4-9-18
I was watching the Brewers and Cardinals on
ESPN early in the evening. It was another extra innings game. So much for pace of play. I was going to write my Aunt Judy, who is a
Cardinals fan, that I was watching the game, but then the Brewers won 5-4. I decided
not to write. She might have been taking
it hard.
MLB.TV
totally blocked the Giants and Diamondbacks game for their daily free
game. Not even the audio was
available. I did have it on the TV later. I was busy at work, though, and ended up not
watching hardly any of it. The Giants won 2-1. Instead, I kept up with the Chihuahuas versus the 51’s.
The pups took advantage of a knuckleballer to the tune of 14-0, the team’s largest margin of
victory ever. Kyle Lloyd went 7 innings and only gave up 5 hits. Time of the game was 2 hours, 47
minutes. Wow, I think that’s been par
for about every game they’ve had so far.
Not to mention, that Giants game started at the same time and finished
before the Chihuahuas game. There’s some
pace of play.
4-10-18
Today was Opening Day for the Chihuahuas
in El Paso. I missed virtually
everything on the local sportstalk show beforehand, which they doing at the
ballpark. Brett Nicolas, who’d made a good impression on me with the Rangers, was on the Chihuahuas. Jabari
Blash and Rymer Lirano were back
in the El Paso, but in the other dugout with Salt Lake City Bees. Eric Young Jr. was also with them,
another legacy player, whose dad I watched play. The Chihuahuas’s bats were pretty quiet early
on, as the Bees racked up a couple of runs.
I completely forgot about Aggie Baseball playing the Lobos in Albuquerque. I even had it written down. By the time I’d tuned in, the Aggies were up
9-0 in the seventh. Shockingly, none of
those runs were off home runs. I do have
to admit that the Lobos’ walkup music was way better than the Aggies.
I tuned back to the Chihuahuas. What had been a close game was now suddenly
7-1 Bees in the seventh. Blash and
Lirano were happy to be back playing in Southwest University Park, as they’d
homered. Blash had two. He’s actually homered in the stadium with
four different teams. Tim Hagerty was excited that there was
a catcher’s interference call, which he says only happens once a season. (He called it like three or four times last
season.)
I flipped back to the Aggies to finish
out their game. The final was 9-1 Aggies. Starter Justin
Dehn had 5 scoreless innings with Matt
Perea adding 3 more in relief. Coach Brian Green got his one-hundredth
win. Back in El Paso, the Chihuahuas
were using a position player to finish the ninth. The final score was 14-1 Bees. What a turnaround
from yesterday’s 14-0 win!
4-11-18
Yea!
A weekday day game in El Paso for the Chihuahuas. It’s nice to
have something to listen to during the day.
It was a strangely quiet crowd given that there were a bunch of kids
there. Once again, the SLC Bees were the opponent. They went up 2-0 early on with Jabari Blash again supplying the
offense. In the fourth, the pups loaded
the bases with 2 outs, but got nothing when a popup ended the inning.
In the fifth, Luis Urias homered and lit up the crowd. Next inning, Javy Guerra hit a two-run shot to give the Chihuahuas a 3-2
lead. Ben Revere, on the Bees (I didn’t know he wasn’t still in the MLB),
homered to tie it in the seventh. I was
making lunch at the time and was in and out of the room. Something about the ball cleared the stadium
and rolled under a car? The ball was
thrown back on the field? Two attempts
were made by an outfielder to toss it back into the crowd? Revere tossed his batting gloves into the
crowd? This couldn’t have all been the
same at bat. That’s what I get for not
listening more closely.
I definitely heard Shane Peterson’s homer in the eighth clearing the stadium to give
the Chihuahuas the lead. That got the
kids going. Blash led off the ninth with
a double, but was stranded there. 4-3 Chihuahuas was the final. Tim
Hagerty was really pleased with the game.
With another two-and-half hour game, the kids there even got to see the
whole thing.
At work in the evening, MLB.TV was showing the Reds and Phillies in Philadelphia. It
was a thin crowd and a fairly cold night there.
They got a pretty good show, up to a point. In the second, Luis Castillo hit his first major league home run for the Phillies
into the right field upper deck, and it was a two-run blast. Right after that, Billy Hamilton for the Reds made a leaping robbery of a homer at
the wall. The announcers were
amazed. Even Philly fans applauded
(while booing of course).
Castillo got his second big league
homer and hit it to the same spot in the fifth.
In the sixth, Scott Kingery threw
out a Reds runner at the plate from left field.
It was an epic throw. The runner
wasn’t even sliding; he thought he was in easy.
A military family was reunited from deployment on the field by the Phanatic. The little girl’s expression at seeing her
dad was priceless.
While working, I missed a great play as
a Philly player knocked over an ump while rounding first, but I saw the
replay. The Reds tied it in the
ninth. Yes, it was another extra innings
game. At this point, much of the crowd
probably got more baseball than they wanted and left. The remaining fans got more vocal. “Pitcher’s got a big butt!” “Make them pay!” In the twelfth, Kingery came up with a runner
on third and one out. The Reds brought
in five infielders and had them playing up, but it didn’t help as he hit it to
the outfield for a game-winning sacrifice fly.
