7-16-16
Back to regular baseball.
The Rangers are playing three day games against the Cubs at
Wrigley. Yu Darvish returns to action
and strikes out the side after issuing a walk in the first. Several Rangers fans in attendance were
cheering. In the second, Eric and Matt
were complaining about the new scoreboard.
It’s apparently hard to read with various shadows coming across it. Yesterday, they were wondering how much of
the view it was blocking for the fans across the street. Darvish got 9 k’s over 4 1/3 innings, but was
not helped by the offense today. Rangers
lose 3-1.
7-17-16
Matt Hicks: “Cole Hamels isn’t trying to praise Caesar, he’s
trying to bury him.” Myself, Eric Nadel,
and everyone else listening, groaned. Matt
Szczur of the Chicago Cubs has probably had to endure a lot of abuse over his
name. Thankfully, the Rangers weren’t
listening to the broadcast, as they were too busy winning, 4-1. Hamels goes 8 innings, 91 pitches, and gives
up 1 unearned run. He started off the
game with 6 K’s.
In El Paso, the Chihuahuas avoid getting swept by the Nashville
Sounds with a 5-2 win. It was a good
win, albeit the Sounds did have the bases loaded when the final out was
recorded. Nashville outscored the dogs 43-12
over four games. This reminds me of that
series versus Round Rock. Elsewhere, the
Giants are swept by the Padres following the All-Star break. Is it time to panic?
7-18-16
Again, ESPN covers the Cubs vs the Mets. The Cubs won 5-1, but the best play was in
the bleachers. A kid caught a Wilmer
Flores’ Met home run just behind the basket. As he prepared to throw it back, four adults
(one was presumably his father) jumped him and gave him another ball to toss
back. That’s how you do it. (I’d throw back an Albert Pujols’ homer
immediately, even if it was a milestone one.)
My reception for the Rangers’ game that night was poor, but came in
clearly just in time to hear Mike Trout hit a three-run homer late in the game
to cement the hated Angels’ 9-5 win.
7-19-16
Here was some drama.
In the final game of the series between the Cubs and Mets, the Mets were
up 2-1. In the bottom of the 9th,
the Cubs loaded the bases with no outs, but failed to score off Jeurys Familia,
who ended the game with a double play ball.
“Yeah, you guys aren’t the Royals,” he told the Cubs as they left the
field. (No, that didn’t happen.)
Taylor Lindsey of the Chihuahuas recorded the team’s first
cycle. Again, I don’t quite understand
the mystical importance of hitting for the cycle, apart from getting four hits
in a game. More strangely, this was the
second cycle given up by the Memphis Redbirds on this road trip.
7-20-16
It was the best possible outcome for being called into jury
duty: the defendant didn’t show up. I
ended up going to work a few hours early and got to watch the daily Yahoo
baseball game. I haven’t mentioned this
before, but it’s kind of cool that they’re showing games every day. Even better, they were showing a Royals game
in Kansas City. Unfortunately, that was
the end of my good luck. The Indians
seem to be the chosen ones this year and beat the Royals 11-4.
It was still interesting (and much better than being at the
courthouse). The stadium was beautiful
and it was a lovely day, except that it was about 106 degrees on the
field. I was completely convinced that
one of my attractive female co-workers was at the game, sitting behind home
plate. She was a distraction for a
couple innings when she was there.
Couldn’t blame her for leaving with the heat and with what happened in top
of the 5th inning. The
Indians sent 12 men to the plate and scored 7 runs in a 30+ minute disaster for
the Royals. Still, there were diehards
out in the stands. There was a 95 year
old lady attending in full Royals gear, and there was the young woman holding
up clever signs for different players.
The booth guys wanted to interview her after the game. Their best line of the game came in the 9th
on a looking strikeout. “This isn’t the
time to pass an eye test. You gotta
hack!”
Later in the evening, I caught some of the Giants vs the Red
Sox. It was an 11-7 beating for the
Giants, though they did make a pretty good comeback to make the score even that
close. I didn’t recognize the third
baseman for the team, but his name, Ramiro Pena, was familiar. I had to wrack my brains before finally
remembering he was on the El Paso Chihuahuas last year. He did well in this game with two hits, an
RBI, and hitting .344 overall. Those
same Chihuahuas lost big to Memphis that night.
