Hurdle: Jeff Karstens Likely To Stay In Rotation Until Ross Ohlendorf Is Back

Eh. I don't want to seem any less than ... vaguely grateful for all the tough spots Jeff Karstens has sort of bailed the Pirates out of in the past three years, and I'm not much of a fan of Brad Lincoln. But, as folks have pointed out here a couple of times recently, playing time is a resource for teams in the Pirates' position, in that you can use it to learn what you've got. There's nothing to be learned from having Jeff Karstens start. If the Bucs won't go with my preferred guy in Rudy Owens (and yes, there are decent reasons for them not to do that right now, and that's fine), they should at least go with Lincoln. Hopefully, later this year, Owens and others will be making it tough for even a semi-decent prospect like Lincoln to horn his way into the rotation, so the Pirates might as well start giving Lincoln some starts now while there's still space.

Anyway, Hurdle says he hasn't yet talked to Neal Huntington about the matter, so hopefully Huntington has other ideas.