8-27-19
The Chihuahuas won a late night game after an hour hail delay in El Paso! There was some dithering about starting the
game as the overcast cloud cover and radar weren’t promising. While I was waiting, I tried to get into the free
MLB.TV day, where all the games were
available. Unfortunately, unlike the
last time (7-12-19), most of the games were blowouts. The teams I was most interested in were on
late and audio-only, which conflicted with the Chihuahuas’ broadcast. I did get to hear Jon Miller doing a Giants
game, but only the bottom of the ninth.
8-28-19
12 batters, 9 runs, 9 hits in a row. That was a busy inning for the Chihuahuas on their way to another
win. Michael Gettys also set the team season record for home runs with
31.
8-29-19
The Chihuahuas dropped their last home game, losing it in
the ninth with a one-run lead. Las Vegas also lost, so the pups didn’t
lose any ground. They are two games back
with four games left.
8-31-19
The Chihuahuas got a big win at Sacramento, 3-0. They were facing Johnny Cueto on rehab, who I’ve seen pitch in-person (5-29-16). This time, the pups’
pitching was up to the task. After six
scoreless innings, the Chihuahuas scored and held on. Las Vegas lost, so the Chihuahuas are now one
game back.
I attempted to watch the NASCAR Xfinity race at Darlington,
but my reception of NBC today was
suboptimal. NBC was passing tomorrow’s Southern 500 off to cable so that I
couldn’t watch altogether. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in the race
after being in a plane crash two weeks ago.
Frustratingly, reception only cleared up just before the end. Denny
Hamlin won, but his car failed inspection and he was stripped of the win,
as he was not racing for points in this series.
Junior finished in sixth. He
seemed in very good spirits, though he said after that his crash injuries
caught up with him about halfway through the race. He was a trooper here.
9-1-19
I’m not sure how much sports
writing I’m going to be doing outside of Aggie games this month. I’m going to go ahead post Labor Day weekend here with the end of
August, instead of doing a September post.
While listening to the
Rangers’ game in the afternoon, Jared
Sandler broke into the guys’ commentary to give play-by-play of Justin Verlander getting Bo Bichette to ground out for his third
career no-hitter. Even though he’s an Astro, the Rangers announcers were
impressed. I was also watching a Rays game on a Mexican station and they
showed the highlight as well.
The Chihuahuas were shutout on a bullpen day for the Rivercats. Possibly not coincidentally, Travis Jankowski was called up. The pups have lost too much of their great
lineup and the pitching is as poor as ever.
Their only hope was that the Aviators
lost later in the night.
9-2-19 Labor Day
And, we’re disappointed.
When I tuned into the Chihuahuas for this Labor Day afternoon, Tim Hagerty informed us that Las Vegas
had won last night thus winning the division.
Just to make my life needlessly difficult, the Rangers/Yankees game that I’d tuned in on the radio this morning
was in a rain delay that lasted until the Chihuahuas game started. Great.
My last opportunity to hear the pups this season crossed with one of my
last chances to hear the Rangers this season.
(Likely most of the rest of their weekend games will be preempted by
football.)
Not to mention, the whole time I was watching the NHRA US Nationals at Indianapolis. The last couple of times that I meant to
watch this event, I was at a Chihuahuas game (9-3-18 and 9-5-16). Yet another disappointment was Leah Pritchett being eliminated in the
first round again. It wasn’t even live;
it had happened earlier in the morning.
How am I supposed to develop an unhealthy obsession with Leah if I don’t
get to see her race? I only got to see
her featured in a commercial. That was
it.
That said, I did enjoy the rest of the coverage. John
Force won in Funny Cars. His insane ranting post-race interview alone
would have been worth the price of admission.
He walked away from the microphone saying, “Boy, I screwed that
interview up!” The Top Fuel final featured both cars blowing their engines. They had to coast over the finish line (at
over 250-mph).
Meanwhile, I settled on trying to listen to both baseball
games and came away with feeling like I hadn’t listened to either. After a three-hour delay, the Rangers beat
the Yankees 7-0. Mike
Minor pitched seven shutout innings for the win. I did hear Delino DeShields hitting a monster three-run homer. But the story was that this was the first
time since last June that the Yankees had been shutout. That was 220 games! It made the bottom of the ninth more exciting
with something on the line in spite of the lopsided score.
The Chihuahuas lost 8-4. They’d led for much of the game, but gave up
a big inning late. Tim sounded much more
relaxed and conversational during the coverage.
For the last week, he’d been explaining playoff scenario tiebreakers
constantly. He got a bit emotional in
the postgame talking about the games following the El Paso Wal-Mart
shooting. I’ll save the post-season
stats for a Chihuahuas’ season recap. Their opponent today, the Sacramento
Rivercats, are going on to the playoffs.
Before the game, their players were out in uniform greeting the fans as
they came in. That’s a nice tradition
for the last home game of the year. This
was the last game of the Triple-A
regular season. Every other game of the
day was already done.
Later in the evening, KOA out of Denver was coming in
decently, so I was able to listen to the Rockies
versus the Dodgers. Boy, are the Rockies inexplicably bad this
year. I guess it’s their pitching, but
even the armless Padres are ahead of them in the standings. The game was a 16-9 Dodger victory that was not even that close and it dragged out
terribly.
The Rockies’ announcers
appreciated the Dodger organist, Dieter
Ruehle, and his sense of humor, playing the Gilligan’s Island theme at the three-hour mark. Unfortunately, it blew right past that to go
over four hours. There were delays for
an injured umpire, an injured Joc
Pederson (robbing Charlie Blackmon
of a home run), and various pitching changes.
The announcers were horrified by a combined 11 home runs in a pitcher’s
park that is Dodger Stadium. Ian
Desmond for the Rockies had a good game.
He pitched a scoreless eighth, when the game wasn’t in doubt, and put
the ball in his back pocket. He then hit
a home run in the ninth.
I finished by Labor Day
Weekend watching the end of a classic Godzilla
film festival on Comet. Why not?
Our longtime talk radio station here in Las Cruces finally dumped their
recent Spanish music format change and went back to talk this weekend. I think this means I’m living in the United
States again, at least for the moment.
Food-wise, Dad bought and
shared a Papa John’s pizza with me
on Sunday. I used a two-for-one coupon at
Barnes & Noble for a pair of
salted caramel toffee cookies for dessert.
(Dad didn’t like his.) I put some
bacon on my Monday leftover slices. That
worked surprisingly well. In a fit of
indulgence later, I walked over and bought a cup of pistachio froyo with
cheesecake chunks at Orange Leaf. It was overpriced and I shouldn’t have done
it, but it was very tasty mistake. I
didn’t work on my fiction story all weekend, so that was a poor use of my time. On the other hand, this was the most restful
time off from work I’ve had all year.
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