What’s notable about that game was that a tossed bat got stuck in the
netting. A fan below tried to knock it
loose for a souvenir, but to no avail. I
still can’t believe this has ever happened in a ball game, much less twice this
year. Maybe this happens more often than
I think it does.
The bad baseball luck continued as the Rangers lost to the
hated Angels, 7-4, that night for a sweep.
Eric mentioned that they’d to headed to Kansas City next, which prompted
a discussion about the airport facilities there, which are apparently in
Nebraska. (I think that’s a joke, as I
haven’t been there to know for sure.)
This brought up a discussion about the airport at Denver, as it’s also
far out of town. “Actually, I think DIA
is closer to Kansas City than Denver,” he quipped. From my recent trip to Denver, I think
there’s a toll road to the airport. Talk
about adding insult to injury.
7-22-16
Six in a row. The
Giants haven’t been able to win since the All-Star Break. They lost to the Yankees, 3-2, with Madison
Bumgarner on the mound. He may have had
a cold. Also, Buster went out early with
a minor injury. Still, it was the way
they lost with some bad baserunning and atrocious defense. Normally sure-handed shortstop Brandon
Crawford committed three errors in the game.
The Rangers also lost, 3-1, to the Royals with an anemic offensive
performance. Right now, the Rangers and
Giants are just breaking other teams out of their slumps. There was a web article earlier in the month,
which I didn’t read, but the headline said that these two teams were winning
their divisions via smoke and mirrors.
I’m starting to wonder.
7-23-16
The Rangers and Giants both won today. Whew. The Rangers convincingly. The Giants barely. In Sacramento, the Chihuahuas faced off
against the Rivercats. A large crowd of
over 13,000 was on hand as Hunter Pence of the home team’s parent club was
rehabbing an injury. The dogs lose 12-0.
7-24-16
It was a hot day game in Kansas City, 98 degrees with 50%
humidity. In the Rangers’ broadcast
booth, Matt Hicks wanted a resin bag for his headphones to keep them from
sliding off his head. The Royals and the
Rangers battled the elements, along with each other. It was an unsurprisingly low-scoring game,
going 2-1 in favor of the Rangers.
That’s two in a row for the first time this month. Time to start a winning streak.
The baseball story of the day has been Chris Sale. Not that he’s been traded to the Rangers,
which has been rumored, but that he’s been suspended for refusing to pitch in
the White Sox throwback uniforms and then attacking his teammates’ uniforms
with scissors. This was an
overreaction. Yes, they’re softball
uniforms and perhaps the top would be interfering with his pitching motion, but
it’s not like they were making the team wear the matching throwback shorts, in
which case the entire team should have rioted.
Those Sox uniforms were the worst baseball uniforms ever. There’s not even a close second, though a
couple other White Sox uniforms do make the top 10 list. The franchise hasn’t had much good fashion
sense until they decided to copy the Yankees’ design. Always steal from the best.
While listening to the Ranger game, I kept flipping over to
the Chihuahuas’ double header with the Sacramento Rivercats. Somehow, I managed to catch three of Hunter
Pence’s at bats, by fortuitous timing. I
have a keen interest in this, as the Giants need him badly (like today, when
they lost to the Yankees again). The
dogs end up splitting the DH.
7-25-16
Rangers vs A’s. There
wasn’t much to talk about in this game until the bottom of the 9th. With the Rangers down a run, Adrian Beltre
came to the plate with a man on first. On
the first pitch, he sent myself and the Arlington crowd into a frenzy with a
two-run walk-off winner over the fence.
(And he got the ball back afterward.)
It was Adrian’s second home run of the night. Rangers win 7-6. Given that the team had gone down by 4 runs
early, had two errors, and gave up 3 unearned runs, they didn’t exactly deserve
to win, but they certainly needed to.
7-26-16
The Chihuahuas are in Tacoma tonight. The game had an unprecedented 30 minute delay
waiting for the umpires to arrive. These
things happen in minor league baseball.
It was worth the wait as the Chihuahuas won 6-0. Tim makes an interesting comment about the
parent club. The Padres are playing in
Toronto this week. This was the last
remaining inter-league matchup that hadn’t happened yet. The Padres may have firepower about equal to
the Blue Jays and that’s mostly due to a crop of called up Chihuahuas
players. El Paso has been scuffling since
the break, but that’s likely mostly because so many of their good offensive
players aren’t with them. The good thing
for the Padres and the Chihuahuas is that they still have guys who can rake in
Triple A. Now, the Friars just need to
develop or acquire some pitching.
