Pittsburgh

Jenifer Langosch/MLB.com Matt Adams has dented the starting lineup for just the second time since coming off the disabled list May 7. He went 2-for-3 with a home run off Milwaukee’s Marco Estrada back in April. Carlos Beltran — 1-for-8 in his career against Estrada — gets the day off. This will be Estrada’s third start of the year against the Cardinals. He lasted only 3 1/3 innings on May 5. Lance Lynn is coming off a career-high 124-pitch outing earlier in the week. Manager Mike Matheny said that will not hesitate to push Lynn again today, but as we saw with Shelby Miller and Adam Wainwright earlier this week, the leash could very well turn out to be shorter than usual. CARDINALS LINEUP: Matt Carpenter (2B) Jon Jay (CF) Matt Holliday (LF) Allen Craig (RF) Yadier Molina (C) Matt Adams (1B) David Freese (3B) Pete Kozma (SS) Lance Lynn (RHP) BREWERS LINEUP: Norichika Aoki (RF) Jean Segura (SS) Ryan Braun (LF) Aramis Ramirez (3B) Jonathan Lucroy (C) Carlos Gomez (CF) Yuniesky Betancourt (1B) Jeff Bianchi (2B) Marco Estrada (RHP) Follow me on Twitter: @LangoschMLB

Chase d’Arnaud is finished with his rehab in Bradenton. Photo by Mark Olson Chase d’Arnaud spent the last two days with the Bradenton Marauders, starting his rehab from a thumb injury in Spring Training. D’Arnaud torn the ligament in his thumb back in March, and underwent surgery in the middle of the month. At the time it was recommended that he have surgery to make sure everything was put back in place. “It’s a good thing that [the surgery] happened, because it ended up being completely torn once they opened me up,” d’Arnaud said of the procedure. D’Arnaud is now back on the field, and officially on his rehab assignment. The assignment started on Thursday, and gives him up to 20 days before the Pirates have to activate him from the DL. That puts his eventual return from the DL no later than June 5th. D’Arnaud has options, so the Pirates could send him to Indianapolis when he’s ready. He could also provide a good short-term option off the bench, since he has done well against left-handers in his career, and the Pirates don’t have a lot of guys who have had success against lefties. On Friday, d’Arnaud looked good, going 2-for-3 with a walk, a triple, and a stolen base. He was making a lot of plays happen with his speed. In his first at-bat he beat out an infield single to shortstop, then stole second base. In his second at-bat he lined one into right-field, then went from first to third when the ball got past the right-fielder, who made an ill-advised dive toward the low liner. D’Arnaud later drew a walk, and took second base on a wild throw from first after a pick off move. The play would have been close with a good throw. On the field, d’Arnaud looked sharp, with one diving stop, and another difficult play deep in the hole that just missed the runner at first. “I feel really good,” d’Arnaud said after the game. “All the time that I put in this off-season is still paying off, even though I was slowed down by injury. I’m starting off with good plays and a good foundation. I feel pretty good right now.” After his surgery, d’Arnaud took about three weeks before he could do anything involving strengthening his hand. He has a scar in the area between his thumb and index finger, which was sore to the touch at first. That made it hard to swing a bat, and d’Arnaud wore a ring around his finger to add some separation and avoid irritating the scar. The scar isn’t tender now, but he still wears the ring to avoid irritation. “It was a gradual process, and every week we pushed a little further and pushed through the pain, and I guess that’s the only way to really get rid of scar tissue,” d’Arnaud said. There was a brief set-back last week when he was hit in the wrist in an extended Spring Training game up in Tampa. After the bus ride back to Bradenton, d’Arnaud’s wrist was stiff. He had X-Rays, but it was determined that it was only a bruise. His rehab time with Bradenton ended yesterday. D’Arnaud will now go to Altoona, where he will probably rehab for about a week.

Source: CBS Pittsburgh » Steelers The post Whaley On What He Learned From Steelers appeared first on Pittsburgh Steelers Blog - NFL - PlanetSteelers.com.

