared for speed.

"We're going to hit-and-run, steal bases, run the bases well and manufacture runs every chance we can," Jelks said. "Everybody in this lineup can steal a base.

"Stealing isn't all about speed. It's about getting a good jump, reading the pitcher and knowing when to go. We've been spending a lot of time on that."

The Sliders' roster has players from 16 states, including infielder Cy Donald from Hawaii.

Left-hander Zac Cline, a teammate of Sliders pitching coach Adam Shafer in the Philadelphia Phillies organization last year, will start Slippery Rock's home opener Tuesday. He also will pitch the second game of this series Thursday night.

Also in the starting rotation are right-handers Caleb McConnell, Alex McEnaney and Nick Tracy, and left-hander Billye Hollister.

McConnell was selected in the Frontier League expansion draft, and McEnaney is the son of Will McEnaney, a relief pitcher with the Cincinnati Reds' world championship teams of 1975-76.

Tracy was signed after a tryout camp held at Critchfield Park in April.

"You always find players in those tryout camps," Jelks said. "There's plenty of talent out there that we just don't know about.

"What's surprising is we kept no one from the leaguewide tryout camp this year. Usually, every team finds two or three players from there, but the talent pool was low this time."