Meanwhile, Joey Gallo, perpetual object of trade talks, was
unexpectedly called up by the Rangers.
Though the team has lost Shin-Shu Choo and Prince Fielder to injury, it
was thought that they’d prefer to protect Gallo, by keeping him in the minors,
rather than possibly exposing him in the majors. He takes a pair of strikeouts, but hits a
home run, typical Joey. Unfortunately,
the Rangers lose 6-3 to the A’s.
7-27-16
The White Sox and Cubs have been playing each other in one
another’s stadiums this week. At Wrigley
tonight, a scoreless tie in the 5th is amazingly broken off a home
run by Anthony Ranaudo. He’s the pitcher
for the White Sox, who up to this point, had never gotten a major league
hit. The ball was caught in the
bleachers by a Sox fan, who promptly hugged her Cubs fan husband right
after. Before this, ESPN had gotten
bored with the game and had actually gone split screen with the Cardinals vs
the Mets to show Cespedes batting with men on.
He hit a home run right before Ranaudo’s shot.
Unfortunately for the Sox, Ranaudo’s the only one to score
for them, as the Cubs win (Cubs win!) 8-1. This game was also significant as
the debut of Aroldis Chapman as closer for the Cubs. They had just acquired him from the Yankees
this week and wanted him to get some work in.
If I were a Yankees fan (heh, heh, that’s funny), I’d be wondering why
management was disassembling my lockdown bullpen to help someone else win a
World Series.
Chapman is, of course, controversial as he was implicated in
a domestic abuse case, much like Jose Reyes (as I mentioned earlier). Also like Reyes, Chapman wasn’t charged with
a crime, but was suspended by the league anyway. Now he probably should have been charged and
convicted, but he wasn’t, but he was punished.
Meanwhile, Tom Brady is suspended for four games this season over
deflated footballs from a game two years ago, even though there’s no direct
proof of his involvement. I’m not a
Patriots fan. I respect Brady, but he’s
not my favorite player (certainly not when he’s playing the Cowboys). I feel like these items all connect, but I’m
not sure how yet.
By the way, Brady is likely to be the last great NFL
quarterback in my opinion. Everyone
coming up after him is likely to be spectacular for a couple of seasons at best
and then flameout due to injury or defensive schemes or self-destruction off
the field. I think we’ll all be sorry
that he’s not going to be playing as much as possible. (Watching me either be eating these words
five years from now or be smugly rubbing them in everyone’s faces.)
7-28-16
Yahoo’s game is the Cardinals vs the Marlins. This is an interesting matchup between two
good teams, though iffy playoff contenders.
In spite of my liking the Cardinals, the Marlins are the better story. Dee Gordon is back from his PED
suspension. Jose Fernandez is starting
(though not well tonight). Ichiro is
three hits shy of 3000. Much of the
fairly large crowd may have been there to see him. He came in as a pinch hitter in the 7th
and whacked a double. The crowd went
wild. There seemed to be several
Japanese fans there. The Marlins Man
behind the plate, finally wearing appropriate team gear, even got excited.
I may have a new favorite player name. There’s a Marlins reliever called Barraclough,
which is mostly pronounced “Bear claw.”
There were a couple of interesting plays. In the 9th, Hechavarria made a
great play throwing a slow grounder to first to get an out. Slo-mo showed the ball almost going through
Chris Johnson’s mitt webbing. Where’s
Stat-cast when you need it for that thrown ball velocity. In the bottom of the inning, Cardinal’s
reliever, Oh, got hit on his bottom by a come-backer. Strangely, on the next batter, he deflected
the ball again, but this time into a game-ending double play. Marlins win 5-4.
The Rangers squeaked out another win, this time over KC,
3-2. All of the Rangers’ runs were off
of solo home runs, two by Mitch Moreland, who is definitely stepping up in a
contract year. While I was keeping track
of all of this, I forgot that the Chihuahuas were starting two hours early for
a double header. Why start two games at
5:00 (Pacific time) on a Thursday night?
At least do it on Friday. And why
were there two other double headers also going on at the same time in the
PCL?
