It’s time for a brief WHYGAVS History Lesson.
Once upon a time in the olden days of the internet, WHYGAVS was a tiny little blog with barely any readers on blogspot. It wasn’t even WHYGAVS back then, people actually called it by its full name and the URL was very unwieldy. One night, a terrible Pittsburgh Pirate team played a terrible Kansas City Royal team, and because I was 21 years old and living by myself over the summer in Pittsburgh with nothing better to do, I wrote a liveblog of the game and sent the link in to Deadspin. It showed as the lead story in Deadspin’s old daily baseball recap, which sent a ton of readers my way and more or less helped make the site something that internet oriented people associated with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
That game featured pretty much no useful starting pitching, the Pirates blew a lead, and both teams scored a ton of runs. Besides the Pirates and Royals being two of the best teams in baseball in 2015 instead of being two of the worst as they were in 2006, these two games actually resembled each other quite a bit. OK, WHYGAVS History Lesson over.
When a team finds itself in the position that the Pirates are currently in (meaning: injuries that have stacked on top of each other, a thin roster, and waiting for the trade deadline to hopefully bring help), pretty much the only way for them to get through that span without taking on an excessive amount of water (Pirate ship metaphor!) is to have unexpected players step up. Tonight, that player was Travis Ishikawa.
Coming into tonight’s game, Ishikawa’s career line with the Pirates was 8-for-47 with two doubles, a triple, a homer, and four RBIs. That’s for a player that began 2014 as the Pirates’ Opening Day first baseman and was off the club before April even ended. Tonight, he had two doubles and a homer, driving in four runs. In other words, he came alarmingly close to equalling his entire Pirate career in one night. He picked the right night, though, as the Royals kept matching the Pirate run totals throughout the evening after the Pirates took at three-run lead in the second. AJ Burnett and Antonion Bastardo both had rough nights, though not nearly as rough as the nights had by Yordano Ventura and Kris Medlin (in his 2014 debut).
Ishikawa was not alone on the hit parade. Gregory Polanco, who probably found out when we did this morning that the Pirates are considering trading for someone else to play right field, had two hits (one double) and scored twice. Neil Walker drove in two runs with a triple. Andrew McCutchen had two hits (one double) and an RBI. Starling Marte had three hits and scored twice. Jung Ho Kang had two hits, drew a walk, and scored twice. Pedro Alvarez had two singles, two RBIs, and scored once.
At this point in the season, all you can really do in the Pirates’ position is take things one day at a time. This one was a good day, and it gives the Pirates a decent chance to win a series from a good team. That’s be an improvement over the weekend, at least.
Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images
