10-12-18
I listened to today’s NLCS game on the radio after going to soccer in the evening. I was surprised to find it on anywhere. I was looking for high school football coverage, since it was raining tonight and might have been interesting to listen to.
It was 4-1 Brewers up on the Dodgers when I came in. Clayton Kershaw was taken out in the fourth after a two-run single by Domingo Santana with no outs. Santana thought he was caught stealing after that and came out, but had to return to the field when he was found safe upon review. He’d come around to score to make it 5-1 Brewers.
From listening I pieced together the previous innings. The Dodgers weren’t having a great game with three errors and two passed balls, and a Brewer reliever, Brandon Woodruff, had hit a home run earlier. A Manny Machado solo homer was all the Dodgers’ scoring.
Josh Hader came in and tossed three scoreless innings for the Brewers. In the seventh, Jesus Aguilar added a home run to make it 6-1. The Milwaukee fans did a “turbo wave” around the stadium (a quickly performed wave that just went around once). The Dodgers came back in the eighth. They loaded the bases with two outs. Machado again had the big hit with a blooper that drove in two. Matt Kemp singled in a run to close it to 6-4.
By the ninth, I was getting poor reception and was having trouble following the action. There was a walk with two outs. Chris Taylor drove in the run with a triple. Lorenzo Cain may have been injured trying to make a play on the ball. However, the Brewers got the last out and won, 6-5. The Dodgers played an ugly game with four errors. The Brewers played a bunch of pitchers. Starter Gio Gonzalez only went two innings and seven total pitchers were used. It was a rough game for the fans too, as it clocked in at four hours.
10-13-18
My personal schedule has been so screwed up, I’m actually writing this out two days later. Today was the only LCS game I was going to be able to watch on TV this week. It was between the Dodgers and Brewers. At the same time, Aggie Football was on the radio playing an early game. With Joe Buck doing the baseball call, so it was an easy choice to turn down the TV sound and listen to the radio.
In Milwaukee, there was the incomparable sight of Front Row Amy sitting next to the Marlins Man. Never imagined I’d see that. If Kato Kaelin had been sitting by them, it would have been a fan-trifecta for the Brewers. (Kato would have been furiously scribbling out signs and holding them up to offer instant criticism of the team. Amy would have hit him at some point. Marlins Man would have posted Twitter picture selfies of the fight.)
In the first, Lorenzo Cain went over the centerfield wall and robbed a two-run homer. I guess he was okay after yesterday’s possible injury. Apart from that highlight, the first four innings went pretty quick. I’d swear that there were half-innings that went faster than the commercial breaks between them. Actually, that was the thing that was making me lose interest in the game, the extended commercial breaks. In the third, Bob Uecker did come in and call an inning with John Smoltz, which I turned up the sound for.
The scoring got started in the fifth with Orlando Arcia hitting a homer to straight-away center. Bernie Brewer took a trip down the slide. After that, the bases were loaded and Ryan Braun drove in a run on a fielder’s choice, 2-0 Brewers. Travis Shaw tacked on a solo home run at some point. I missed it. The commercials were taking so long, so I was flipping stations in between innings.
The Dodgers made a comeback in the seventh with Cody Bellinger driving in a run and bases loaded walk bringing in another. A double play ended the inning at 3-2 Brewers. In the eighth, Justin Turner hit a two-run homer to give the Dodgers the lead and a 4-3 win. The Brewer bullpen was worn out and with Josh Hader unavailable, they proved very hittable.
Meanwhile, the Aggies were playing the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns on the road. Jack Nixon and Cory Lucas were very complimentary of the facilities there, but were disturbed by the small crowd. They thought that maybe a nearby larger school’s game had drawn away the fans.
I took notes on all of the scoring in the game and I refuse to do so again in this recap. The final was 66-38 Cajuns. Are we sure that the Aggies weren’t actually playing LSU? No, LSU would have had their third string guys in by the fourth quarter and not run up the score that bad. The Cajuns scored on every possession in the first half. The defense only held them to a field goal on their final drive before the half. Needless to say, the Aggie offense could not keep up with that.
In the second half, the Aggies stopped the Cajuns from scoring on two drives. Two. The last one was on the final drive of the game where the Aggies recovered a fumble on the next to last play of the game near the Aggie goal line. Josh Adkins and the offense put up 38 points, which would normally be enough to win a game. Adkins lost a fumble in the fourth and was intercepted on a fourth-and-long, but those were his only blemishes. What happened to the defense? They’ve hardly been lock-down, but this was a complete no-show.
In the evening, I had two more concurrent events. The ALCS was on the radio and a Women’s college volleyball game was on Stadium. Reception was not great on the radio and I found myself listening to the volleyball quite a bit instead.
The baseball game featured the Red Sox and the Astros. This should be a powerhouse series of pitching and hitting. When I came into the game, neither Chris Sale nor Justin Verlander was reported to be sharp. The Astros got the scoring started in the second with George Springer driving in two with the bases loaded. 2-0 Astros.
