Happy Holidays

Will and I wish everyone and their families a joyful Easter/Passover.

-- Today's game will feature Kevin Correia and Jason Marquis, a pretty good match-up. Gametime is scheduled for 1:35 PM, and it will be shown on Root Sports. No word yet on whether the Easter Bunny will make an appearance at PNC to hawk Build-A-Bunny giveaway day.

-- The lineup: Andrew McCutchen CF, Jose Tabata LF, Lyle Overbay 1B, Neil Walker 2B, Garrett Jones RF, Pedro Alvarez 3B, Chris Snyder C, Ronny Cedeno SS, Kevin Correia P.

-- Livan Hernandez wasn't happy about the warm-up time he had before last night's game. He told George Von Benko, writing for MLB.com, that "It's difficult when you come to the park and you are waiting another hour or two hours. They got me quick, because they came in and said, 'Half an hour.' I didn't know it was going to be like that. They've got to do a better job and let us know. For the starting pitcher to come from the bullpen straight to the mound is not enough for me."

Colin Dunlap of the Post-Gazette also had a piece about the vet pitcher's beef, and Hernandez implied to his ears that Jeff Karstens had more time to prepare for the outing.

It took Pittsburgh a while, but the town finally got its' own Watergate. But geez, to GW half an hour seems like plenty of time considering the conditions. Maybe some sour grapes after being lit up rather than Bucco machinations is at the heart of this tempest in a teapot.

-- The rainy weather hasn't been very kind to either team. The Pirates will play 29 games in 30 days because of make-ups with 17 straight matches starting in early May, and the Nats are in the early stages of a sixteen game stretch without a break and a 32-games-in-33-days schedule ahead of them.

-- Michael Barr of Fangraphs ranks the third basemen in a post today. He has Pedro in the third tier of hot corner players, in some fairly respectable company - Michael Young, Mark Reynolds, Martin Prado and Casey McGehee - but still a couple of steps away from the elite.