Another baseball season is flying by. As we come into the home stretch it really becomes a grind. I don’t tend to sleep well in the summer time to begin with so I don’t get my usual amount of sleep. Throw in the cats who want to get fed as soon as the sun comes overtop of the building across the street and it makes for a lot of nights well below my normal amount of sleep. That’ll change in about a month when it gets to be cooler at night. We’re almost there and that big pile of beer in my living room will get smaller dramatically at that point.
Until then, onto this weeks games
Game #104 Trenton at Reading. Picked up a Darren Daulton Stand Up to Cancer bobblehead. The first World Series that I watched was 1993 when Daulton and the Phillies lost to the Blue Jays. If I didn’t have the Pirate pennant above my bed at that point I probably would have been a Phillies fan because of that, as well as the fact that most of my older relatives were Phillies fans. I think at least one of my great aunts had a crush on him. I did not stay up to see Joe Carter touch ’em all but this was my first real exposure to baseball and Daulton played a major part in that. We lost him (and many others) far too soon. Harold Arauz pitched for Reading against Michael King for Trenton. In spite of the final score Trenton looked like the playoff team that they should be and Reading looked like the team at the bottom of the standings that they are. Reading got a 2-run homerun from Darick Hall that briefly put them on top but Trenton singled and doubled Reading to death. Both starters racked up big strikeout numbers which kept the score low and the game moving. Trenton wins 3-2. This was also baseball bingo night as well and I didn’t get a punch on my card until the 6th inning (other than the free space). I never seem to do well at baseball bingo but this was ridiculous! Weenie Boy had about 8 or 9 punches. I always seem to get the number for the catcher stealing a base, how is that?
Of course the big news was the trade deadline. Imagine my surprise when the Pirates for once landed one of the big names on the market with Chris Archer. I’ll certainly miss Austin Meadows and the jury is still out on Tyler Glasnow, but for potentially an All-Star caliber pitcher under contract until 2021 that is not a bad trade. Time will tell, Glasnow could pull a Randy Johnson and go from what he is now to a Hall of Famer so we’ll see but the AL East is not going to help with that. And the Orioles traded Jonathan Schoop, Darren O’Day (not a surprise there), Kevin Gausman (I am shocked at that one) and Brad Brach (hey, they got a warm body for him!). Looking at the returns I am not terribly impressed but they got a lot of international bonus money. They might become a player there, which will be a surprise. We’ll see since I will still take in at least one game in Bowie and Frederick the remainder of the year and some of the guys they got back from the Brewers were really young so I might not get to see them. I will miss Gausman, I’ve seen him win 4 games this year so I have been a good luck charm for him I guess. Of course if he goes on to bigger and better things away from the NL East that autograph I have from him will be more valuable. I think he was the only guy on that Frederick Keys team at that point to even make it to the bigs, I’ll have to see if I can find that program.
Game #105 Altoona at Harrisburg. A nice 9 inning island vacation tonight, or least I hoped. Wirkin Estevez started for Harrisburg against Austin Coley for Altoona in this huge series. Altoona is higher in the standings but just can’t seem to separate themselves from the Senators and since neither are going to catch Akron this is a battle for a playoff spot. It is nice to finally have a competitive team on City Island though after the past few years at the very least and it hearkens back to 2010 when the two teams went toe-to-toe all season. The weather forecast called for thunderstorms for a good chunk of the evening so I was prepared to leave at almost a moment’s notice. I’m not sitting through a rain delay at this point if I can help it. This one was a pitcher’s duel with only a Ke’Bryan Hayes solo home run in the first accounting for the scoring. Coley pitched out of several jams and was benefitted by having a runner thrown out at home and his first relief Brett Helton loaded the bases before wiggling out of a jam. By that point you could see a storm coming, it was really dark looking up the river. You could see what looked like a cloud wall so I cut my losses in the middle of the 7th and headed for the exit. The wind picked up as I left the park, it started to drip as I got into the parking lot and the heavens opened up as I crossed the South Bridge. They wound up getting the bottom of the 7th in and that was it. Altoona wins 1-0 in a rain shortened affair.
Game #106 Cincinnati at DC. Team #22 would have come off the board while picking up an Anthony Rendon bobblehead while I was at it. It’s been awhile since I was down here, that’s for sure. Skipped the game in Williamsport, the weather forecast called for thunderstorms all afternoon and evening and I will see the Black Bears in State College and Morgantown too. 2 hours is a bit too far to gamble on whether the game will be played or not. It also looks like the civic authorities are already starting to prepare for the Little League Classic played there on August 19 and are closing down streets around there making a mess of things. I’ll sit at home and drink a beer or three instead. And of course it didn’t rain. I would also like to say that I did not watch the Hall of Fame Game. Wake me up when baseball season is over for football. Well it did rain in DC. Unlike other years they did open the gates so I won’t have to figure out something weird or buy the bobblehead on eBay so at least I got the bobblehead and I have a free ticket for a future game. Yeah, the rain stopped around 6:30 but there was no sign of the grounds crew. They had a window to play the game but with the ground screw not going anything I did not take that as a good sign and about 10 minutes later they announced that the game was postponed. I am probably going to have to drive to Pittsburgh to see the Reds. They do play in New York and the Pirates do end the season in Cincy but that’s something like a 6 1/2 hour drive which is a bit too much.
Game #107 St. Louis at Pittsburgh. Team #22 in the books along with an Andy Van Slyke bobblehead. He was my favorite player growing up but I was sorry to miss the Josh Bell bobblehead in Altoona. To eBay I go for that, eventually. The price of some of those are ridiculous. Hit a few breweries in Pittsburgh: East End, Hop Farm, Roundabout, 11th Hour and Church. Drove right by Couch, if I had knew they existed I would have stopped but they were on the wrong side of the road. I also heard on the radio that the Regatta was going on. After a late lunch i headed downtown and parked and took some of that in. Got a bit of excitement when one of the boats must have sprung a leak and started sinking. It was pretty far away though so I couldn’t see much and it was about time to head into the stadium. Van Slyke threw out the first pitch, he’s looking good but looks like he’s starting to go gray. The game itself was a drag. The Cardinal batters just wore out Pirates starter Ivan Nova and his reliever Alex McRae. They hit 7 doubles and drew 7 walks, which if I were a manager would be the style I would want to play. Matt Carpenter added a homerun in the 8th for good measure. Austin Gomber started for the Cardinals and was not much better than Nova. David Freese hit a solo home run in the Denny’s homerun inning getting me a free Grand Slam at Denny’s! The Bucs got 3 in the 4th to tie the game but the Cardinal bullpen shut them down from there. St. Louis wins 8-4.
Game #108 Miami at Philadelphia. Brad Lidge bobblehead in hand in what completes a busy weekend of bobblehead collecting that has taken me from one end of the state to the other. It was Alumni Weekend and the 08 World Series team was honored. Most of the team was there, guess only 3 of the players are still active and one is coaching so they missed it. Dan Straily started for Miami against Aaron Nola for Philly. This one looked like an easy Phils win but while neither pitcher was sharp there was no scoring until the sixth. This was one hard to watch as both pitchers seemed to labor and took their sweet old time. The Phillies got on the board first in the sixth with 3 runs but then the Marlins came back with 3 in the seventh. New acquisition Asdrubal Cabrera knocked a 2-run shot in the eighth to untie it and the Marlins went quietly in the ninth. This game took well over 3 hours to play and it was hot, at least 92 degrees. It was so hot that Weenie Boy, who loves the sun, had too much of it. For everyone (Clyde…) who knows him I have video proof! I wanted to get out of there at around 3:30 since the Eagles had an open practice and it was advertised that the lots weren’t opening until 4. Traffic was already stacked up when I walked out and the area was an absolute mess fortunately a cop was trying to direct traffic. I can only imagine what it looked like when the Phillies game let out. Oh yeah, the Phillies win 5-3.
On the docket for next week:
August 6 – New Britain at York
August 7 – Altoona at Trenton for an Aaron Judge bobblehead
August 8 – TBD, one of these will be Atlanta at DC
August 9 – TBD
August 10 – TBD
August 11 – Erie at Altoona for a Jack Wilson bobblehead and a doubleheader
August 12 -Mahoning Valley at West Virgnia
