7-1-16
The Indians have won 14 in a row. Today, they won 2-1 over the Blue Jays in 19
innings. Darwin Barney, one of my
favorite second basemen, ended up being the losing pitcher. The Rangers win 3-2 over the Twins in 10
innings in yet another close game. Sam
Dyson has a nice bounce back game to put it away for the Rangers.
The Chihuahuas won in a blowout over the Aces, but the story
was the fans. A couple of fans were hit
by a tossed bat that helicopter-ed into the stands. Having been at the stadium, I’m having
trouble visualizing how this happened.
The netting covers a lot of the stands.
One of the fans was taken off on a stretcher in a lengthy delay. Tim was very professional during the rest of
the game, but there was a nervous edge there.
He didn’t report on the fans’ conditions for the rest of the game.
7-2-16
Rangers vs Twins. The
Rangers forgot to bring their gloves today.
I don’t know what they were all thinking. Chi Chi Gonzalez doesn’t make it out of the
first inning, giving up 4 runs, 3 unearned.
Nine men come to the plate. Though
there was only 1 official error, the Rangers gave the Twins 4 extra outs in the
inning. It would have been 5, if they
hadn’t won a challenge. Matt Hicks
comments, wondering if the team has got the (word that must not be spoken or
written). At which point, Eric Nadel
says, “Don’t say it!” The score went out
of control from there. The guys were
doing a trivia contest during the game. Catcher
Brian Holiday pitched in the 7th and 8th and did
well. In the 9th, Eric said, “Thanks
to all of you who have stuck with us through this ugly affair.” 17-5 Twins.
And the Indians’ win streak ends in Toronto today.
I literally gasped at the score on Fox national broadcast
game between the Red Sox and Angels. It
was a game between a team I don’t care about against a team I hate, so I wasn’t
really watching. (I kept flipping around
stations. I tried watching the NASCAR
race. There were two commercial breaks
before the race had a competition caution at lap 20. They promised to break away from the commercials
if there were any wrecks.) The score
went from 4-0 Angels early, to 9-0 halfway, and then (gasp) 20-1 in
the7th. The final was 21-2. The earlier Rangers/Twins game still didn’t
prepare me for this kind of scoring.
The day wasn’t over yet.
In El Paso, the Chihuahuas were once again playing the Washington
Generals. No, sorry. They were playing the Reno Aces. It just seems like the Chihuahuas have a
designated opponent. Edwin Jackson, who
as a major leaguer pitched the ugliest no-hitter ever, was on the bump for the
pooches. He was okay there, but his best
contribution was hitting a home run in the game. The dogs went down early, but managed to tie
the score late and send it into extra innings.
From there, it was nearly unbearable frustration, as the Chihuahuas kept
getting runners in scoring position to end it, but couldn’t get them
across. In the 13th, the Aces
finally took the lead with a couple of runs.
The weirdest play of the game happened in the bottom of the frame. With a runner taking second on a steal,
Chihuahua Hunter Renfroe was getting an intentional walk, though he had two
strikes on him. Or was he? On what should have been the fourth Ball, the
catcher instead snuck back into a crouch and Aces’ pitcher Matt Capps tried to
throw a fastball down the middle. Hunter
somehow managed to foul it off. He was
then given the free pass on the next pitch.
Alas, the comeback never happened and the Chihuahuas lost 5-3.
As bad as I felt, I felt worse for the crowd there. It was a full house for the game because
there were going to be fireworks afterward, so they had to stay for 13 innings,
four hours, 45 minutes. The display
started at midnight. Worse, the crowd
was really into the game and just begging for the team to end it during all
those opportunities in extra innings.
Tim Hagerty reported that by the end, the crowd was clearly emotionally
exhausted.
More Mexican national team American football is on. This is sort of fascinating. I don’t know what to make of it. Contrary to what you might think, American
football games are shown on Mexican television.
The Superbowl is a big event there too.
This time they’re playing the Austrian team. Austrian?
This is part of something called the World Football Championship. No, I’ve never heard of it either.
7-3-16
I don’t want to talk about the Rangers. The Chihuahuas beat the Reno Aces on a
walk-off, three-run homer by Austin Hedges.
Tim Hagerty, the large El Paso crowd, and myself were relieved to not
have to experience another extra innings affair.
7-5-16
Rangers win. That’s
all my notebook says. That’s great
writing there, J. In more detail, the
Rockies beat the Giants 7-3 in San Francisco.
AR-Enado hit a three-run homer caught by a Rockies fan wearing his
jersey. Hunter Strickland still can’t
get outs (at least when I’m watching or listening). Well, I wanted the Rockies to end their
losing streak.
7-6-16
Tim has a co-host for a couple of home games. I’m sorry, I never caught his name. He works for the team and has called Alaskan
League baseball games. Yes, they have
plenty of daylight there for summer games.
I’ve mentioned before that Tim Hagerty and the team should avail
themselves of opportunities to save Tim’s voice a bit over the season. We don’t want another bout of laryngitis
taking out the voice of the Chihuahuas.
7-10-16
Austin Hedges gets 8 RBI’s in 3 innings versus the Salt Lake
City Bees. The Chihuahuas win 11-2 going
into the All-Star break. The Rangers
lose 15-5 to the Twins. That’s the best
team in the AL losing a series to the worst.
Eric Nadel took off early for the break.
Good thing he wasn’t there to see this one. I haven’t felt like writing at all as the
Rangers have hit a skid for the last two weeks.
I was so sure they’d win today and then the game started. The Astros won. They’re making a comeback.
7-12-16
#ASG. My favorite
play was during the starters’ introduction when they ran out with the
kids. I loved that smiling Carlos
Gonzalez having his arm around his kid, getting him hyped up to run out on the
field. That was great. Technically, this was from the day before,
but Giancarlo (don’t call me Mike or AIR-Enado) Stanton blasting two home runs
497ft and winning the home run derby was also awesome to watch. My best crow-eating moment was snickering as
I noticed Daniel “Stonehands” Murphy was playing second base, right before he
made a great (and completely uncharacteristic) acrobatic play. I’m thinking Fox Sports Radio host and Mets
homer, Jason Smith, must have also done a spit-take watching that as well. “It’s bad enough he’s leading the league in
batting average for the Nationals. Don’t
tell me that learned how to play defense there too! Why couldn’t you have done this for the Mets
last year?” In any case, the Rangers
will have home field advantage in the World Series this fall, thanks to the AL
win.
Actually, this does bring up another issue with Jason
Smith. He’s refusing to talk about his
beloved Mets this month because they re-acquired Jose Reyes, who was released
by the Rockies (he was supposed to be playing for the Isotopes when I went to
see the Chihuahuas last month). He had
been serving a suspension for domestic abuse this season. My only problem with this is that Reyes was
never actually charged. That’s something
of technicality, since it appears he did it, but I’m still a little
uncomfortable with the league punishing someone under these circumstances anyway.
7-15-16
Chihuahuas vs Nashville Sounds. There were high winds at the ballpark this
evening. Tim said he hadn’t seen worse
at the ballpark. (He should have been
around when the canopy got blown off of the Cohen Stadium, twice. Earlier this month, I saw the Diablos’ old
stadium being used for a food truck festival.
It’s still getting some use. By
the way, when the Chihuahuas finally decide to don throwback Diablos uniforms,
everyone will want one.) The wind
certainly sounded bad over the field and booth mics. It was not a Chihuahuas’ wind blowing
however, as they lost badly. It’s their
second bad loss since the break.
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