The game doesn't start for quite a while, but I'm going to be on at MLBTR through the afternoon and evening, so I'll post this now. Erik Bedard returns to PNC as a member of the Astros, and he'll face A.J. Burnett. Since it's Bedard, I'm sure the game will still be going on when I finish working at midnight.

It’s not like I feel younger, but I could swear it’s 1997 again. Congressional Republicans are hamstringing another 2ndterm Democratic president with an endless series of whipped up scandals and hearings. Last time, they basically created their “scandal” out of thin air, until the Executive Hummer fell into their laps. This time, I’m sad to say they have a little more material to work with. Not much, but enough to run out the clock until 2016.It’s all they have, really. The Dow is at record levels, unemployment is decreasing, and the economy is recovering… all things that the GOP said Obama’s policies would prevent. So rather than admit they were wrong and attempt to further help the American people, they jumped back on the Scandal Bandwagon, to help their own political fortunes in the next mid-term and presidential elections.The so-called Liberal Media” has been showing how much of a myth that term is by leading with this stuff for weeks, so I’m not going to go into all the details about the three “scandals” going on. I’m just going to let you know what I think.BenghaziThis is the oldest of the three faux-scandals; the one the Republicans bring out every so often like a favorite binky. This one was 100% bullshit when it first came out and it’s still 100% bullshit. It’s merely a way to tie up the Obama presidency and at the same time, throw some stink on Hillary Clinton, whom they are afraid will run in 2016. Here’s how you can tell:In other words, it’s only a problem if it happens under Obama. I’m willing to bet you’ve barely even heard about any of those other embassy and consulate attacks. I know I haven’t, and I’m a news junkie. If they really cared about lives lost on “American Soil,” it would have been an issue under the Bush administration. It wasn’t… not even close.Also note how they never own up to their ownculpability in cutting the embassy budgets. Where’s the investigation into that? Yes, it’s a tragedy that good lives were lost at Benghazi. But the lengths the GOP is going to tar the President with it are ridiculous. This is a grade-A case of “Clean out your own closet first.”And to make matters worse, it has now come out that the Republicans were providing doctored email transcriptsto network news reporters, that casted the Administration in a negative light. So when the Administration released the full emails and the GOP selective editing was revealed, they were made to look like the partisan hacks they are. Can there be any doubt about the lengths they will go to make this president (and possibly the next) look bad?IRS Scrutinizing the Tea PartyAt first, I was like, “It’s about freakin’ time! Why the hell should a party spending money hand over fist trying to cut their own taxes be given tax-free status?”But yes, I agree that all such filings should be handled with consistency. It’s un-American not to do so, unless, of course, the Republicans are doing it.Remember what happened in Bush’s Justice Department? They had directives (from the top) to pursue election fraud cases, but only where they implicated Democrats. This was a case of using a government agency to hinder political opponents. How is that not exactly the same principle as in the IRS case?There are a couple key differences though… In the Justice case, that was part of an entire re-fitting of the department, where Republicans were brought in exclusively to populate key positions, in what is supposed to be an apolitical organization. Their orders came from the White House.With the IRS case, it appears that the extra Tea Party attention started from the bottom, up, in a field office in Cincinnati. That’s what makes it a stretch to try to tag the President with it. Sure, he has technical responsibility, given his position at the top, but he had no practical information.What if I decided that when I go back to work on Monday, I was going to start breaking some kind of banking or financial law? Technically, the President of our

