The no-hitter that should have been… 17 strikeouts in eight innings… 17.
It was a rainy day in Minneapolis, which of course meant that it was a great day to go to a ball game. (This is the sort of reverse logic we get with an indoor stadium.) Not only was the weather cooperating, but my very first favorite Twin, Gary Gaetti, was inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame, partly because this weekend was the 20 year reunion of the 1987 World Championship team. Adding to the day’s potential was the fact that Johan Santana was on the mound. Thus, it made sense that my family opted not to go to the lake and went to the Metrodome instead.
This is the third time I’ve seen Santana pitch this season. Both of the previous times I thought to myself, perhaps I’ll see a no-hitter today. Both of the previous times, nothing close to that happened. But yesterday… yesterday Santana set a team record of 17 strikeouts in a single game (and with Joe Nathan’s appearance in the 9th, the Twins pitched a total of 19 strikeouts), and only gave up two hits, both to Sammy Sosa. He mowed down the side in three separate innings and only had one inning in which he didn’t strike out a batter. In fact, it was the only inning in which he didn’t strikeout at least two batters. So dominant was his performance that it didn’t matter that the Twins could only muster a single homerun from Michael Cuddyer.
This is also the first time I’ve ever seen a Metrodome crowd boo Joe Nathan, the reigning King of Twins Saves. The major league record for strikeouts is 20, done by a few people, including Clemens and Kerry Wood. After mowing down the side in the 8th to bring his total to 17, it seemed to me that the smart move was to bring Santana in in the 9th and let him go for the record. If he gave up a hit or even a non-strikeout out, then sure, bring in Nathan for the save. But at least let him go for the record… the man was on fire yesterday. Luckily for Nathan, the boos died down quickly and he was able to pitch a hitless 9th with two strikeouts of his own to end the game.

I’m going to ignore the steroid controversy for a moment and copy-paste the following IM conversation I just had:

Harvey: guess where i was last night?
me: don’t tell me AT&T Park
Harvey: ok, talk to you later then

For those not aware, Harvey Jones is currently bumming around the country visiting as many baseball stadiums as he can. We saw one of those games together in Cincinnati after Martine and Dave’s wedding (which I never blogged… I really should do that). Apparently he’s home (San Francisco) for the week, and was going to every game until Bonds hit it, meaning that he was at last night’s game sitting in section 102, row 10.
That kid is living out my dream summer and it is unbelievably unfair.
(As for Bonds and the steroids… when you look at pictures of him from early in his career and then look at pictures of him now, it’s really hard not to believe that steroids were involved somewhere. And given that, yes, I think it cheapens the record. The real tragedy is that prior to the suspected steroid use, an argument could have already been made that Bonds was the greatest player of the era, and now that has been tainted forever.)

I have a minor bone to pick with Joe Mauer. He’s featured in a Sportscenter commercial these days, in which the following dialogue is exchanged between him and Scott Van Pelt:

SVP: So, you’re originally from Minnesota, right?
JM: Yep, born and raised.
…
SVP: That Fargo was a crazy movie, wasn’t it?
JM: Uh, that was North Dakota.

Uh, no, Joe. While yes, the city of Fargo is in North Dakota, the bulk of the movie Fargo takes place in Minnesota. Furthermore, it was made by the Coen brothers from St. Louis Park, a high school you probably creamed in football back in the day, probably while the movie was making headlines all across the state. So while Van Pelt’s later comment about Yoopers deserved your correction, give the guy some credit for opening with what is easily the most famous Minnesota pop culture reference since Kirby Puckett.
This and your inability to hit in the clutch is the reason we are no longer getting married (but tell Justin Morneau to call me).

Yesterday I attended my first ever social event with the MIT Club of Southeastern Michigan at Comerica Park to see the Tigers take on the Red Sox. For the second time this season, I saw a great Red Sox game… with a less than desirable outcome. And this with four of the five Tiger All Stars starting on the bench — although Pudge Rodriguez came in to pinch hit in the eighth.
By the end of the fourth, the Tigers were up 6-2 mostly on a disastrous 4 run inning for Daisuke Matsuzaka where he gave up four hits, two of them homers. I really was hoping to see a more dominant pitching performance from him, but with only four strikeouts and six earned runs given up, that wasn’t the case at all. Instead, the dominant pitcher of the day was Nate Robertson of the Tigers.
With only two unearned runs in the third, the Sox couldn’t seem to muster any offense early on. Wily Mo Pena’s shot to deep center in the fourth seemed to be the start of something… but in an amazing display of athleticism, Curtis Granderson leaped over the wall to rob him of a homerun. The bottom of the Sox line-up tried to make up for the rest of them in the later innings with back-to-back homeruns in the 7th (one of which was the first major league hit for Jeff Bailey) and an RBI double in the 8th to bring the Sox within one. (Manny was brought in to pinch hit for Bailey in the 8th, but Manny-just-being-Manny struck out looking. Seriously — when are people going to figure out that he’s not good in the clutch?)
In the top of the 9th, with a runner on base, I thought we might get to see some Big Papi magic save the Red Sox yet again. But alas… there was no joy in the MIT alumni section: the Mighty Papi had struck out.

