Baseball Journal 4-14-13 Plenty of Action

Where to begin? We’ll start with the 10-inning affair between the Cubs and the Giants. It was a 10 – 7 victory for the visiting Giants. It was a great back and forth battle where the Giants showed the heart of a champion, and the Cubs displayed what could charitably be described as gritty ineptitude. By odd coincidence, that three-run margin is the equal to the number of runs that the Cubs let in by a wild pitch, a passed ball, and a balk.

That balk by Shawn Camp was absolutely painful for everyone watching, especially as it let in the go-ahead run in the 10th. It was like he was trying to execute the now illegal, fake to third-throw to first maneuver, caught himself, and then realized he’d just balked anyway. It wasn’t one of those twitch balks that you can only see on a replay, he literally jumped on the mound. Everybody saw it. Camp had a bad outing as the Cubs’ closer of the moment. In the ninth, with two outs and two strikes, he’d induced a fly ball out of Hunter Pence, which caught a strong tailwind and ending up flying into the bleachers, tying the game, instead of ending it. Ironically, Marmol had worked a quick eighth, to a chorus of boo’s when he entered. (He even got the business during the Opening Day player introductions. Ouch.)

Dioneer Navarro had been quite the hero over the last two games, as he hit a home run from each side of the plate as pinch hitter in crucial spots. As the catcher today (regular backup, Steve Clevenger had suffered a horrible injury the day before), Dioneer got to make history. He was part of a five wild pitch inning that briefly gave the Giants the lead. That was a one-inning record for butterfingers. Earlier, Pablo Sandoval, of all people, took home on a passed ball that barely got five feet away.

The Cubs did have their moments, particularly an Alberto Gonzalez home run in the 7th that blew right out onto Waveland Avenue. But really, at least a third of the crowd was rooting for the Giants (including myself). The Seventh Inning stretch singer even acknowledged the Giants fans. The game ran four hours thanks to the umpire squeezing the strike zone. Len and JD basically had no comment on that since the calls were virtually all going the Cubs’ way. Still, a great enough game to keep me from flipping over to an exciting Masters’ finish.

I think the Dodger/Diamondback game, which started an hour and a half later, may have actually finished before the Cubs/Giants game. When you go scoreless into the ninth, what do you expect? The real news in this match up happened the day before and went all over sportstalk. A bunch of Dodger fans had rented out the box right behind home plate. The Diamondbacks owner took offense to this and offered the fans free Diamondback gear and a round of drinks in return for taking off their Dodger gear. The fans accepted. Criticism of both sides of this incident has been unanimous.

I remember distinctly either last year or the year before on a Fox game in Phoenix, the box and the outfield pool being populated by groups of Giants’ fans, who were the visiting team that day. Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of this. I guess that fans of the visiting teams at Chase Field are richer than the home fans. If you have a few thousand dollars lying around (like $3000 something to get the box or rent the pool) and want to cheer for your team against the Diamondbacks, now you know what to do. Or for the same price you could get season tickets behind home plate in Pittsburgh, or you could get a seat behind home plate at Yankee stadium for a day game during the week against the Mariners.

Not that I’m going to be watching much of the Diamondbacks this year. Our local cable company has dropped Fox Sports Net from their programming. I think its been replaced with Fox Soccer, which is English Premier League stuff, something even less relevant to me than Mexican League soccer, if that’s possible. Great, I was looking forward to being able to continue to hear Bob Brenly’s commentary. Just another reason for me not to get cable at home. This may be a total deal-breaker for me ever getting it.  Still getting ESPN2 though, where Monday night they were covering the WNBA draft.  (Not a joke.  They were even promoting it on the radio.)

The best that can be said of the Carlos Quinton/Zack Greinke dust up is that it’s probably going to be the biggest hit of the season for the Padres. I was also listening on the radio when Jared Weaver went down. I actually like him, in spite of my hatred of the Angels, and was sorry to see that happen. I think Greinke is highly overrated, but I have no personal animus against him. I was perfectly content to see him implode on the mound later this season at the worst possible moment for the Dodgers (and that will still probably happen). Jose Reyes goes down for the Blue Jays this week. It’s contagious. Why I even saw Taft go down during the President mascot race on Saturday in Nationals Park. They added William Howard Taft as a President mascot this season. What Senate committee did this decision go through?