Monday, November 5, 2018

Sports Journal October 27-28, 2018

10-27-18
While I was at Aggie Soccer with Ron, we were both listening to Aggie Football over the radio.  They were on the road against the Texas State Bobcats.  I don’t know where that university is.  I have some vague idea of where UTRGV is, as they were Aggie Soccer and Volleyball’s opponent today.  After the disappointing results of the match, I got home and started watching the World Series.  I intermittently tuned back in to the football to listen to the end. 

Honestly, it didn’t seem like NMSU’s day after tough losses in soccer and volleyball.  I didn’t have much hope for football, though they were playing what should have been a beatable opponent.  I took some indifferent notes of the game, in between soccer match plays and gave up altogether after I got back home. 

I can only recap the first half and probably not all of it.  The Bobcats went up 7-0 quick after the game started.  The Aggies came down and missed a field goal.  The Bobcats got a touchdown off an interception, but missed the PAT to go up 13-0.  The Aggies would then get a field goal.  Jason Huntley later broke off a big run for a touchdown.  It got partly called back, but the Aggies would go ahead and get the touchdown a couple plays later to make it 13-10. 

And that’s where the soccer match and my notes ended.  The Bobcats would win 27-20.  The Aggies had a chance late, but couldn’t get the score.  Turnovers hurt the Aggies today.  That’s all the analysis I got.  The defense held up a bit better today, but the offense had problems.

There was no scoring in the World Series Game 4 through five innings.  This was surprising given that at least Red Sox pitching was exhausted from last night.  They’d already blown out today’s scheduled starter.  Dodger pitching wasn’t in much better shape.  Apparently, the bats were more tired than the arms.

Little wonder I found myself watching a Mountain West Volleyball match on Stadium.  (Again, I wasn’t rooting for either team in the World Series.)  It was another Utah State Aggies home game (10-16-18 was the last time), this time against the Nevada Wolfpack.  There was a light crowd at the gym there in Logan.  I didn’t notice before, but they do have a video board there.  The girls tossed little balls into the stands while they were introduced.  I got to see Tasia Taylor and her glamorous curls and tall and beautiful Corrinne Larsen on the Aggies again.  I loved the name for one of the Wolfpack players, Shiloh Peleras (pronounced “Polaris”).

I got little in the way of notes for the match.  I was probably not high on volleyball after today’s NMSU Aggie loss.  The US Aggies would win in straight sets.  The announcers also rubbed it in that their football team won today as well.  During the match, there was a double touch call.  The match analyst said that some officiating crews call those tighter than others.  No kidding.  I had to endure about 10 of those earlier.

Back in Los Angeles, the Dodgers broke through in the sixth.  After loading the bases, they scored on an error.  Yasiel Puig then came up with a three-run homer.  He did a monster bat flip as Red Sox pitcher, Eduardo Rodriguez, threw his mitt down on the mound like a Little Leaguer.  4-0 Dodgers. 

Rich Hill was pitching a great game for the Dodgers to this point, like a one-hitter.  He was pulled in the seventh.  There’s been some small amount of controversy over this move.  Did the analytics mandate this?  Did Manager Dave Roberts mistake some indigestion for a “gut” move?  Did Hill tap out?  Did Trump have to troll the Dodgers on Twitter after they lost the game because of this move?   

Yeah, right after that, Mitch Moreland hit a three-run homer.  In the eighth, Steve Pearce then homered off of Kenley Jansen to tie it at 4.  By the ninth, the Red Sox bats were wide awake.  Rafael Devers got a pinch hit RBI for the lead.  Pearce then hit a bases loaded double to clear the bases and then another run was tacked on for a 9-4 lead.  Craig Kimbrel gave up a two-run homer to start the bottom of the ninth, but the Sox won it, 9-6, and took a 3-1 series lead. 

10-28-18
I may not have been into volleyball by Sunday either.  I watched a Patriot League match on Stadium between the Loyola Greyhounds and the Navy Midshipmen, but wasn’t entirely into it.  It was the Senior Day game for Loyola.  The girls were all smiles and hugging before the match.  However, they might have been tired from playing a five-set match against undefeated in conference (12-0), American, last night.  There was also a very light crowd there.

What was entertaining me during the match was the Loyola announcer, Kyle Rey.  In the first set, he exclaimed, “That was a huge deposit for Cash!”  He was referring to Alyssa Cash on the team after a kill.  The lead went back-and-forth, but Navy took it, 25-23.