I missed most of game 1, but heard the most important
play. In the 5th, Hector
Sanchez came up for the dogs with the bases loaded. If you’ve been listening since he came to the
team, what happened next was no surprise.
The Chihuahuas take the first game, 5-3, largely on the back of
Sanchez’s grand slam. What is a surprise
is that this guy isn’t playing in the majors.
Game 2 started after 10:00 pm (Mountain time), so you knew it was going
to be a long night, even with two 7 inning games. Tim was joined by a local ESPN guy for the
game. There was the rare, strange call
of “umpire’s interference” on an attempted stolen base in the 1st
inning, which caused some confusion and fumbling for the rule book. While the pups had a good lead early, they
lost to the Rainiers 5-4. It seemed like
a decent, if at least loud, crowd in Tacoma, in spite of the time. It ended at 12:30 am my time.
7-29-16
A 0-0 tie between the Chihuahuas and the Rainiers wasn’t
broken until the bottom of the 8th with a home run. Unfortunately, it was a Rainiers’ home
run. They also tacked on another run
before the pups came to bat in the 9th. They managed to score one run and then had a
runner on with Hector Sanchez at the plate with two outs. He made an out, but at least they had the
right guy up. Chihuahuas lose 2-1. The time of game was 2 hours, 21
minutes. There was a large crowd for the
game, and Tim was worried that it had finished so quickly that they were going
to have to delay the fireworks show until it got darker.
I was at work late doing month end processing and got to see
a little of the Dodgers vs the Diamondbacks.
In spite of giving up 7 runs in the 7th, the Dodgers win 9-7
and pull within a game of the Giants, who lost earlier. Vin Scully reported that San Francisco had
the bases loaded late against the Nationals with no outs and grounded into a
triple play. It was the final insult in
a bad July for the G-men.
7-30-16
Happy birthday to me.
I guess. It’s been a mixed bag
the last two days. At least I have
baseball. Sort of. I tuned into the Rangers vs the Royals and
got to hear Michael Young’s speech as he was inducted into the Rangers’ hall of
fame. Unfortunately, my radio reception
went downhill shortly after that. I
think I knew the score was tied late. In
the 9th, I heard Eric Nadel get real excited, so I assumed the
Rangers won. During the Chihuahuas’
broadcast, when they do the scoreboard, I found out that Mitch Moreland had won
the game, 2-1, on a walkoff homer. This
guy may have found his stroke finally.
They also picked up a game on the Astros, who were playing the
Tigers. That seemed like a pretty tense
game, as the Rangers’ radio crew was giving constant updates on it.
I got to hear the last out of a Rockies’ win versus the
Mets. Not exactly engaging. Meanwhile, I’d missed most of the Chihuahuas’
game, which I had much better reception of.
At least I got to hear the bottom of the 9th as the dogs were
playing their division rivals, the Las Vegas 51’s. With a 3 run lead, the Chihuahuas promptly
gave up 2 runs to start the inning.
There were two runners on as the final out was recorded. Chihuahuas win 6-5.
7-31-16
The Rangers won again, 5-3, over the Royals. I feel bad for the World Champions. They lost a couple of good players to free
agency and didn’t replace them, and have been decimated by injuries. The Rangers also picked up another game on
the Astros, who lost to the red-hot Tigers.
(Here’s an easy prediction: they’re going to cool off and go away.) After the game, Eric and Matt talked to
today’s winning pitcher, newly acquired Lucas Herrell. Last year, he was pitching in Korea, where
the games there apparently have
something like a “half-time.” It’s
actually a ten-minute smoke break for the players. Lucas said he’d use the time to go across the
street to get KFC.
My reception was fine for this game and I found out a couple
of things about yesterday’s game. One,
it was a sell-out for Michael Young day.
Two, and I saw this on TV, Young almost punched out Elvis Andrus while
he was being paraded around the stadium in a pickup. Elvis was wearing an evil clown mask at the
time and apparently this is one of Michael Young’s phobias. You can’t make this stuff up.
The Yankees traded off Andrew Miller for prospects. I can see it now. Several of these prospects pan out and the
team is great again, except they can’t hold a lead in the later innings. Why did you guys build up such a great
bullpen to just throw it away? Why am I
talking about the Yankees? In more
relevant news, the Chihuahuas beat the 51’s again, 4-0. They now have an 8 ½ game lead.
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