Sports Journal September 22-23, 2018

9-22-18

It was a simultaneous double header this morning.  The FOX game was the Cardinals and the Giants.  The game on Televisa was the other Fox game, the Braves versus the Phillies.  Both games were meaningful with the Cardinals trying to stay in the playoffs and the Braves trying to win their division.

I stuck with the Cards and Giants, probably mostly to hear AJ Pierzynski’s color commentary.  He does a really good job.  Unfortunately, I felt like I kept missing most of his comments and stories while I was getting my lunch.  I was in sort of a rooting quandary.  I like both teams, but the Cardinals losing would help the Rockies.  But, it’s hard to root against the Cardinals at home.  But, I really like the Giants.  I was truly divided. 

The Giants have the highest payroll in the NL and second in all of the MLB, but are currently a mess.  They’ve lost Jeff Samardzija, Johnny Cueto, and Buster Posey to injury.  They traded Andrew McCutchen.  They put Joe Panik at first, his first time ever playing first.  I didn’t recognize a bunch of their players.  They did run out Dereck Rodriguez to pitch, who I’ve seen before.  He’s been their best starter this season and the guys in the booth were impressed with him.

The first scoring came when I flipped over to the other game.  In the second, Freddie Freeman drove in two runs as part of a four-run inning for the Braves.  The young players he drove in were fired up as they crossed the plate.  In the second in St. Louis, Card’s pitcher, Adam Wainwright, drove in a run to make it 1-0 Cardinals.

In the third, Evan Longoria made a great pick at third base to start a double play.  The guy can still play the field.  In the fifth, Wainwright cranked one out . . . to just short of the warning track.  Everyone watching thought it was going out, but the ball just died in the 66 degree, overcast air.  Another Cardinal hitter did the same thing later, so it wasn’t just him.

In the seventh, the Giants went up 4-2.  Twice, they got an RBI hit and the Cardinals committed an error right after.  In the bottom, the sun came out and presumably it warmed up a bit.  Yadier Molina took advantage of that to the tune of a two-run homer to tie it at 4.  He came out for a curtain call. 

Back in Atlanta, the Phillies made a comeback in the eighth and closed the score to 4-3.  I decided to stick with this game.  In the bottom, Kurt Suzuki drove in Ender Inciarte to make it 5-3.  The crowd was waving pink tomahawks during the rally.  They went on to win and win the NL East.  They even brought out a new division banner on field for the celebration.

The Cardinals and Giants went to the tenth.  Interesting trivia came up.  Yadi is now the Molina brother with the most home runs.  He just passed his brother, Bengie Molina, who calls Cardinal games in Spanish.  In the top of the tenth, Matt Carpenter made two errors on the same play.  The Giants loaded the bases, but didn’t score.  In the bottom, Tyler O’Neil hit a walkoff homer to end it, 5-4 Cardinals.  He then got the “Shred,” as his uniform top was torn off by his teammates.  Wow, the kid is really built.  With four errors today, the Cardinals won this one in spite of themselves.  The Rockies won their game against the Diamondbacks tonight, 5-1, to keep pace.  I got to hear the end of it after the football game.  Antonio Senzatela went seven innings and only gave up one run.        

Later in the evening, the NM State Football team took on the UTEP Miners in El Paso.  While we were at Soccer on Thursday, I told Ron that there weren’t any Aggie sports this weekend except for the winless Aggies taking on the winless Miners.  In fact, I found out this was the only FBS-level matchup this weekend that involved two winless teams.  Somebody’s gotta win tonight, because this isn’t soccer or the NFL. 

The first thing I have to mention was that during the whole first half they were playing some annoying bumper music over the announcers coming back from every commercial.  I think they fixed that by the second half thankfully, though I actually had the radio on in the background while I was watching TV by that time.  The Sun Bowl crowd for the game was described as small, but vocal.  From what I saw on TV on the nightly news, it didn’t look too bad.  Hey, there’s the Aggie Softball girls in the visitors section!  Hi, girls. 

In the First Quarter, on the Miners first series, they had to punt twice because of a penalty.  The Aggies blocked that second try and ran it in for a touchdown, 7-0.  The Aggies have done a pretty good job of at least getting off to a good start in their games this season.  The Miners are rushing team and that’s what they did on their second possession, which resulted in a tying touchdown, 7-7.  The Aggies could run the ball too, and did that to get downfield on their next possession.  They put up a field goal to make it 10-7.  Listening to an El Paso Sportstalk show this morning (and a tailgating fan on the news), they gloomily predicted a 10-7 final score, given the ineptness of both teams’ offenses, so anything after this is gravy.

For the Second Quarter, the Miners got a field goal to tie it at 10.  The drive did feature a long pass play.  On another drive, the Miners got inside the Aggie 10, but fumbled it away.  A couple of plays later, Aggie quarterback, Josh Adkins, was blindsided on a hit and fumbled it back to them with under a minute left.  The very next play, the Aggie defense forced a fumble from the UTEP QB, Kai Locksley.  Malik Demby recovered the ball and ran it back for a touchdown!  17-10 Aggies at the half.

