I finally got to watch a game on TV this season. Since losing FOX thanks to their signal upgrade and my place of employment pulling their cable, I’ve only been listening to radio broadcasts and catching random MLB.TV games. Today’s Wildcard series game was a noon game between the Astros and the surprising Tigers.
This would be a series between experience (the Astros’ seven ALCS appearances in a row) and chaos (the Tigers have one dedicated starting pitcher and a lineup where anyone can be pinch hit for at any time). There’s also the drama of AJ Hinch returning to Houston to manage against the team that dismissed him (for a scandal that his players were running, not him).
I’m glad that Houston won in 2017 after the hurricane, and I’m glad they won in 2022 to somewhat redeem themselves after the sign-stealing scandal. If nothing else, the Astros have kept the Yankees out of the World Series for the last seven years and that’s praiseworthy. However, I was a Detroit Tiger fan in the 80’s and was overjoyed when they won in ’84, though I was less thrilled with the ensuing riot. I’d be rooting for them. (Of course I was a Tigers fan in the 80’s. The team was good and there was the tie-in with Magnum PI, one of my favorite shows.)
The Tigers would be running out their only starter, Tarik Skubal. He’s the AL Triple Crown winner (leading in ERA, strikeouts, and wins) and the probable Cy Young winner. I have seen him pitch in person against the Aggies (3-24-18). When he made it to the big leagues, he had a pretty memorable name, so I had no trouble remembering him.
This broadcast would feature Michael Kay, the voice of the Yankees, doing the play-by-play. I’ve heard him a couple of times this season. He’s really good. (I’m enjoying a Yankees’ broadcast? He’s obviously good.) There was not a full house to start the game. It filled in later, but it wasn’t a good look. Shades of the Diablos’ Diamond Girls, the Astros have cheerleaders dancing on the dugouts.
In the second inning, Astros’ starter, Framber Valdez, became hittable. The Tigers got three runs off of three singles up the middle. In the bottom of the inning, Skubal took a liner off of his glove hand wrist. He was okay. In the sixth, it looked like he tweaked his back after a pitch, but again, he was okay.
The Tigers left the bases loaded in the seventh, but didn’t get any more runs across. The bottom of the ninth had way more drama than I’d hoped for. The Astros scored a run and had the bases loaded with two outs before the Tigers pulled it out with a 3-1 win. Whew!
Elsewhere, the Orioles lost to the Royals. I was sort of pleased and sort of unhappy with that result. I had to console an Orioles-loving co-worker when I got to work. On the NL side later, the Mets beat the Brewers. I got to listen to Padres versus the Braves at work. Fernando Tatis Jr. set the tone with a two-run homer in the first and Big Brown took that game. I was working, so I did miss a bunch of the game.
The Tigers and the Astros were the first game the next day. It was Hunter Brown for Houston versus the Detroit bullpen. The Tigers didn’t have a starter by design. It was super tense with neither side giving up anything. Finally in the sixth, Parker Meadows gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead with a homer. The coverage showed the watch party at Comerica Park cheering. Paws the mascot was there cheering. Hunter came out after that inning. He talked to Justin Verlander, who wasn’t on the Wildcard roster, back in the dugout.
Hinch was pushing the buttons well until the seventh, when he put in rookie, Jackson Jobe, to pitch and he got one out. There was a run scored off an infield single. Another run scored from third on a foul out. 2-1 Astros.
The Tigers punched right back. With two on, they scored a run on a wild pitch. With the bases loaded, pinch hitter, Andy Ibanez hit a bases clearing double. I admit to an unrestrained cheer on the play. It was pure joy. (Though the TV coverage never actually never showed the ball hitting fair along the left field line. ESPN wasn’t doing a good job with the production for the whole game.)
In the top of the ninth, the Tigers sent up Justyn-Taylor Malloy to pinch hit. What a name! The seventh Detroit pitcher of the game came in for the bottom of the ninth and closed it out. Tigers win 5-2 and advance!
There was a shot of a little kid, who was an Astros fan, beating his mitt behind the Tigers’ dugout. Oh wait, that Jose Altuve. How’d he get over there? The player of game was interviewed, that being AJ Hinch. The reporter asked if this was redemption for him. Very undiplomatically, Hinch had an ear-to-ear smile and said, “Isn’t baseball great?”
During a Rangers broadcast last week, the Tigers clinched by beating the White Sox, who set the all-time worst loss record this season. (They got booed by their own fans at a sellout at home when they won and failed to break the record on their first attempt.) The broadcasters mentioned Jason Benetti had gone from the Sox to Tigers this season as their play-by-play man. (And he’s really good, too.) The guys wondered if there was a WAR stat for broadcasters.
Elsewhere, the Royals and Padres closed out their respective series. (I had to do some more consoling.) The Brewers won to force a third game. I got to hear that the next day. The Brew Crew took a 2-0 lead late off of a back-to-back pair of solo home runs. I’d forgotten that I had a rooting interest in this series with Aggie great, Joey Ortiz, playing for Milwaukee.
In the top of the ninth, we got our hearts broken with Pete Alonzo hitting a three-run homer that just cleared the wall. (That was pretty clutch.) The Mets ended up winning, 4-2. I was momentarily afraid the announcers were about to call a riot in the stands in Milwaukee, but things settled down.
I walked out a co-worker after and told her it was good timing when she called, as the game had just finished. I’d forgotten she was a big Brewers fan. I’d even seen her earlier in the week watching a game and getting emotionally involved. She hadn’t been watching tonight. One stammer from me and she knew the Brewers had lost. She went on a rant and was now dreading having to call her mom, who was an even bigger fan. Well, I have two disappointed co-workers, but I do have another that’s a big Padres fan, who is happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment