Black and gold bytes

Hot or not?
Stanley Cup overview
Hot: The Red Wings look great
Not: The Red Wings look tired
Pirates power arm
Hot: Jesse Chavez
Not: Evan Meek
James Harrison character evaluation
Hot: Sullen and scary
Not: Intense overachiever
Response to the question: “Do you want to go to the Curve game?”
Hot: Is Lincoln (at left) pitching?
Not: Why?

Brown taking speed
If you bailed on the Penguins early Saturday (and who could blame you?) you may have heard Greg Brown make a passionate argument on the Pirates-Astros broadcast that the Bucs brass is doing the right thing in trying to become more “athletic.” He speculated the Pirates could have the three fastest players in baseball – Nyjer Morgan, Andrew McCutchen and Gorkys Hernandez – in their lineup within a few years. He didn’t mention that they’re all centerfielders without much power potential (as Cory Giger did in his Saturday Mirror column).

Going up/going down?
It looks to us like Ian Snell and Brad Lincoln could be crossing paths in a few weeks in mid-air somewhere over Ohio with Snell heading in the wrong direction.

Rotation equation
We’re not sure what the Pirates’ thinking is right now on Tom Gorzelanny (it seems to change daily), but in the long run he’s got to be a better option in the rotation than Ross Ohlendorf or Jeff Karstens, both of whom look like classic No. 5 starters.

Old wounds
The Steelers-Jags 2008 playoff game has been the NFL Network’s “classic” game for about two weeks now (the network is apparently on auto-pilot in the summer) and we’ve watched parts of it about eight times. We know the Steelers already received an apology from the NFL about the five missed holding calls (slight exaggeration) on David Garrard’s late-game, fourth-down scramble that keyed the Jags win, but there were so many other poor calls in that game that went against the Steelers (including one of the worst replay rulings in the history of replay rulings that negated a Santonio Holmes catch deep in Jacksonville territory late in the first half) that the league really should just pull that Lombardi Trophy out of the Giants’ case and send it to Pittsburgh.

Here and there
> It’s not often that Big Ben tweaks his knee in practice and it is the No. 3 sports story in Pittsburgh.
> For Neil Huntington’s next trick, watch him make Jack Wilson disappear!
> It would seem the Pens need to find a way to get the Malkins a seat in the Joe. Stub Hub anyone?
> Also, all 15,891 of you know this is fake, right?