Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Baseball Journal May-July 2023 Part 3

7-4-23

Happy Independence Day.  I am living The Sandlot the last two days.  It’s all one summer baseball game that never ends.  Unfortunately, my teams aren’t winning any of them.  I blame MLB.TV for enabling my addiction by putting all their games up for free the last two days.    

 

The Chihuahuas lost 20-2 on Sunday to the Isotopes.  I tuned out on that game early.  They lost 11-10 on Monday.  They had been up 9-5 after a six-run fourth inning, but the Isotopes came right back.  For the first time in their 10-year existence, the pups would have a home game on the Fourth.  It was a 12-6 loss to Las Vegas, but at least the crowd got fireworks.  Needless to say, the Chihuahuas’ pitching staff has been pretty ineffective at this point.   

 

I found myself somewhat fascinated by the Tigers vs the A’s today.  It was an exercise in complete offensive futility through 9 innings.  The A’s finally won it, 1-0, in the tenth.

 

Oh, the Angels.  Mike Trout was injured last night with a broken hand.  Anthony Rendon had to be assisted off the field today after taking a foul ball off his knee.  (No real loss there.)  And then, Shohei Ohtani developed a blister on his finger and could no longer pitch and had to come out of the game.  But the Angels are still in it.  They could be buyers at the trade deadline.  (No.  Shohei will be traded.  Anything else would be irresponsible.)    

 

It was an awesome night for former Aggie star, Nick Gonzales, and the Pirates against the Dodgers.  Nick had a 2-RBI double in the first and went 3 for 4 in the game.  Down a run in ninth, Nick worked a walk to put tying run in scoring position.  The Young Bucs scored 3 in the inning to take a 9-7 lead for the win.  51k Dodger fans disagreed with the final two strike calls in the bottom (they were right), but the Pirates raised the Jolly Rodger and celebrated on field anyway. 

 

7-5-23

My poor Aunt Judy and her favorite team.  The Cardinals’ terrible season continues.  After a 15-2 loss to the Marlins on the Fourth, they went down 5-0 today.  However, the Cards battled back.  In the ninth, rookie Jordan King homered to give them a one-run lead.  In the bottom, with two runners on, a comebacker to the pitcher was airmailed over first base and the two runners scored giving the Marlins the 10-9 win.  I had dad text Aunt to make sure she was okay.  She was stunned and disappointed, but otherwise fine.

 

The Pirates led early against the Dodgers, but the Blue came back to win it with a big inning.  I needed the D-Backs to win with the Dodgers winning to keep them from getting closer to first place, but it wasn’t to be.  They had the Mets down 1-0 in the ninth and down to their last out and last strike.  Even more than that, a dropped foul tip almost ended the game.  But with new life, the Mets solo homered and then scored another run to win, 2-1.  Earlier, the Rays dropped another to the Phillies.  At least the Orioles finally beat the Yankees today after two hurtful losses to keep me from crying.      

 

7-6-23

After 9 mutually scoreless innings Tuesday, A’s won the next day 12-3 over the Tigers.  Then today, the Tigers won, 9-0.  Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself and my preseason predictions.  This game is pretty unpredictable.  Former Chihuahuas star infielder, Jace Peterson, pitched a scoreless bottom of the eighth for the A’s. 

  

There was a lengthy rain delay in Washington in the Nationals’ game with the Reds.  When play resumed, Screech, the Nationals’ eagle mascot, was behind home plate at one point wearing a bright yellow rain slicker and hat.  It was a tight game.  Tied in the ninth, Nick Senzel made a game-saving catch for the Reds.  He came up first in the tenth and hit a two-run homer, which would be the winner.  America’s Team just finished a four-game sweep. 

 

What’s going on with baseball offense?  After yesterday’s 9 scoreless inning game with the Tigers and A’s (which, admittedly, wasn’t that surprising given the teams), the White Sox and Blue Jays went 10 scoreless innings.  The final was 6-2 Blue Jays in the 11-th, which made it even weirder. 