I actually found myself driving through Chicago today, as I returned from a 4th of July camping trip in Wisconsin with Amrys, Jeff, and a friend of Amrys’s from Madison. Jeff and I toyed with the idea of going to the first of the day-night double header between the Twins and the White Sox in Chicago, but decided that it might be too complicated to get him to O’Hare on time for his 6 pm international flight… which turned out to be completely true as the Twins and Bad Sox had an offensive showdown that lasted nearly four hours. I blame Jeff for making me miss this one. I give you the box score… and yes, that is a baseball score, not football:

To add insult to injury, I had also toyed with the idea of sticking around in Chicago and catching the evening game on my own. But that would have involved getting a hold of the one person I know in Chicago (who may or may not even be around, given the holiday weekend) and spending the night. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted to get back to Ann Arbor tonight and didn’t bother. When I finished listening to the first game, I figured that the teams would be tired and that it was probably for the best anyway.
Turns out, only the White Sox were tired as the Twins massacred them 12-0, including three homeruns and six RBI from my future husband, Justin Morneau. A slight scare when Mike Redmond took a Jim Thome bat to the head, but kudos to the Chicago play-by-play guys for actually informing us of what was going on on the field and not cutting away to commercial. And on the double bonus side, the Chicago radio station actually carries right up to Ann Arbor, so I managed to listen to the first 6 innings of the game on the road.
Next time, however, I am not going to be foolish and pass up an opportunity to see a game when I happen to be driving by it anyway. No one to blame but myself for missing the second one.

So, Justin Verlander pitches a no-hitter last night and I didn’t watch it because my housemate is not a baseball fan. The conversation went something like this as we flipped through channels.

Me: Baseball?
Him: Eh…
Me: It’s Tigers-Brewers. I guess I don’t care that much.

If only I had known! We wound up watching South Park episodes from onDemand instead, including the one in which the boys try in vain to throw every game in the playoffs so that they don’t have to play boring baseball anymore, but can’t manage to lose. How ironic.
On the plus side, Verlander is on my fantasy team.

An exciting game with a great finish… for the wrong team.
After dragging Breath to a game last night, this time it was Anand’s turn to be taken to a game, and I think he got the better end of the deal. He even asked for the Red Sox game and actively cheered for them. I was so proud — he doesn’t even refer to it as the “hitting box” anymore and used the phrase “He got a piece of it,” in reference to a foul ball without even realizing that that’s a real phrase. He’s learning!
As for the game… Big Papi, always a crowd favorite, started off the game with a home run in the top of the first. Unfortunately, the A’s answered with two runs in the 2nd and a homerun in the 4th inning by Mark Ellis, who hit for the cycle tonight. Wily Mo Pena answered with homerun of his own in the 7th to bring it to 3-2 Oakland, but the A’s gained an insurance run in the 8th on no hits, but two walks and a fielder’s choice.
Going into the 9th and down by two, it was time for some more Big Papi magic, opening up the inning with a double and eventually scoring on a Jason Varitek pinch hit. Wily Mo played the hero’s role again, batting around Coco Crisp who was pinch running for Varitek, to tie up the game and send it into extra innings.
In the top of the 10th with Dustin Pedroia on first, it looked briefly like we were going to get more Big Papi magic as he hit a deep fly ball to center. It caromed off the wall and was a certain double… but then Pedroia tried to score and was out at home, ending the half inning.
Anand seemed legitimately excited through the 10th and then the cold settled into the stadium. His cheers quickly turned from being pro-Red Sox to “Either let him hit a homerun or strike him out — but make progress!” In the bottom of the 11th, Kyle Snyder finally acquiesced to his cries and gave up a walk off homerun to Eric Chavez that ended the game. Fearing the jeers of the Oakland fans, I stuffed my Red Sox hat into my bag as we ran off to catch the BART back to Berkeley.

