Friday, May 20, 2011

Pre Games Notes And News

-- Getting near game time; late lineup card today. The Pirates will send Jeff Karstens out against the Tigers' Brad Penny at 7:05 PM; Root Sports will televise the action.

-- The lineup: Andrew McCutchen CF, Jose Tabata LF, Garrett Jones RF, Neil Walker 2B, Lyle Overbay 1B, Ryan Doumit C, Brandon Wood 3B, Ronny Cedeno SS, Jeff Karstens P.

No Pedro tonight; Colin Dunlap of the Post Gazette reported that he saw him doing some jogging on the field before the lineup was made, so he may be having some more problems with his leg tightening up on him.

-- We'll see if Clint Hurdle can reverse the interleague curse as well as he has the road woes. The Bucs were 2-13 against the Junior Circuit in 2010, and they're 73-123 all-time, the worst record in the majors.

-- There's some internet flap about Tony Sanchez giving up his Twitter account at the behest of the Bucs after bad-mouthing an ump on it. The blurt cost him a three-game benching, and if the Pirates told him to tweet like an big kid instead of a brat, hey, somebody gotta be the grown-up, right?

-- Stetson Allie is hanging out in Florida at Pirate City instead of pitching for real like his draftmate Jameson Taillon. There shouldn't be an issue with that; the Pirates were perfectly clear that a) he needed more work mechanically and on conditioning than JT, and b) he was going to start his career at short-season State College, which has yet to begin its season.

-- The Indy Indians will sport pink jerseys with gray pinstripes for Breast Cancer Awareness Night this evening, and then auction them off to raise funds to fight the disease.

-- High school pitcher Dylan Bundy, this year's Taillon, is leaking out to the national media that he wants a 6-year/$30M contract and that there are certain teams he doesn't want to draft him (Pittsburgh supposedly among them) because *ahem* they don't include long-toss as part of their development program. Sounds to us like his agent, Jay Franklin, is trying to steer his client to a deep-pocketed club.

Can't blame him. With a new contract between the league and union being negotiated, there may be a hard slot in place for future drafts, effectively killing the prep players' golden goose.

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