Game One saw Evgeni Malkin making moves. Game Two? Sidney. Effing. Crosby. Crosby registered his second career playoff hat trick, and the Pens hung on to win 4-3. If you could sue players for embarrassing you, Erik Karlsson would have like eight lawsuits against Crosby. Game Two is always about taking a team's best shot after you beat them in Game One. The Senators didn't really get a chance to throw any punches, though. Craig Anderson, who was heavily lauded before the series, got sent to the showers early. If it wasn't for Robin Lehner, the Senators may have been blown out. Two of the best players in the game at their respective positions went head to head, and Crosby prevailed over Anderson. At the other end, Tomas Vokoun didn't have his best game, but he made two huge saves on breakaways in the second period. And get ready for the Senators to start complaining about officiating. The Pens had six power plays to the Senators' two. Recap: FIRST PERIOD It was all Pens early. Crosby started the game flying. Malkin followed up with a great shift of his own. Three minutes in, Crosby just lamp-posted Karlsson. Malkin hit the post not too long after. The Senators took a penalty at 6:15 of the first. Then another one at 10:19. But they used their strong penalty kill to build momentum. And then they finally got a call. Malkin got whistled for hooking because Marc Methot is apparently a ref now. Kyle Turris responded with a goal, one that Vokoun wants back. 1-1 all of a sudden. But three minutes later, Crosby erased all of the Sens' hard work. Coming down the left wing, Crosby waited out Karlsson and then caught Anderson cheating. 2-1. Yikes. Other things that happened in the first: Mario's suit: If this was 2005, Mario's suit would have its own Facebook group. Chris Kunitz's face got mauled by a high stick: It definitely seemed like Neal-Malkin-Iginla had a scoring chance every period. Neal hit the crossbar in the first after a nice pass from Malkin. The Gulf Tower lit up after every Pens goal: SECOND PERIOD The second period was the wildest of the series thus far. Stuff happened early on when Cooke drew a penalty 49 seconds in. Moments later, Crosby added his third goal of the game. Troy Crosby lol. 3-1. That goal chased Anderson. And in came Robin Leach or something. But the Senators call themselves pesky for a reason. Colin Greening scored a semi-weak goal. 3-2. The next couple minutes after that featured Chris Neil being out of control. Letang and Neil both went to the box for jobbing. The Senators kept getting in their own way, though. LatinDress boarded Malkin and then called Malkin a diver. lol ok. Can't hit a player from behind. So odd a player would bitch about that call. The entire Ottawa bench was complaining, too. Can't wait till MacLean starts working the refs. The play was huge because it basically led to the game-winning goal. Just after the power play expired, Paul Martin put a puck on net, and Brenden Morrow tipped it home. 4-2. TURNING POINT Tomas Vokoun wasn't always great; he was great when he had to be. And he was great in a second period that saw him stop two Senators on breakaways. Huge. Huge. Huge. The first one came with the Sens shorthanded. Chris Kunitz had this happen to him: And the Senators flew down the ice. With Malkin on his horse in pursuit, Colin Greening got robbed by the left pad of Vokoun. The next save came with about 3 minutes left in the second after the Pens had built some shit up. Letan

Pirates fans realize that Starling Marte is something special.  The rest of the country is starting to see it too. Check out this link at Baseball Prospectus that details GIF by GIF Marte’s longest at-bat of the week against the New York Mets. We wrote about Marte recently, if you missed that…here it is. Starling Marte has been everything a Major League Baseball lineup could want from its leadoff hitter . Piles up hits? Check. Marte is hanging out with the big boys as he’s among the league leaders in hits with 36 Gets on base consistently? Check. Marte has hit safely in 22 of 27 games, and ten of his past eleven. Kills it with runners in scoring position? Check. Lefties can’t fool him? Check. A lot of people thought Marte could be a good big leaguer–few thought it could happen this quickly. Back in the off-season, we wrote about Marte as he was tearing up winter ball – we thought he would give Pirates fans reason for optimism this season. The critics said it’s one thing to be named MVP in the Dominican Series, it’s a completely different thing to be dominant in the bigs. It’s a fair point. It’s valid. But we counter with the fact that most of us have watched Marte much more than some of the national writers who have varied opinions on the Buccos outfielder. Now after a month of baseball, it’s hard not to think he could carry this team. We never thought we would be able to say that this quickly. The most important aspect of Marte’s hot start has been how consistent he’s been. The player who was signed for $85,000 by Rene Gayo has hit safely in all but five of his 27 games and has scored in seven of his last eight games. There was just one awful game we could point to as a critique. At that point, we thought teams were starting to make adjustments, starting to pitch him differently, feed him the off speed pitches, force him to chase. Nope – it was just a blip on the Martedar. Marte is a player Pirates fans are going to be excited to watch in 2013. Marte has made some adjustments on his own, and those are the important parts of his game that we must focus on as the season moves along. You have seen him shorten his swing and dump Texas Leaguers beyond the infield when pitchers get two strikes on him, and then you watch him clap furiously as he runs to first base. It’s as if a switch has been flipped. Marte can crush a ball out of any ballpark, but he also seems to have realized that sometimes a single is enough, too. Will he continue to try and work the bunt into his game? Does showing the bunt give him an advantage on the corners? It’s been one frustrating aspect of his game to watch. Starling Marte fascinates us. Our snarky Indians friend sent a text yesterday… ‘it’s nice that God recreated Roberto Clemente for you.’ It made us laugh. With Marte in the leadoff spot, the Pirates have become the “quick-strike” offense of MLB. We never want to miss a first inning, because Marte has dominated from the top spot – reaching base 18 times. It’s imperative the Bucs receive solid contributions from their second and third men in the order, because it’s not hard to imagine the Pirates can hit opponents with a quick run due to Marte’s ability to get on base–to get into scoring position before ten… hell, even before five pitches have been thrown. Once Marte reaches base, he has had above average success stealing bases, too. It’s one of the things that he wasn’t always proficient at in the minor leagues. But he saved his best moment for yesterday in the House of Horrors. Marte flashed his arm and gunned down Ryan Braun at third base, but Pedro Alvarez couldn’t come up with the ball. And later in the game, when a Brewers sweep loomed, and the Pirates needed a dramatic comeback. The kid delivered a booming home run. There isn’t much Starling Marte hasn&#