4-3 Phillies in four hours
(in the cold) and a sweep by Phils. Get
back on that Gabe Kapler band wagon.
4-12-18
I picked up the Tigers versus the Indians
on the MLB free game in the fourth with the score 9-0 for Indians. The Tribe is looking good so far. This was the Detroit broadcast and I’m really
enjoying listening to Kirk Gibson as
the color commentator. For such a fiery
competitor, he’s rather soft-spoken, thoughtful analyst.
Without much of a game going on, there
were some interesting discussions going on.
One was a breakdown of Francisco
Lindor’s swing. Seeing him in freeze
frame, getting jammed, but still getting the barrel on the ball and full
extension, was a thing of beauty. There
was also a bit of an accusation that a fielder dove for a ball in the outfield
that he did just for “style points.” Kirk said that he knew some fielders would
slow down and then dive, just to get on Sportscenter. My opinion was that it was a great
catch. The Indians won going away.
Here in the desert Southwest, we were
getting our usual spring cleaning in the form of high winds and dust. Tim
Hagerty and Steve Kaplowitz had
a pre-game discussion about wind and baseball.
There have been some very high-scoring Diablos games in the past because of the wind. Pitchers in Major League Baseball have even
been blown off the mound, thus causing a balk.
At the start of the game, the wind was a brisk 37 mph. You could hear it over the microphones for
the whole game.
Speaking of high-scoring games, Cody Decker was been moved up to
Triple-A Reno and pitched in an
18-run game last night. He must love
that. Can’t wait to see him at some
point in the season. A more unlikely
event occurred in tonight’s game between the Chihuahuas and the Bees. Would you have picked a catcher to hit the
first inside-the-park home run for the Chihuahuas at home? That’s what Raffy Lopez did in the third.
He also drove in a run with that dash to tie the score at 2. Almost needless to say, the crowd went
nuts. The wind did carry the ball and
former Chihuahua, Rymer Lirano, hit
the wall hard trying to get it. He was
down for a while, but came up smiling and stayed in the game for while longer.
The Chihuahuas took a 3-2 lead on an
error and added to it in the fifth, making it 5-2. Then the wheels came off on their pitching. The Bees scored 7 runs in the last two
innings. 9-5 Bees was the disappointing final.
4-13-18
Super busy at work today. MLB.TV
blacked out the Rangers and Astros for me. That’s Rangers, Rockies, and D-Backs so
far. Only the Diamondbacks are actually
on local TV here. Aggie Baseball was playing Chicago
State here, but no radio or video was available. I followed along Statcast. It was a 15-2
run-rule blow out by the Aggies. Kyle Bradish went 6 innings, only
giving up the 2 runs. Tristen Carranza had 4 RBI’s, and Caleb Henderson had 3. Even with some wind here today, strangely, no
home runs.
Aggie Softball
was playing Grand Canyon University
in Phoenix. Thank you, GCU for putting
your games up on Youtube. Unfortunately,
I missed virtually the entire game working.
Rachel Rodriguez was back in
at short. The Lopes made a late rally
that fell short. The Aggies won Game 1, 6-5.
What I was able to do was listen to the
Chihuahuas playing the 51’s again, for the second time this
season. Tim Hagerty and Steve
Kaplowitz had an amusing discussion before the game, as Steve was prodding
Tim for another “hot take.” Tim is such
a nice guy, it’s hard to get an angry opinion out of him. He still felt bad about last year, when he
expressed a dislike for a Tom Petty song, and Petty died right after the season
was over. He had a great airline take: “They
start tell you things to do right after you sit down. I paid $500 for this seat and you’re giving
me chores?”
The Chihuahuas were not handing out hot
takes tonight. In the eighth, their
hitting coach was ejected from the dugout for arguing balls and strikes. That was about as fired up as the team got
the crowd. They were losing 3-1 until
the ninth when Las Vegas scored 4 more runs.
7-1 51’s final.
Okay, I did get to watch Game 2 of
Aggie Softball. Kayla Green started. She
pitched in relief in Game 1. Right off
the bat, GCU loaded the bases with no outs.
After two plays at the plate and a popout, the Aggies wiggled out of it
without damage. Fahren Glackin started the scoring in the fourth with a two-run
triple. Rachel drove her in for a 3-0
Aggie lead. In the bottom of the sixth,
the Lopes had runners at second and third with no outs. Again, Kayla got out of it. In the seventh, the Aggies scored off an
error to make it 4-1 going into the bottom of the seventh.
Once again, the Lopes loaded the bases
with no outs. Kayla was taken out for Analise de la Roca. The GCU announcers were a pair of enthusiastic
students. Analise started getting hit
and the guys got all over her and Aggies.
“She’s throwing batting practice!”
“The Aggies are self-destructing again!”
It was like they were trying out for ESPN. Soon enough, the score was tied with the
winning run on third. Kayla came back
in, but the announcers were right, it was too late. 5-4
GCU. The Aggies never got an out in
the inning. I hope the girls weren’t as
crushed as I was by this loss; they’ve got another game tomorrow.
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