On Monday night at PNC Park, Gregory Polanco saw more pitches, 17 in three plate appearances, than any of the Pirates against the Padres’ James Shields. But the dividend of his approach was a 1-for-4 night.

On Tuesday, he saw four or more pitches in four of his five plate appearances, for a whopping one-man total of 19, and the results appeared: Polanco finished 1 for 3 with two walks and an eighth-inning RBI triple that proved the difference in a 3-2 victory.

“It’s good for him,” Clint Hurdle said of the results. “He’s another guy that’s got to settle into that mindset that ‘I’m looking for pitches I want to hit.’ Once it’s out of the pitcher’s hand, you’ve got to own it.”

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A.J. Burnett has said many times that he will take snapshots in his head in this, his final Major League Baseball season.

This day will be one he remembers forever. The snapshots were endless.

He was selected Monday, shortly before taking the mound at PNC Park, to participate in Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game for the first time in this, his final season. Following the wild response from his teammates when Clint Hurdle delivered the news in the clubhouse — “It was special for everybody,” Mark Melancon said — Burnett enjoyed a few more priceless moments: He pitched another gem, couldn’t believe when a strikeout was called a foul ball, was given a boisterous sendoff from the crowd, and finished his evening alongside wife Karen, with the field all to themselves, watching sons A.J. Jr. and Ashton playfully run the bases.

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A.J. Burnett buried a curveball behind the Padres’ Derek Norris for strike three, then ripped off a 360-degree, two-handed fist-pump to cap eight innings of one-run baseball Monday night at PNC Park.

It would have been a perfect ending to a day in which Burnett, at 38, was selected to his first All-Star Game, joining three fellow Pirates.

But just as he strode back to the dugout, home plate umpire Paul Emmel ruled Norris fouled the pitch off.

“Foul ball? Come on, man!” Burnett could be gleaned to say through lip-reading, before he turned around huffed back to the mound.

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Major League Baseball’s 2015 All-Star rosters will be announced in their entirety Monday and, even though no Pirates were selected Sunday among the starters, the Pittsburgh contingent still could be sizable.

That’s been the case since the 20-year losing streak ended, as the Pirates sent five in 2013, three last year and, in general, are far removed from sending the mandatory Evan Meek.

Neal Huntington sees this as a good omen for the organization:

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By recent Cleveland standards, the first four innings Danny Salazar pitched Sunday afternoon at PNC Park were nothing special.

Not that the 25-year-old right-hander wasn’t dominant in retiring 12 of the Pirates’ first 14 batters, seven by swinging strikeout. It’s just that when a starting rotation has had three legitimate perfect-game bids in the past week – plus a complete-game loss Saturday – the excellent can appear routine.

However, elevated bar or not, Salazar came crashing down from those heights during a five-run fifth inning that pushed the Pirates to a 5-3 come-from-behind victory.

“We finally got some guys on base and got him into trouble,” Neil Walker said of Salazar. “We knew we had to stay aggressive because he was coming right at us.”

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Travis Ishikawa is back, the Pirates just having claimed him off waivers from the Giants after the 31-year-old first baseman was designated for assignment Friday.

A lower back strain had Ishikawa on the disabled list to start the season and he hit .266 in 37 games between Class A San Jose and Class AAA Sacramento. In six games since being brought back to San Francisco, he was 0 for 5.

Ishikawa was DFA’d by the Pirates April 19, 2014, then signed a minor-league deal April 25 with San Francisco. He went on to hit .274/.333/.397 and hit a walkoff home run in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series to send the Giants to the World Series.

A corresponding move for the 25-man roster will be announced later.

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