Ifyou'd like a shirt for WHYGAVS Night, I'm officially taking orders starting now. They're going to be black with gold lettering, like last year, and the front will look something like this:

They're also going to have the URL on the back so that I can turn you all into an army of walking billboards. If you'd like a shirt, please e-mail me by Friday with "WHYGAVS Night T-shirt" as the subject. Sizes are pretty standard (the shirts are usually Fruit of the Loom) and while I don't recall the exact cost from last year, they were somewhere around $10-$15 (closer to $10, I think).

Also, there may be a potential WHYGAVS Night conflict with a particular hockey team playing for a particular piece of large, old silverware. We will deal with this when/if it becomes an issue (I'm staring at you, Gary Bettman and you, NBC executives).

Sorry this recap is late; my internet went out last night just while I was trying to write it and do the Rewind for FanHouse. Not great timing.

I didn't get home unti around 11:30 last night and I was shocked to find the Pirates still playing. Apparently, last night's game had a little bit of everything but starting pitching. Freddy Sanchez rapped six hits and Jaramillo and Andy LaRoche added three apiece and the Pirates' bullpen (Tom Gorzelanny, Evan Meek, Jesse Chavez, John Grabow, Matt Capps, and Sean Burnett after Capps took a liner off the elbow) held strong while the Cubs' pen didn't, and that was the difference. I have to run to work now, but I have lots of other stuff to post this afternoon, so stay tuned.

The Buccos' kick off the second leg of their Chicago trip with the ever-so-rare night game at Wrigley. Hopefully, they can keep the momentum from the last two innings of their series on the South Side of the city rolling and forget about the first 25. Paul Maholm and Ryan Dempster are taking the mound at 8 tonight in bright red caps for Memorial Day.

Speaking of which, I hope you've all had a fantastic Memorial Day so far and celebrated those that've served this great country by grilling some meat and drinking some beer. In fact, I think I'm going to go do that myself.

I had this recap mostly written in my head after seven innings this afternoon. I'm sure you can figure out what it was going to say. "One run in 27 innings, three losses, interleague play sucks, wasted a decent start by Karstens again, blah blah blah." I recap every game, but all recaps are not created equal and the loss we seemed destined for today was certainly not one that was going to be particularly interesting.

Right around this point, Eric Hinske blasted a homer to right field. When that happened, I did the little shrug that Pirate fans do that means, "Meh. We've scored two runs in the first 26 innings of this series and we still need two more to win. I am not getting my hopes up." Of course, Jack Wilson homering off of Bobby Jenks with two outs is a more of a perception-changer. It was Jack's first homer since August 15th of last year and only his second since the start of the 2008 season. You can say what you want about the guy (I usually do), but he really picked his spot against Bobby Jenks today. That left the Bucs a Nyjer Morgan double and a Delwyn Young single away from somehow stealing a win from the White Sox today.

And it's great that the Pirates won, because there are some positives to take from this game. Morgan had a nice game with three hits and Freddy Sanchez broke out of his slump a bit with two. Craig Monroe and Eric Hinske both gave the Bucs two hits, which is a nicely highlights just how good the Pirates' bench has been this year, and the bullpen was great, shutting out the White Sox for 3 2/3 innings to keep things close enough for a dramatic comeback. Matt Capps was particularly impressive, striking out the side on just 15 pitches. Since the fiasco against the Rockies and the resulting bullpen session with Joe Kerrigan, he really looks a lot better.

This certainly wasn't a great series for the Bucs. The White Sox were reeling from their pounding at the Twins' hands last Thursday and the Pirates' offense helped their pitching staff reboot itself. Somehow, though, they scraped out a win, and that's a lot more than any of us were expecting after seven innings today.

First things first today; we have to score a run. After we score a run, then we can worry about whether or not we can actually win a baseball game. Of course, this is the game that we draw the worst pitching matchup of the series (for us) with Mark Buehrle and Jeff Karstens on the mound.

Our chances are not helped by the fact that John Russell is continuing along on his "I know my team is full of well-conditioned athletes in the prime of their lives, but I still think they need rest, dammit, and so we're going to follow up two straight shutouts by benching the best hitter on the team because ... I'm not sure why." Yeah, this is going to go well.

I'm going to the Penguins game in Raleigh tonight. I'm excited. I haven't been to a playoff game of any sort (besides high school sports) since Game 4 of the 1992 NLCS when John Smoltz crushed my seven-year-old heart. It probably goes without saying, but I am really, really excited. And that means I'll probably have no idea who even wins the Pirates game until I wake up tomorrow.

But the Pirates will play on anyways, with Ross Ohlendorf and Clayton Richard on the mound. Don't forget that they're starting at 7:05 even though they're in Chicago.

Sometimes, when the Pirates are playing terrible baseball teams like the Nationals, it's easy to forget that the Pirates are really not a very good team in their own right. It doesn't take much to be reminded of that, though. Getting two-hit by a club that lost by 19 runs just the day before is a nice quick reminder of that, though. It's an especially good reminder when the pitcher that throws the shutout at you has a 6.54 ERA after throwing eight shutout innings.

The shame in last night's loss is wasting another great outing from Zach Duke, who struck out seven in eight innings while holding the White Sox to two runs on six hits and two walks, using just 88 pitches to cruise through those eight innings. I see some rumblings about the umpire in the comments and John Russell was clearly frustrated by this loss, but then again he's the one that removed his starting third baseman from the lineup for reasons that only he understands.

OK, so the Pirates have made it through (approximately) one quarter of 2009 with a 19-22 record. This is a nice start towards evading the horrors of being the worst professional sports franchise in history. But now? Now interleague play starts. The Death Star to the Pirates' Alderaan. Nothing ruins a good old fashioned run at .500 like interleague play. We get most of the AL Central this year, which is the division that olbiterated us in 2006 while catapulting WHYGAVS towards minor internet fame.

And yet, I don't feel all that worried. The White Sox are not very good. They got pasted 20-1 by the Twins yesterday. Jake Peavy wants nothing to do with them. Bring it, interleague play.

Zach Duke and Gavin Floyd get the starts tonight while JR has chosen to sit Andy LaRoche for Ramon Vazquez. He says it's just to get him a night off, but it looks awfully suspicious in light of last night's pinch-hitting episode. Did LaRoche react to that as poorly as the fans did? Is there something running even deeper than that? Or are we reading too much in to things?