Jeff Karstens came into camp determined to grow into a more reliable pitcher by “listening to my body.”

Tuesday morning, that body told him to take a step back.

The right-hander was scratched from his scheduled turn to throw batting practice after he complained of “a little soreness” in front of his upper shoulder, in “the biceps area.”

Anybody else, the development could’ve been easily shaken off. It is early. The past couple of mornings have been unseasonably chilly, not ideal throwing weather.

But this, after all, is Karstens. He could extract only 90 2/3 innings out of his body last season. That fragility, in fact, is the very reason the Pirates at first non-tendered him, then delayed bringing him back on a new contract until Jan. 17.

“I just want to play it smart. It doesn’t make any sense to push it,” he said. “I’ll still play catch (on flat ground). We just want to be smart about this, wait a couple days,” he said. “It’s not September. I don’t want another Arizona.”

Karstens referred to his start last April 17 against the Diamondbacks, which he had to leave after one inning with tightness in the shoulder. Including a strained-groin glitch in his rehab program, he didn’t resurface until late June.

Karstens’ timeout, even briefly, dials up the already-intense competition for spots in the starting rotation.

Clint Hurdle will get an extended chance to see through the rebirth of the Pirates, who will soon announce an extension to his contract as manager.

Hurdle, 55, is approaching the final year of the three-year contract he’d signed in November 2010 and will have one season added to that deal, with an option for 2015.

The club did not have a comment on the extension, which was confirmed by an MLB source, but is expected to make an official announcement on Wednesday to coincide with chairman Bob Nutting’s annual visit to the Pirate City Spring Training camp.

“We have been in discussion,” Hurdle said following Monday’s workouts, calling the extension “empowering” and sounding like indeed it is a done deal.

“We love Pittsburgh, absolutely,” Hurdle said, including wife and kids in that sentiment. “This is your opportunity to be a small part of a group accomplishing a goal. From the first day I took this job, I said I wanted to reconnect the city with its baseball team.

“There’s still unfinished business, we haven’t yet gotten where we want to get, but I think we did re-ignite the fanbase to some degree.”

Hurdle’s Pirates reached a peak of 16 games over .500 last season, when they sported a winning record for a stretch of 107 days through Sept. 18, though ultimately finished with a losing record for a 20th consecutive season.

However, the 79 wins marked an improvement over the 72 wins of 2011, which came following 105 losses in the season prior to Hurdle’s appointment.

 Finish? Hurdle will get a shot to live up to his own buzzword. 

A.J. Burnett is throwing his first bullpen session today in Pirate City — the beginning of his long warm-up for Opening Day.

Manager Clint Hurdle isn’t close to naming his starter for Opening Day, which is 45 days away, preferring to extend the suspense.

What suspense?

Last year, the Pirates had planned for Burnett to pitch the opener, making that decision even before A.J. fouled a bunt off his eye only a few days after his trade from the Yankees was finalized. Subsequently, the nod trickled down to Erik Bedard — who pitched exceptionally in the leadoff 1-0 loss to the Phillies in PNC Park.

Add the fact that Burnett went on to emerge as the Bucs’ ace, and there’s no doubt he will get the ball against the Cubs on April 1 in The Bank. The only suspense is when Hurdle will make it official.

It will be the 15-year veteran’s FIRST Opening Day assignment.

PITTSBURGH — In the frigid early February dawn, bats, balls, helmets and the other tools of summer were loaded onto the truck for the annual trip to Bradenton, Fla.

When that truck returns to PNC Park in eight weeks, it will be packing spring.

The Pirates’ 2013 season got literally rolling on Monday morning, when the equipment truck expertly packed by the team’s clubhouse staff, under the direction of clubhouse manager Scott Bonnett, pulled away at 9:45 a.m. and embarked for Pirate City and another dawn, that of Spring Training.

 

In three days, that truck will cover 910 miles and about 65 degrees.

 

It’s an annual rite of mid-winter and a sure sign of the approaching re-birth of mild breezes and of hope. The unloaded contents of the truck will be neatly organized in front of lockers to welcome the arrival of the players who will make good use of them.

 

Pittsburgh pitchers and catchers will formally report next Monday — although quite a few of them are already in Pirate City — and hold their first official workout on Feb. 12.

 

The rest of the team will pull in on Feb. 14, with the first full-squad workout scheduled for the following day.

 

The cargo included about 48 dozen bats, boxes of balls and bags of sunflower seeds — and the nines of any baseball wardrobe, from undergarments to batting practice jersey tops, and everything in-between. And, oh yes — the pierogi costumes, which will next be seen racing around the warning track of McKechnie Field.

 

What a confirmation that baseball still denotes renaissance, this simple, rather mundane ritual that means so much to so many people, moving them to daydream about light standards brightening warm summer nights and glistening off the Allegheny River waters flowing under the Roberto Clemente Bridge.

It’s coming. We know this because the truck is going.

In Pool D play in the fast-approaching World Baseball Classic, five Pirates players will be getting down in Phoenix as national teams from the United States, Canada, Italy and Mexico mix it up.

