Injuries & Cuts

Sounds nice, eh?

CUTS

Homer Bailey (yep, it's finally over, but he said he knew it was coming, and so did most people)
Kerry Ligtenberg (could have been a pretty reliable guy, but people were ahead of him)
Brian Meadows
Joey Votto (we'll see him)
Michael Gosling
Dan Conway
Ryan Hanigan

INJURIES

Gary Majewski (won't be ready for a while)
Griffey (not sure if he will start the season)
Billy Bray (better hurry up and get well, son!)
The Lizard (nothing major)
Gordo (duh, but getting closer)
Ryan Freel (minor)

Reds 3, Pirates 2

NOTABLE THINGS

Pitching: Livingston started and went 3.2/3 giving up 2 runs. He gave up 8 hits (!) but if you can limit that to 2 runs, that's pretty decent. He walked 1 and K'ed 4. So pretty well done again by Bobby. Jared Burton closed out his inning and pitched another, giving up a hit and K'ing 2. I like this Burton guy. Cormier, Coffey, and Coutlangus kept it going and Ligtenberg got the save, K'ing 1.

Hitting: Denorfia was 2/4 with a run scored and an RBI. About dang time. Extreme back-up catcher Ryan Jorgenson got the game-winning RBI. Dunn was 2/2. Jay Bruce did not impress, but what the heck is he doing up at camp anyway?

Fielding & such: After subduing the errors for a while, the Reds busted out with 3 of them. Castro, of all people, had an errant throw. Bruce misplayed a ball, and Machado had a bad throw. He, being Machado, also stole a dang base.

Devils 3, Hurricanes 2

Nice win. Big win. Important and all that.

It's nice to see Brodeur bounce back with a very great game. You know the guy can play, but when your team has won a few games but allowed a decent amount of goals scored on you, you don't think much about how great Brodeur is, you don't even really think of your goalie at all. But now with that sort of performance, it's like, "Hey, I'm still here." And he was all there, stopping 38 of 40.

Erik Rasmussen of all people got a huge goal in the third period, scoring right away. Sort of like Gomez, who scored right away at the beginning of the game. Parise made it 3-1 and thankfully the Hurricanes would only score one more goal. They had 22 shots in the third period, which is pretty inexcusable from the Devils standpoint, but Brodeur was up to the task, no doubts about it. Buffalo won, so first place is still pretty distant.