 

The worst of it was that that was Game 1 of a double header.  I’m thinking they wished they’d kept that 7-inning double header rule.  The Jays won Game 2.  The most significant play happened late.  A foul ball went into the White Sox broadcast booth.  Steve Stone ducked out of the way and the ball busted the large flatscreen behind him.  Who pays for that?

 

Former Aggie pitcher, Kyle Bradish, started for the Orioles in tonight’s game against the Yankees.  He was on.  Kyle went 6 innings and gave up no runs.  The O’s offense gave him plenty of support with a 7-run third inning.  They piled on from there.  Gunnar Henderson had 4 hits, 2 homers, and 5 RBI’s.  In the ninth, you got something you never see: a Yankee position player pitching at home.  The final was 14-1 Orioles.  That one run scored in the bottom of the ninth.  The remaining fans cheered, and I think it was an honest cheer.  The O’s entered the belly of the beast and won two of four from the Evil Empire East.

 

Meanwhile, the Evil Empire West (the Dodgers) beat the Pirates, 5-3.  Another Aggie, Nick Gonzales, had a good game.  He doubled in two runs in the second.  (I was walking somebody out at work and missed it.)  His OPS was briefly 1.036 after that hit. 

 

The Rays lost all three home games this week to the Phillies.  Tonight’s game was 1-1 until the 11-th inning (again, what the hell?), before the Phils won 3-1.  Meanwhile, the Rangers lost to the Red Sox again.  The Rangers were mostly leading until the Sox had a 6-run seventh.  I almost lost it during these last two Ranger games . . . because of the radio commercials that played during the breaks.  It was the same spots every inning.  I was enjoying the booth banter so much, but I couldn’t take the commercials.  I had to kind of tap out on listening. 

 

Whew!  That was a lot of baseball this week.  I didn’t even list all the games I watched or looked in on. 

 

7-8-23

Technically, I’m reporting on a game from July 5-th, but it was new to me on Saturday morning.  Stadium was showing a replay of a game earlier in the week between the Columbus Clippers and the Nashville Sounds.  I’d seen the Sounds before on the MILB Showcase.  They have a nice stadium and a bunch of fans.  They are a good candidate for MLB expansion.  That night they were wearing a faux-City Connect jersey with “Hit City” stitched on the front.  Sweet.

 

The announcer was talking about the previous night’s game on Independence Day.  The Sounds were short on pitching and had to have two position players pitch four innings in a 19-2 loss.  Oddly, the team is still leading Triple-A in pitching, even after this loss. 

 

Tonight’s game, which featured the Country Legends Nesting Doll giveaway, had the Sounds up 9-3 going into the eighth.  The team was still a little short on pitching, though, to the tune of giving up 11 runs over the next two innings.  The Sounds were down 3 runs in the bottom of the ninth. 

 

This game wasn’t over yet.  The Clippers had their own pitching problems with 6 walks in the inning.  The Sounds tied the score with a couple of forced in runs.  During the inning I saw two former Chihuahuas players and Skye Bolt, former Las Vegas Aviator.  With two outs and little kids all over the stadium jumping up and down and cheering, former pup player, Abraham Toro, popped up on the infield.  Four Clippers converged under the ball . . . and let it drop in between them.  Oh, it wasn’t funny for them, but I laughed so hard.  What a game!  15-14 Hit City.


7-9-23

Chihuahuas vs Las Vegas Aviators.  The second half has been a disaster for the pups and resetting the record hasn’t helped (they’re 2-10).  Tonight, they really tried against the Aviators.  They tied the game twice after falling behind by 5 runs and then by 4 runs, but they couldn’t get outs on defense.  The final was 13-10 Las Vegas. 

 

This 9-inning game ran over three and a half hours.  Thankfully, that’s an oddity now.  There were four consecutive 9-batter half-innings late that contributed to the duration.  This was the final active baseball game before the break because of the length.  The MLB games I kept up on today were quick, as the players wanted to get to the ASG break.                

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