Sports Night In Pittsburgh

Tonight we have game 5 of the Pens Flyers series..... WE CAN DO THIS!!! I have complete faith in the Pens today that they will continue with the momentum they created in game 4.  Neal and Adams will be back in the lineup tonight and hopefully that translates into a few more goals and the ability to shut down the Flyers.  I am also hopeful that game 4 helped Fleury build some confidence and that will help him shut down the net tonight... lets all keep our fingers crossed and think "brick wall Fleury BRICK WALL"

I can feel it, its going to be a great night in the City of Pittsburgh, Pens will win this one 6-4 and the Pirates will also pull out a win tonight, 3-2.  Those are my predictions.....

Pirates Take Series From Phillies

This past Easter weekend Pittsburgh showed Philly a little something..... on the ice and on the diamond.  Not only did the Penguins beat the Flyers but the Pirates..... yes the Pittsburgh Pirates after dropping their home opener took the last 2 games of the 3 game series from the Phillies.

Lets be honest did the Pirates look like they could win the World Series? No, but what gave me more hope than I already had (and as you all know a few weeks ago I declared we will have a winning season) was that they continued to fight and won both games by coming from behind.  Yet another positive take on this is that they faced some pretty dominant starting pitching and yet came out on top.

I also liked what I saw from our entire pitching staff.  The guys that came in for relief threw some great innings to carry on solid outings from the starting rotation.

I was also impressed with a few young guys who came through in clutch situations, Matt Hague, Alex Presley, and Yamaico Navarro.  Although Hague's Major League debut was nothing to brag about, his pinch hit appearance in a sticky situation allowed him to single in a game tying run.  Presley hit an RBI broken bat single that scored a game winning run, and Navarro stood strong in the batters box and didn't swing at pitches that weren't good.

I should mention that Pedro Alvarez also finally got a hit.... it happened to be a beautiful homerun which temporarily made me forget how strongly I feel against him being in the big league right now.  It was nice.....

If these young players can continue to step up when needed and can get a bit more backup from the rest of the team we may have some seriously exciting games on our hands this season. This very well could have been a horrible start to the season but I think the Pirates showed that they aren't going to just lay down and let everyone walk all over them, they are going to put up a fight!

For more articles on the Pirates click here!  (yes this is a shameless self promotion!)

William Gay to the Cardinals

Earlier today William Gay tweeted that "I'm #birdgang now west coast" to let all of Steeler Nation know that he is headed to Arizona. My reaction was immediately "awesome, now I can unfollow this fool".  Yea, I don't care for him, never did.  Even when he made a great play I gave him credit for the play but stuck by my opinion that he is not even close to as good as he thinks he is (or a lot of other people think he is).  He was way to inconsistent for my liking so I guess you could say that I'm not heartbroken at all over this move.  I actually think it's a great opportunity for the Steelers.

There are a few young guys that could take this opportunity to really shine, Anthony Madison and Keenan Lewis jump to mind.  Sure they are young and unproven but could really make an impact here now that they may get the chance.  I'd also like to see what Ryan Mundy can do on the corner.  I think the Steelers have some options here, including the draft.

Good luck out there in Pittsburgh West Willy...... I hope you enjoy the weather a little before you realize that the grass isn't greener in Arizona.

Hines Ward

Well, the announcement just came that Hines Ward will be holding a news conference at noon today at Steelers headquarters.  My gut says this is a retirement announcement, but as with everything else my gut has been wrong.  When the Steelers released him it sent a shock wave through Steeler Nation, although it probably shouldn't have.  His playing time was drastically cut last year as younger guys stepped up their game.  I guess fans (myself included) thought the Steelers would let him leave on his own terms after all those years but as we have found in many situations in the past the Rooneys know best.

It seems that since he has been on the free agent market I have heard zero talk about him ending up anywhere (other than the spoof about him becoming a raven before he was even technically released).  Thats right guys, zero talk, zero rumors, zero buzz at all.  Other teams just haven't (publically) been interested.  Thats why I feel like this is a retirement annoucement. Perhaps if it is then Pittsburgh can find room for him on their coaching staff?  I guess we will find out at noon today!