In the fifth, Verlander lost it as he walked three-in-a-row and walked in a run. A wild pitch brought in the tying run to make it 2-2. The Astros got the lead back in the sixth as Carlos Correa drove in Alex Bregman to make it 3-2. And at this point, I kind of lost interest. Frankly, the game wasn’t that interesting and it was dragging terribly. In the ninth, the Astros put up four more runs to make it 7-2, which was the final.
This game finished in a nice, tidy four hours, just like the earlier game. I’m blaming the commercials. Between innings and with every pitcher change (and there were plenty of those), these extended commercial breaks played. It was almost impossible to keep following along with the game with these lengthy interruptions. I seem to remember that I basically stopped watching NASCAR because of the constant commercial interruptions.
The volleyball match was more interesting. It was a Mountain West matchup between the SDSU Aztecs and the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels. San Diego State plays in a large gym with large fans on the ceiling. I wonder if the ball is still in play if it hits one of those?
I think I recognized one of the Rebels, as they did play here last year, #10 Antonette Rolda. She’s Polynesian, which was probably why I noticed her (my thing for pretty Hawaiian girls). (Hey, where's Thea Sweder? I definitely remember seeing her last year.) Speaking of pretty, #7 Hannah Turnlund on the Aztecs was gorgeous. She was also one of their better players. I think she was their high-scorer for the match. (My notes were terrible, though I was watching closely.)
Both teams had an excellent server as a weapon, and they both utilized a jump serve. Rebel Mariena Hayden is the conference’s top server. Ashlyn Dunbar on the Aztecs not only jump served, but is a tall girl on top of it. She was ferociously hammering the ball. Both servers had multiple aces in the match.
Though the Rebels were on the road and this was an important game in conference, the girls were really loose. The reserves were dancing on the sidelines for the whole match. This team was picked for last and now they’re in contention to make the tournament. They led all the way in Set 1 and won 25-17.
Set 2 was more of a battle. SDSU had an early lead, but the Rebels came back and took the lead. Poor notes again and I can’t credit the play, but one of the girls, with her back to the net, set up for an assist and then did a no-look, behind the head spike. Dunbar got the score within one with an ace. She would have tied it on another ace, but it was overturned on a review. Hayden came up and aced right after. UNLV took it 25-21.
The Aztecs came out of the break motivated and jumped out to an early lead and held it to win Set 3, 25-17. There’d been lots of challenges to this point. There was an early one in Set 4. Later in the match, the SDSU players wanted a challenge, but the coach was already out for the set. UNLV took an early lead. The Aztecs got it within one three times before tying it at 21. Both teams traded set/match points and went into extras. UNLV took it 30-28 and the match 3-1. That was a lot of fun to watch.
10-14-18
I woke up late today. It’s a good thing that today’s Aggie Soccer match was later this afternoon. I had some intention of at least watching the NASCAR prerace, but had to take a shower so I could watch a college volleyball match in a half hour. Today’s race was in Talladega. I’d like to have seen it, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to watch the ending. At least the volleyball would be over before I had to leave. Nearly every time I flipped over to check on the race they were in commercial anyway.
Today, Stadium was showing a Patriot League matchup between the Loyola Greyhounds and the Colgate Raiders. Colgate had a couple of tough players. Their libero #12 Katie Stansbury, had hardware on one knee, both legs wrapped up, and her hip wrapped. She seemed to be happy to be out there though. She should probably be happy to still be walking. Another Colgate player had her hip wrapped too. One of the Aggies’ opponents had a girl wrapped up like that. Boy does that look like the end result of a nasty injury.
The Greyhounds had Katie Forsythe as their libero. She was the national player of the week last week, and is #2 in the nation in digs. The #1 in the nation plays for Air Force. She had 34 digs yesterday. (Did she get all of the digs in the match for the Falcons?) Speaking of that, the Greyhounds also played yesterday. This game is a bit like a tournament setting for them.
Ann Ernst is the Greyhound’s star player. She’s a bad server, but the coach wants her out playing on every point anyway. The Loyola coach seemed like an extremely laidback lady. She lounged in her seat like a disinterested fan watching the game. When she talked to a player or the team, she was never animated or excited. On the other side, Colgate had a very attractive young woman assistant coach who stood on the sidelines giving directions to the team for the whole match.
The teams were playing at Loyola in a large gym/small arena. The building had a lot of seats. The court was also marked out for competitive basketball, perhaps for the Women’s team. The far side stands were empty, but you could hear a crowd on the near side, which wasn’t shown on camera.
“Unleash the hounds!” The announcer identified himself as Christian Taylor. He sounded like a student announcer and was very enthusiastic, not just about Loyola volleyball, but volleyball in general. He had some national knowledge too, which is where I got those digging stats from. He did a good job of making the match lively to listen to. I admit I giggled when he used the term “campfire” a couple of times to describe a ball falling in between several players. I think I’ve heard Aggie Coach Jordan use that term.
Loyola took the first set 25-20. It was close and tense. I think both coaches used all their timeouts. Set 2 went back and forth as both teams had multi-point runs. Loyola took this one 25-23. Loyola took Set 3, 25-20 and the match 3-0. It was a sweep, but a very contested one. Again, it was really fun to watch. Ooh, but not fun to play. Those bandaged-up Colgate players came off the court limping.
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