David Banks – USA TODAY SPORTS
Ho-hum. Another win for the MLB-leading Pittsburgh Pirates.
You may hear something about it, but I wouldn’t count on it. The team doesn’t seem to be getting much credit where credit is due.
Is it my imagination or are the Pirates being pretty much ignored these days by the major media outlets?
ESPN, Fox, Yahoo, MLB itself… you name it. No one’s saying much about the Pirate’s winning ways. Either that or I’m just turning on my TV or PC at the wrong time. Maybe it’s like the boy who cried wolf or something, as we’ve seen this scenario the last two seasons before from the team — a pretty good first half of the season, only to be followed up by a pretty bad second half — and the media doesn’t want to invest too much time on what they consider another mirage of wins by the Bucs. Maybe. Or maybe the media doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Because this time it’s not just a pretty good first half, it was a franchise record setting first half, as the 2013 Pirates became the first team in franchise history to win 50 games before July 1. That’s a lot of good baseball teams they just passed. Five World Series winners and nine pennant winners didn’t do what this team has done this season. Pardon me, but I think that deserves a little more than usual quick blurb about “the much improved Pirates team,” that is “just trying to finish .500 for the first time in the last 20 years.”
I guess it’s only fitting that Franciso Liriano, a Pirate I’ve dubbed The Invisible Man because of the lack of recognition he’s been receiving all season, would pitch his second career complete game and first for the team this season, to put the Pirates back on track and atop all of MLB with the best record in baseball at 53-32 . Liriano pitched a full nine innings of four-hit two-run baseball to win his eighth game in just 11 starts, as the Pirates downed the Chicago Cubs, 6-2, in the first of their three game series in the Windy City.
Since joining the Pirates on May 11th, no NL pitcher has more wins than Franciso Liriano, but you probably won’t hear or read much of that outside the local Pittsburgh media.
Some say winning is it’s own reward.
Probably those who don’t want to give credit where credit is due.
Stacey Kengal is a writer for www.RantSports.com covering the Pittsburgh Pirates. Follow him on Twitter @StaceyKengal, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