Latest blog post is up at Pacific Standard magazine.Theme: Attempting to explain why Portland's labor force dropped by 25,000 people, year-over-year, after years of robust growth.Subject Article: "Bureau of Labor Unemployment Statistics" for Portland, OR via Annalyn Kurtz.Other Links: 1. "'Portlandia' Is No Joke: The City 'Where Young People Go To Retire.'"2. "Seasonally Adjusted (Before 2000: CWIA,Since 2000: BLS) Pittsburgh MSA Labor Force - Monthly January 1970 to September 2012."3. "Field Of Dreams Portland."4. "Building Industry Clusters Via Brain Drain."Postscript: The sensational claim of "x place is dying" stirs up controversy. That is unless we are discussing a Rust Belt city. We intuitively know those places are dying. The contrast between Pittsburgh and Portland is ironic. Concerning the metric of labor force, Portland (not Pittsburgh) is dying.

This post is for the Sunday, May 19th, game in Pittsburgh. This game is posted early as it is an afternoon game. Today's Pitchers: Lucas Harrell (RHP, 3-4, 5.11 ERA, 1.78 WHIP) vs. Jeff Locke (LHP, 3-1, 3.15 ERA, 1.39 WHIP) The Game Rules: [ A ] Please put your prediction in the title line which should begin in the format: Pirates xx Opponent xx e.g. Pirates 5 Astros 3 Putting the Pirates score first, then the opponents score makes tallying points much easier. [ B ] Please make the full prediction, instead of a "+1" to someone else whose prediction you agree with [ C ] Don’t worry about minor spelling mistakes, like "Piartes". We can handle those. PERFECT GUESS 5 POINTS NAILING ONE TEAM SCORE 2 POINTS Please submit you guess by the official game start time. Update: The next scores update will be on Monday to celebrate the week seven winner! Thanks for playing, Good Luck, and Let's Go Bucs! This post is for the Sunday, May 19th, game in Pittsburgh. This game is posted early as it is an afternoon game. Today's Pitchers: Lucas Harrell (RHP, 3-4, 5.11 ERA, 1.78 WHIP) vs. Jeff Locke (LHP, 3-1, 3.15 ERA, 1.39 WHIP) The Game Rules: [ A ] Please put your prediction in the title line which should begin in the format: Pirates xx Opponent xx e.g. Pirates 5 Astros 3 Putting the Pirates score first, then the opponents score makes tallying points much easier. [ B ] Please make the full prediction, instead of a "+1" to someone else whose prediction you agree with [ C ] Don’t worry about minor spelling mistakes, like "Piartes". We can handle those. PERFECT GUESS 5 POINTS NAILING ONE TEAM SCORE 2 POINTS Please submit you guess by the official game start time. Update: The next scores update will be on Monday to celebrate the week seven winner! Thanks for playing, Good Luck, and Let's Go Bucs!