Point 3-3 in Set 2 featured an absurd rally.  Navy bounced the ball off the net a couple of times to keep the point going.  The ball went straight up vertical after one hit.  I was sure there were four touches during one of those fire drills, but the ref’s can count better than me as Navy took that point.  Kyle got a ball in his lap a couple points later.  Those announcers are close to the action too. 

The Mr. Greyhound (I don’t know his actual name) mascot worked the crowd.  He was kind of terrifying.  He looked bulked up on ‘roids and had this huge ferocious head.  Not much kid-friendly marketing there.  Loyola was up in this set, but Navy came back and took it 25-23.  Unlike their last match that I saw (10-14-18), the Loyola coach was more active and out on court, talking to the players between points.

“She’ll fix the kitchen sink later,” said Kyle about Abby Hamilton on the Greyhounds.  She was at least having a good game.  Navy went up early in Set 3.  At 12-9 Navy, Kyle took a ball to the face.  They don’t warn you about these things in media classes.  20-16 Navy “Putty pounds it home,” Kyle recovered well and had no trouble calling a Hayley Putty kill. 

20-18 Navy “Call it a comeback,” said Kyle as the Greyhounds were making a game of it.  23-20 timeout.  All four had been used in the set, “The coaches don’t want to take them home with them.”  Loyola fell short though, 25-22 Navy and 3-0 for the match.

Game 5 of the World Series between the Red Sox and Dodgers was later in the evening.  Functionally, the game ended early in the first inning as Steve Pearce hit a two-run homer off Clayton KershawDavid Freese briefly gave the Dodgers some hope in the bottom with a leadoff homer against David Price.  Price was working in his fourth game of the Series (including warming up in one game) and surely he would regress to his mean of playoff failure. 

Hey, is that Megan Fox behind home plate?  I guess not.  Nice, whoever she is.  Freese made two more good plays.  In the third, he tripled as JD Martinez lost the ball in the dark twilight sky.  It actually looked like rain there in LA.  In the fifth, he made great play at first.  And that’s your final Dodger highlight for the night.

From here, it was all Red Sox.  In the sixth, Mookie Betts hit a solo homer, 3-1.  He’d been 0 for 13 in the series to that point.  In the seventh, JD homered to dead center as the ball just seemed to carry out, 4-1.  Kershaw came out eighth.  His replacement gave up another homer to Steve Pearce, 5-1.

Price came out in the eighth, after giving up a leadoff walk and getting 14 straight outs.  Joe Kelly struck out three straight pinch hitters.  It was at this point I figured out that there’s not going to be a pitch clock in MLB baseball.  FOX was running micro ads in between every pitch.  The networks may start mandating that pitchers work slower. 

In the ninth, Chris Sale came in.  His teammates in the bullpen applauded him as he took the field.  He closed it out for a 5-1 final in a (shocker) three-hour game.  The Red Sox are your MLB champions 4 games to 1.  Steve Pearce was the MVP for going 4 for 12 with three homers.  David Price could have deserved it too with three appearances and having warmed in another game.  He truly does have a rubber arm, and unfortunately, a truly thin skin.  His postgame, “I hold the trump card,” press conference was almost a cry for help.

Well, what have we learned?  Lots of money poured into free agents and your player development system can win you a championship, probably every time from now on too.  The Red Sox analytics department beat the Dodgers’ analytics department.  There were lots of Red Sox fans were there in LA at the game.  And network execs were furious that the game didn’t go another hour as usual; they still had 1,500 more commercials to run. 

Here’s a few of throw-ins I learned about later.  From the 70’s show Space:1999, that I saw Saturday night on Comet, in 1998 the Red Sox beat the Cardinals in the last World Series before organized sports were outlawed.  The tweet of the night came via the Texas Rangers to the Dodgers: “Welcome to the two World Series losses in a row club.  We meet every Tuesday.”   


And Game 3 of this series alone took longer, at seven hours, 20 minutes, than the entire 1939 World Series.  That factoid came courtesy of the Cespedes Family BBQ podcast guys.  MLB had them on a live commentary simul-cast during Game 3.  I’m sure they thought it would be a fun little four-hour broadcast having no idea they’d be completely insane by the end of it.

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