In addition, in an unexpected move the team has DFA’d Hayden Penn to make room on the 25 and 40 man rosters for Brian Burress, who will start tonight in place of Ross Ohlendorf.  Ohlendorf has been scratched due to back spasms, but the team thinks he will be ready for his next start.  All of this, and much more detail can be found in here in MLB.com beat writer Jen Langosch’s post about the subject.

Penn was hardly with the team for long enough to know his name, he was claimed off waivers during the last week of Spring Training, and he struggled in 3 appearances to the tune of 30.86 ERA.  I’m curious why the team picked Burress to start (without looking closely at the AAA rotation, my guess is he may have been the only option available), but his stats are far from impressive and I’m not expecting much from him.  Let’s just hope he can keep the team in the game tonight and that Ohlendorf isn’t out for more than 1 start.

EDIT: Jen Langosch has the reasoning for why Burress was the one called up in her game preview post.  Basically, due to an obscure MLB rule, at this early point in the season guys already on the 40 man can’t be called up without placing someone on the DL.  The Bucs aren’t ready to put Ohlendorf on the DL, so that rules out Veal, Hart, Lincoln, and Jakubauskas.  Burress was scheduled to start tonight for Indy anyway, so giving him the call made the most sense.

About a week ago I posted about Joel Hanrahan’s injury.  Today we got some good news on that front, as it was announced that his latest MRI revealed no structural damage to his injured throwing elbow.  There is still no hard time-table given for his return, but the terms “dissipating inflamation” and “no structural damage” are both very good things, and should mean he’ll be back sooner rather than later.

This one is behind a pay-wall, ESPN insiders only, but Buster Olney seems very bullish on the potential of this Pirates line-up, especially the power potential of Garrett Jones and Pedro Alvarez.  There is also a note in there about Paul Maholm altering his pre-game routine to conserve his energy for later innings.

Just heard this now, literally as I was writing this post.  Charlie Wilmouth of BucsDugout is going to be on the FanGraphs Audio podcast (they mention it at the end of the linked episode) on Thursday.

I’m not quite sure what it is about this pirates administration, but I think they have a tendency to get caught up in the moment and speak a bit more freely than they should be.  The latest example of this, Frank Coonelly today says that “2010 is the beginning of the next dynasty of the Pirates.”  Really?  I truly believe this team is heading in the right direction, but Dynasty?  As they say on NFL PrimeTime, Come on, Man!  Edit: I forgot to note this originally, but in that same post, Chuck Finder also adds that Neal Walker is being turned into a super-utility player, something I’ve speculated about in the past.

Finally, something I really enjoyed seeing this week was this tweet from Rob Biertempfel about the energy CF Andrew McCutchen gives this team.  Looking back to when he was called up last year, and that was expected of him at that time, he has met or exceeded all of it.  Its easy to dream on how great a player this kid can be, and I’m glad to hear that he’s the one providing the team its energy.

Vazquez is supposed to be ready for opening day, but if that scheduled gets pushed back some, that would open up an extra spot on the bench to open the year until Vazquez can go.  While some have speculated that he was on the fence to make the team to begin with, my personal feeling is that he was a lock for a bench spot due to his salary and veteran presence.  Either way, the injury may cloud his status a bit as we move toward opening day.

Hanrahan’s injury is much more serious, as he is scheduled to see Dr. James Andrews next week, which is almost never a good sign.  Hanrahan, one of the few bullpen holdovers from last season, will likely miss at least the beginning part of the season.  Hanrahan was projected to be a set-up man this season, and who fills that role is hard to say at this juncture, but at the very least it just makes the backend of the bullpen a little less certain and opens up an extra spot for one of the many NRIs.

Since I didn’t see any of the game, and only heard bits and pieces, I’m not going to try to provide any deep analysis.  I have 2 points I want to make here though.  First, Matt Capps is not the same pitcher right now as he has been in the past.  I think I’ve said this before on this blog, but I’ve never really been a believer in Capps.  At his best, he has good velocity and great control on his fastball, but he doesn’t really have a second pitch.  I like that in an 8th inning guy, but you can’t be an elite closer without an out pitch.  Right now, and for large stretches of this year though, he has not been at his best.  That control has been largely missing this year.  Add to that a decrease in velocity and what you have is a guy out there throwing meatballs.  There are 2 key numbers that illustrate the difference from this year to last.  First, he is throwing far fewer fastballs this year when compared to last.  Last year, he threw his fastball 78.6% of the time.  This year, its down to 70.9%.  That’s a huge difference, which indicats that he doesn’t trust his fastball as much this year.  The second number is his BB/9 rate.  Last year it was .84, this year its 3.19, almost 4 times higher.

Essentially, my point here is this.  Matt Capps should not be the closer for this team right now.  One of the things this management group has harped on over and over again is accountability.  This is a perfect opportunity to show they are serious about it.   Capps isn’t good right now and both Joel Hanrahan and Jesse Chavez are pitching well.  One of those two should be given the chance to close and perhaps a move like that would take some pressure off of Capps and allow him to figure out what is wrong.

The second point I want to make is about Andrew McCutchen.  He may end up being the savior of this franchise.  OK, I realize that’s premature, and that it will take much more than one player to make this team a contender.  Seriously though, his play has been nothing short of spectacular, way exceeding the expectations I had for a 22 year old rookie on a bad baseball team.  He absolutely deserves to be the NL rookie of the year, and when you look at his numbers compared to the other contenders (Dexter Fowler, Colby Rasmus), he should be the only position player in the discussion.  If your a fantasy player, take him early next year, because he’s going to give you 20/20 with a .290 average and 90 or so RBI’s.