Plunk Everyone

Today is "talk like a pirate day", and that's the only reason I can think of to talk about the Pittsburgh Pirates. Plus, it allows for excessive use of the phrase "plundered booty".

The Pittsburgh Pirates may not be actual pirates, but they have plundered the booties of something like 4,266 opposing batters in franchise history (by plundering their booties of course I mean that they hit them with pitches. What did you think it meant?). In return, they've received a franchise total of 4,692 cannon balls in their midships. Only the Giants have taken more cannon fire, and only the Reds, Tigers, Cardinals and Phillies have decked more opposing swabs. They are the only modern team that's had two different players with 30 HBPs in a season (Jason Kendall and Craig Wilson), and three of the past four 30 plunk seasons in the majors have been recorded by Pirates. Kendall had 31 in '97 and '98, Wilson had 30 in 2004, and the non-Pirate was Craig Biggio with 34 in '97.

The Pirates unfortunately don't play baseball on a pirate ship, they play in PNC Park, which is named after a financial institution, and that probably reminds a lot of people of pirate ships these days. Since opening, 571 batters have been plunked at PNC Park, beginning on April 9, 2001 with Dmitri Young of the visiting Cincinnati Reds getting plunked by Todd Ritchie. Jason Kendall was the first Pirate plunked at PNC, later that game. Since PNC Park opened in 2001, the only place where more batters have been hit is Tropicana Field in the Tampa Bay area (where pirates once roamed the seas). This season, PNC park has been a relatively safe harbor, with only 46 plunks occuring there (tied for 22nd in the league), at a rate of 7.3 plunkings per 1000 plate appearances (25th in the majors).

Unfortunately, the Pirates haven't been very good at winning baseball games this season. They're 12th in HBPs this season, which isn't bad, but they're 28th in stolen bases, thanks largely to all those unnecessary peg legs. And, only 65.6% of the pitches they don't swing at, and that don't hit them, are called Balls by those scurvy land lubbing umpires. That's the worst ratio of balls to called strikes in the league, which makes you think maybe they should take off the eye patches.