I know no one likes to hear excuses, but between finishing up lab work before I head to Florida on Friday, trying to get everything together for the trip, the Penguins game in Raleigh tomorrow night (er, crap, later tonight, where does the time go?), team primers for FanHouse, and a huge FanHouse piece that I'm probably unheathily excited about writing, I'm just really short on time this week. So for right now, I've got a few quick (and I do mean quick) thoughts on last night's televised Pirates/Orioles game, plus some links that I've been meaning to share for a while.

First, last night's game:

• When Pedro Alvarez makes contact with the ball, it explodes off of his bat. Even his flyout to the warning track in his second AB was awesome in the sort of way that an Andrew McCutchen groundout that should be routine but he turns into a bang-bang play is awesome. But it's only fair to also note that his last AB, against veteran lefty Will Ohman, was terrible. Ohman completely twisted and turned him around for an easy strikeout. He's still got things to work on in Triple-A.
• Dan McCutchen needed 18 pitches to cruise through two perfect innings. You're up, Mr. Hart.

RJ Anderson at FanGraphs just spent two pieces examining the chances of Rajai Davis stealing 80 bases for the A's this year. Could you imagine how incredibly fast an outfield with Davis, Nyjer Morgan, and Andrew McCutchen would've been? Would a fly ball ever land for a hit with all three of them out there? It's best to never think of the trade that sent Davis to San Francisco ever again, I think.

Great post by Joe Posnanski about the Rule 5 draft, which talks quite a bit about Branch Rickey's hand in rebuilding the Pirates in the 1950s. Can you imagine what would've happened if the Pointy-Haired Blogger existed while Rickey was sacrificing wins left and right to stash talent?