Pirates Minicamp

DK has been bringing mostly good news from Pirates mini-camp. On Thursday, he reported that Burnett and JVB are both throwing and looking good.

"I'm like a kid in a candy store," Van Benschoten said, smiling. "It's like a whole new beginning, a new arm, new everything."

Burnett's a little further ahead in his surgery recovery and conceivably could make the rotation this spring.

Yesterday, DK had the Kip Wells angle. Colborn is working on instilling mechanical consistency and mental positivity into Erratic Kip.

"I can tell you Jim Colborn has had success in getting results out of pitchers with a lot less talent than Kip Wells," Tracy said.

Tracy speaks the truth, as Colborn somehow got a 1.25 WHIP out of Jose Lima, who BTW, claimed that he's had negotiations with the Bucs.

More good news comes today, with Jose Castillo reporting fully recovered. Plus Ollie's "whistling fastball after fastball in free and easy fashion." However, Colborn "cast a more critical eye" and busted Ollie's chops over the mechanics.

"The more experience Oliver gets, the more he'll know when to get funky and when to go with his standard stuff," Colborn said. "If he wants to do a Luis Tiant twist, go sidearm, whatever, that's fine by me. I don't have a problem with how Oliver Perez pitches. It's entertaining to me. And you don't want to get in the way of a guy's style. But my job is to help him understand what's strong and what's weak about what he's doing."

If Kip and Ollie rebound, and Duke and Maholm continue to excel, the Bucs could break .500 this year, even with all the new gimpy vets.