I made Breath go with me to the Twins/A’s game in the Coliseum in Oakland. Unfortunately, the home team won, based on an error by Jason Bartlett in the third, which directly to three Oakland runs. With the bases loaded and two outs, Bobby Crosby hit a grounder to shortstop. Bartlett actually made a nice play to get to the ball and field it… and promptly threw it into the bullpen behind first base instead of getting the third out of the inning. All three runners on base managed to score and Crosby got to third. Luckily, Santana followed up by striking out Cust to end the inning so there was no more damage. But since the Twins couldn’t get ever get the necessary clutch hit, those three runs made the difference in the ballgame.
Breath seemed to enjoy himself up until about the 7th, when he fell asleep for a half-inning. You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. Tomorrow I’m dragging an even more stubborn horse to the A’s/Red Sox game, before flying back to Michigan. (Did I not mention that a primary reason why I agreed to go on this road trip was the excellent timing of Oakland’s baseball schedule?)
One thing I didn’t mention about the Denver game, is that it was the final game in my scorebook… which means that I need to buy a new one. Unfortunately, while I’m surrounded by people who are native to the area, none of them are sports fans and so I’m stuck using the scorecard out of the program. And Oakland doesn’t sell separate scorecards, so I’ll have to buy another program tomorrow, probably identical to the one I bought today. Oh well.

My prediction that I would see lots of homeruns at this game came true, with a total of four, two for each team. Yorvit Torrealba’s 4th inning grand slam for the Rockies and Jim Edmonds’s 7th inning solo shot for St. Louis were both caught by the same family, sitting a few rows ahead of us. In fact, I briefly thought that I might have a chance at Torrealba’s ball. The dad caught the first and one of the sons caught the second. Problem is, the family had three kids total, so I’m betting they still found a way to fight over them. (And the kid who caught the ball was definitely being possessive over it when his little sister tried to look at it.) The final homerun of the night was a two run shot by one of my fantasy players, Brad Hawpe, so I was happy.
But enough about the game and on to the stadium review… Coors Field has the cheapest tickets I’ve seen at any major league ballpark (at least on non-$1 student nights) — $4 to sit in the “Rockpile,” a set of bleachers in deep centerfield. Because I had to agree to buy Amy’s ticket to get her to agree to the game, those are the tickets we bought. However, thanks to some friendly Coors Field attendants and the small crowd, we moved up to the “Pavilion” where the tickets are $17. Not a bad deal at all — thanks Marna and John.
A few of the stadiums I’ve been to have a local delicacy that you can’t get at any other stadium, like Skyline Chili in Cincinnati. However, Coors Field has what is easily the most bizarre food I’ve ever eaten at a ballgame — Rocky Mountain oysters. I asked the guy behind the counter what they tasted like before I decided to order them. “A woman asked me that last week and I told her ‘They don’t taste like your boyfriend’s.'” With a response like that, how could I not get them? The honest answer to my question, in case anyone else ever wants to try some, is that it has the slightly rubbery texture of squid and tastes like… salty deep fried beef.

I finally found baseball fan friends in Michigan! Today, four of us drove to Detroit to catch the battle for the American League Central. Sadly (for me), this battle did not involve the Twins, who are currently floundering in fourth place. But it was still a nice night for a sold out game, even if the home team didn’t win.
We missed the top of the first because of traffic. Now that Comerica sells out, the single lane off-ramp to the stadium isn’t enough to deal with the 20,000+ cars all trying to get to the game at the same time and we didn’t quite make it. Lucky for us, the design of Comerica is such that while standing in the Will Call line, we were able to see the main scoreboard. Thus, I still managed to score the first inning, even though I didn’t actually see either of the two Indians homeruns. Unfortunately for the Tigers fans amongst us, this meant that we sat down at our seats with the home team already down by two. Detroit had a few offensive rallies after that, but they never caught up to Cleveland, who had a few more rallies of their own.
The defensive play of the game goes to Jason Michaels of Cleveland, who stole a three run homer from Craig Monroe in the third by leaping up over the left field wall and making the catch. Had he not jumped quite so high, we’d be talking about a different ball game.
The most-overrated player award goes to Gary Sheffield, who went 0-for-4. On at least two occasions, if he had lived up to his $28 million dollar paycheck and gotten a hit, the Tigers would have scored another run. I find it ironic that his at-bat song is “This is Why I’m Hot” — it should be “Tell Me Why I’m Not.” While Sheffield’s run-in with Chris House back in 2005 resulted in me getting excellent seats in Fenway for two games, that doesn’t mean I like him.