Punch line: None of the five will be suiting up for the Stars ‘N Stripes.

Per the provisional rosters announced yesterday, Russell Martin, Jameson Taillon and Chris Leroux are on Team Canada, Ali Solis will catch for Mexico and Jason Grilli is back on Team Italy. Other Pirates in the tourney are  Ivan De Jesus (Puerto Rico), Wandy Rodriguez (Dominican Republic) and Stefan Welch (Australia).

The Bucs’ domestic Classic shutout thus continued. They have yet to place a single played on Team USA — although the eight participating this year bring to 25 the total they have had involved in the first three Classics.

In addition to the six countries they are representing this year, Bucs have played for Venezuela, China, Taiwan, Panama and South Africa.

Stirring the melting pot, indeed.

Right-handers Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon, firmly locked in as the Pirates’ top two prospects for a second consecutive year, both received invitations on Thursday to the club’s Major League Spring Training camp.

The Bucs also extended Spring Training invitations to a pair of freshly-signed Minor League free agents, one with extensive big-league experience. Outfielder Brad Hawpe and catcher Lucas May signed Minor League deals.

This will be a return to Pirate City for Cole, who got his professional feet wet in Bradenton last year prior to a rookie season in which he ascended from Single-A to Triple-A. The overall No. 1 choice in the 2011 First-Year Player Draft went an aggregate 9-7 with a 2.80 ERA in Bradenton, Altoona and Indianapolis.

Taillon, the Pirates’ top Draft choice and the overall No. 2 selection in 2010, will be attending his first big-league camp. Drafted out of high school and thus one year younger than UCLA product Cole, Taillon went 9-8 with a 3.55 ERA between Bradenton and Altoona in 2012.

Both Cole and Taillon participated in the MLB Futures Game prior to the 2012 All-Star Game in Kansas City.

Hawpe and May both spent the entire 2012 season in the Minors after attending the big-league Spring Training camps of the Rangers and the Mets, respectively.

Hawpe is an eight-year big-league veteran, the first six-and-a-half with the Colorado Rockies when they were helmed by current Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle. With the Rockies, Hawpe batted .280 with 118 homers and 464 RBIs in 816 games.

May, no relation to former Pirates catcher Milt May (1970-73), had 37 at-bats with the Royals in 2010 but the 28-year-old receiver has toiled in the Minors for the rest of his 10-year professional career. At Triple-A Buffalo last season, he batted .215 in 75 games while throwing out 15 of 58 runners attempting to steal.

The Pirates’ agreement with left-hander Francisco Liriano, struck three weeks ago, appears to be off due to an injury suffered by the pitcher to his non-throwing right arm.

According to an MLB source, Liriano suffered the unspecified injury in late December, shortly after he and the club had come to terms on a two-year, $12.75 million contract.

The injury is serious enough to have precluded Liriano from traveling from his home in the Dominican Republic to Pittsburgh to undergo the prerequisite physical to make the agreement official.

The Pirates are believed to be in continuing talks with the Liriano camp, likely trying to negotiate new terms.

General manager Neal Huntington said the club continues “to have dialogue with Francisco’s representatives but there is nothing to announce at this time.”

The club never made any official announcement regarding the 29-year-old left-hander, thus it didn’t feel any need to backtrack upon disclosure of the injury.

“We announce and acknowledge transactions when they are official,” Huntington said. “News of any agreement never came from us.”

Liriano was expected to fill a spot in the middle of the Pirates’ rotation, behind A.J. Burnett and lefty Wandy Rodriguez, and ahead of James McDonald.

He went 6-12 in 2012, splitting the season between the Twins and the White Sox. He has a career record of 53-54, including seasons of 12-3 in 2006 and 14-10 in 2010, both with Minnesota.

Much of the world, sporting and otherwise, paused the past few days to reverently remember Roberto Clemente on the 40th anniversary of his death.

But is Major League Baseball any closer to offering the ultimate tribute, universal retirement of Clemente’s iconic No. 21?

Despite growing sentiment that Clemente was a bona fide Latin American version of Jackie Robinson, whose No. 42 remains the only uniform accorded that honor — no.

One apparent step toward the retirement of No. 21 would be a grassroots movement in which teams would simply curtail assigning the number to their current players. But a perusal of 2012 rosters shows No. 21 is in widespread use.

Only seven teams — perhaps significantly all among the original 16 franchises — did not field a No. 21: Red Sox, White Sox, Indians and Yankees in the American League, and Braves, Phillies and Giants in the National.

Interestingly, a couple of players with ties to the Pirates briefly wore No. 21 last season: Outfielder Xavier Nady, when he was with the Nationals (he switched to No. 68 after moving on to the Giants), and left-hander Hisanori Takahashi, who had No. 21 with the Angels then went to No. 41 after being claimed on waivers by the Bucs.

The Majors’ best Nos. 21? It’s a motley list overall, but I’ll go with:

• Nick Markakis, Orioles
• Todd Frazier, Reds
• Allen Craig, Cardinals

 

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