This post is for the Saturday, May 18th, game in Pittsburgh. Thank you for being patient with me over the last week. And, especially thanks to Turner Ward Hits the Wall and welytowngang for taking the initiative to keep the game going. I may need similar assistance during the week of July 4th as I will be spending the week out of town with family. But that discussion can wait. Today I intend to enjoy some normalcy. Today's Pitchers: Erik Bedard (0-2, 6.67 ERA, 1.67 WHIP) vs. A.J. Burnett (3-4, 2.73 ERA, 1.07 WHIP) The Game Rules: [ A ] Please put your prediction in the title line which should begin in the format: Pirates xx Opponent xx e.g. Pirates 5 Astros 3 Putting the Pirates score first, then the opponents score makes tallying points much easier. [ B ] Please make the full prediction, instead of a "+1" to someone else whose prediction you agree with [ C ] Don’t worry about minor spelling mistakes, like "Piartes". We can handle those. PERFECT GUESS 5 POINTS NAILING ONE TEAM SCORE 2 POINTS Please submit you guess by the official game start time. Update: First of I am going to ask you to confirm you scores going back to the Tuesday, May 14th game with the Brewers. I believe I have the scoring correctly, but with all the confusion from travel and IT issues, I can not be sure. I will delete the posts for 5/14 to 5/17 tomorrow as the Fan Post front page is getting a little clogged with GSG posts. On Tuesday, GSG scorers had a season high 26 points total. MDBuc and BobDH had game scores, while weltytowngang, JCBucs, and j1066 guessed the Bucs score. The Brewers score was guessed by cg44, God Loves, Clutch22, pittbluedevil, and Da Wolf at the door. Wednesday, was quieter with Clutch22 guessing the game score and Chiburgh guessing the Buc's score. Thursday had GoBuccos, Clutch22, pittbluedevil, and Schide guessing a team score. Last night, Chiburgh, GoBuccos, and Schide guessed team scores. When all of this is added up, Clutch22 leads week seven with nine points with MDBuc and BobDH tied for second with five points. However, pittbluedevil, Chiburgh, GoBuccos, and Schide are close behind with four points. Overall, weltytowngang leads with Da Wolf at the door second. However, GoBuccos and Chiburgh are within striking distance of Da Wolf, only one and two points behind respectively. Schide is fifth, MDBuc sixth, Turner Ward Hits the Wall and God Loves are tied for seventh. BobDH and pittbluedevil round out the top ten with 17 points, but Clutch22 deserves mention for the recent rapid ascent up the standings and is only one point from the top ten. The next scores update will be on Monday to celebrate the week seven winner! Thanks for playing, Good Luck, and Let's Go Bucs! Season Totals Weekly Totals weltytowngang 36 Clutch22 9 DaWolf at the door 32 MDBuc 5 GoBuccos 30 BobDH 5 Chiburgh 29 cg44 4 Schide 26 pittbluedevil 4 MDBuc 25 Chiburgh 4 Turner Ward Hits The Wall 19 GoBuccos 4 God Loves 19 Schide 4 BobDH 17 Xenograft 2 pittbluedevil 17 God Loves 2 Clutch22 16 weltytowngang 2 curevefan 14 JCBucs 2 cg44 10 DaWolf at the door 2 GermanBucco 9 j1066 2 JCBucs 8 that412kid 6 Xenograft 6 Nikhizzler 4 Kevin Kraczkowski 4 JustinM 4 j1066 2 WillCallaway 2 Star(ling) Power 2 RDV across the sea 2 pton16 2 Maguro 2 C Shint 2 Aphthkid 2 afbassi 2 2010 will be the year 2 teddyrowe 2 Season Week 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd Place 1 pittbluedevil (7) weltytowngang (4) Tie x 3 (4) 2 Da Wolf (13) Go Buccos (9) Tie x 2 (5) 3 Weltytowngang (8) Da Wolf at the door (6) Schide & Clutch 22 (5) 4 GoBuccos (11) weltytowngang (10) Da Wolf (5) 5 Turner Ward (7) j1066