Crushing news at halftime, though.  Aggie Volleyball lost in five sets again today to CSU-Bakersfield.  That’s their sixth five-setter this season.  I hope the coach is still cycling in lots of players, because you’re going to need to keep the girls fresh with these kind of workouts. 

The third quarter didn’t start well for the Aggies with back-to-back three-and-outs.  Meanwhile, the Miners got a touchdown on a 76-yard pass play to tie the game at 17.  They also drove deep on their next drive, but missed a field goal attempt.  Time for another big play.  How about a 53-yard pass to Royce Caldwell for a TD and a 24-17 lead. 

UTEP put up another field goal in the fourth quarter to make it 24-20.  Another bomb from Adkins found Johnathan Boone.  The Aggies had a first-and-goal on the Miner 1, but failed to get it in.  They settled for another Dylan Brown field goal to make it 27-20.  However, UTEP had a couple of minutes left.  The Aggie defense really stood up here.  The Miners were forced into a fourth-and-long and gave the ball back on an interception.  Two victory formations later, the Aggies won 27-20.

Whew.  At least the Aggies won’t go winless this year.  Given the competition, it’s hard to gauge whether the team has really improved.  Josh Adkins definitely stepped up and made some big plays.  The defense really made some big plays, too.  Special teams were an asset tonight.  The Aggies got a lot of fouls in the first half, but cleaned that up in the second.  This was a good, total team effort. 

Sorry UTEP, your FBS-worst losing streak continues.  UTEP’s offense dominated the time of possession (and just about every other stat), but didn’t convert on enough on their long drives and didn’t stop the Aggies from moving downfield in quick strikes.  The Miner fans on the radio weren’t too sure they were going to get a better chance at a win this year.  I’m kind of sorry I wasn’t there, frankly.  I’ve been to the Sun Bowl.  It’s kind of cool.         

I wrote this last week, so I’ll post it here.  Dad said that the coach and the team got “Lucky” last year.  I really have to disagree.  New Mexico State was fortunate to recruit some really good players, who I think would have been successful anywhere.  Coach Martin did a good job of getting the whole team to peak at the same time around those stars, which led to their bowl game victory. 

NM State Football may unfortunately be analogous to a low-payroll MLB franchise.  The program is not going to be able to maintain a high-level of play from year-to-year.  They’re going to have droughts after any success and will have to slowly build up to be competitive each time.  Unlike the MLB however, the Aggies can’t trade anyone or get a higher draft position after a bad season to improve their team.  At least the program has finally proven that it can win.

9-23-18

So much for baseball today, as the Rangers’ game was canceled on my local affiliate for FOX Sports Radio Red Zone coverage.  Eric Nadel better not retire right after this season, because I‘m going to be pissed if I don’t get to hear his last game because of stuff like this.  Likewise, Stadium did not broadcast the scheduled college Women’s Volleyball event, but did put on a Women’s Soccer match.  Those really aren’t the same things, but as long as I had the TV on and wanted to relax for a little while, why not watch? 

If I was going to watch soccer today, I would have preferred the Aggies versus the Miners in the El Paso this evening.  I would get to see the Aggies, though.  In this case, it would be the Utah State Aggies playing the Nevada Wolfpack.  They were in Logan, Utah.  It was windy and cool with scenic mountains and trees in the background.  I’ve seen this field before (10-27-17).  I still don’t know what that pyramid is for behind one of the goals.

Much of the crowd at Chuck and Gloria Ball Field (I didn’t name it, just repeating what I heard) was seated on the field or on the berm behind the goal with the pyramid and the scoreboard.  I got a view of the grandstand, which featured a large, brick pressbox.  I get the impression this was maybe a high school football field at some point.

I’ve seen this Nevada team, too (10-1-17).  One of their girls was again doing flip throw-in’s, Angel Meriwether, but the announcers today weren’t going crazy about it.  The Wolfpack has a much better record than these Aggies, so this wasn’t a good-looking game on paper.  Utah State did get one of their better players back from a two-game suspension this afternoon.  I wonder what she did to get that. 

Nevada was on the attack for most of the first half, but the score would be nil-nil after 45 minutes.  Yeah, this really isn’t volleyball.  During halftime, there was a Mountain West conference commercial, which featured some highlights.  Hey, NM State Soccer was in a couple of the clips, giving up goals, of course. 

It was a complete turnaround in domination in the second half as Utah State continuously peppered Nevada goalie Kendal Stovall.  She was really getting a workout and a beating from players crashing into her.  And it was still nil-nil.  I was really fearing overtime, but in the last minute (89’) Imelda Williams was fouled in the Nevada box.  Ashley Cardozo, the Aggies’ playmaker (and pretty cute with her hair up), took the PK and won it 1-0 for Utah State.  That was a really sad result for Kendal Stovall, who’d played so well in goal.  Okay, that wasn’t as good as volleyball and not a great soccer match either, but kind of entertaining, I guess.