Marinerds, etc.

I am sure that by now everyone has heard the news that Chris Snelling has been traded to Oakland for Ryan Langerhans, who was traded to Oakland literally like three days ago. Man, how the hell am I going to stalk Doyle AND Swisher and Harden and the rest of the A's? Damn you, Billy Beane!

Anyway, this is a day late report about Tuesday evening's game, because for whatever reason, I got home from the game on Tuesday night and fell asleep immediately. It really wasn't a boring game or anything, though it was pretty quick. I got there fairly late since I was stuck at work, and completely missed BP, getting there in time for pitcher warmups, basically.

The game actually started off with a pretty neat ceremonial first pitch -- some guy who used to be a hotshot high school baseball player in Hiroshima until a shoulder injury ended his pro ball aspirations and he became a sushi chef instead:


Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto serves up a ceremonial first pitch.

Actually, to be fair, there were two ceremonial first pitches. James Sun, a UW alumni and entrepreneur who was apparently on The Apprentice, also threw out a ceremonial first pitch after Iron Chef Morimoto.

"Short" version: Javier Vazquez only let up one hit in the first three innings, a double to Jamie Burke; in the meantime, Jarrod Washburn gave up a home run to Luis Terrero (!?) in his first at-bat with the White Sox. Just as I was thinking Vazquez was a pretty good pitcher, he fell apart, giving up consecutive singles to Beltre and Vidro. Ibanez hit into a fielder's choice which scored Beltre, but it barely mattered as Richie Sexson hit a FUNK BLAST to dead center, 418 feet, bringing the score to 3-1 Mariners at the end of the 4th. The bats quieted down on both sides again until A.J. Pierzynski hit a ball into the foul pole in right field for a bare-minimum 335-foot homer in the 7th inning, making it a closer 3-2.

Brandon Morrow came in and shut down the White Sox in the top of the eighth (two pinch-hitters, three strikeouts, one walk), and in the bottom, Burke started things off by working a walk; Ichiro hit a line drive to centerfield which was luckily caught, and that was it for Vazquez. Mike MacDougal came in literally only long enough to let Beltre hit a double to left, which didn't quite score Burke. Then everyone's favorite ex-Mariner, Matt Thornton, arrived on the scene and struck out Vidro. Then it came to Ibanez, who said, "Screw you, Thornton" and hit a single to right, scoring Burke and Beltre. Earned runs for everyone! Except Thornton, of course, who struck out Richie Sexson to end the inning.

JJ Putz came in and it was a nice quick 9th inning as the Mariners won the game 5-2.


Javier Vazquez is no match for a good FUNK BLAST.

Something I noticed when the bullpen guys were walking out before this game that I had also noticed during the Royals game the other day is that Sean White seems to be the "rookie relegated to carrying a pink backpack" for whatever reason. I know this is a common form of rookie hazing, and I saw it done by a few teams last year as well, but why on earth is White the one with it instead of, say, Brandon Morrow? (Photo proof from the Royals game, which I need to finish my photo set from: this is clearly White, and this is clearly a pink backpack).

I was direly disappointed that Joe Crede was DHing in this game instead of playing third base. He's one of the third basemen in the AL that's truly fun to watch, and not just because he wears high socks and always smiles.

The scoreboard had Jose Guillen listed as the Mariners right fielder, even though they had announced it as Ben Broussard during the pregame show. I could clearly see that Broussard was out there in right field, and even when he first came to bat, they had his name and stats up on the main part of the screen, but the lineup still said Guillen. It wasn't fixed until somewhere around the second time through the order.

The other funny scoreboard snafu was that when Richie Sexson hit his home run in the 4th, the boards actually started doing the Funk Blast thing before the ball actually cleared the wall. It has grown now to the point that the left field board still flashes "FUNK BLAST", the centerfield scoreboard flashes "FUNKY", and then the boards which usually show pitch speed and current batter statistics, alternately blinked "GIVE US THE FUNK" and "WE WANT THE FUNK".

Music trivia was "Call Me", by Blondie. I even guessed 1980, knowing that they'd never ask a question about the Phillies. Sure enough, it was "Who was the 1980 AL MVP?" and I'm like "Oh, this is easy, George Brett," and nobody believed me.

Digital Dave Trivia was "Who got the first Mariner hit in Safeco Field?" Answer (highlight to see): David Bell. I actually didn't know that, but then again, in 1999, I lived in Pittsburgh and didn't pay much attention to the AL. The dumb part was where Digital Dave's like "And I'm going to run off and have a Shishkaberry!" Around then, the roof started closing due to rain, too.

There were a lot of calls where I could have sworn the ball was fair, and the umpire called it foul, and they were all against the Mariners. The most notable was one that Adrian Beltre hit down the left-field line in the 8th -- I mean, Alex Cintron even touched the ball. Maybe I've failed the Hample Test or whatever, but by the last one I wasn't the only one booing the decision.

Oh yeah, so home runs. Richie's was by far the biggest. Terrero's and Pierzynski's were both dead pulls -- Terrero's had some pop to it, and it landed near the back of section 151, but as I said, with AJ's, I actually thought Ben Broussard was going to catch it, that's how close it was. The ball even bounced back on the field after hitting the foul pole, and I thought it was just a really long foul ball.

Jermaine Dye fouled a couple of shots into the upper deck on the third base side. They were kind of scary.

I have to admit I didn't see what the hell actually happened in the 6th inning with Beltre and Ibanez. Basically, Beltre started the inning by singling to left, and during Raul's at-bat he stole second. Raul singled, and that advanced Beltre to third, but they held him up as Dye fired the ball back in. So, Richie comes up, and he basically hits a looooooooong fly ball to center field, the kind that you know everyone WANTS to put "FUNK BLAST" on the scoreboard for, but which is actually caught near the warning track. So, I look down and start writing "SF8" on my scorecard, expecting Beltre to tag up and score. But what happens? Ibanez, instead, tags up and takes off for second, and Terrero throws in the ball, Uribe is cutoff and he fires to Iguchi at second, who makes the play and Ibanez is out. I don't even have the slightest idea whether Beltre ran, because I simply didn't see it and there was no replay. It's one of those cases where seeing the game at the ballpark is more confusing than watching it on TV. Either way, it seemed like a pretty dumb move on Ibanez's part.

Tadahito Iguchi had several distinctions for the evening: first, he left absolutely none of his at-bats to the whims of fielders, being hit by a pitch, walking twice, and striking out once. He was, infact, the only White Sox batter to get on base via anything other than base hits.


Iguchi says, "I'm down with OBP! Yeah, you know me!"

Kenji Johjima, Iguchi's former teammate in Japan with the Fukuoka Softbank-formerly-known-as-Daiei Hawks, was out on Tuesday with back spasms, though he was back in the game on Wednesday. It's pretty awesome that we have someone like Jamie Burke around, so it's not like "Oh god, Johjima's out? That sucks!" and more like "Hey, Johjima's out, no biggie, hope he's better soon."

I would like to take a second to talk about Brandon Morrow again. When he came out to be the setup guy in the 8th, the score was 3-2, and I know Washburn probably didn't want to hand off such a close match, but he had just hit 101 pitches and was obviously sort of losing steam. I was actually pretty excited since I'd just seen Morrow pitch on Sunday, and I also thought it was great he'd be facing Terrero and Ozuna and all, except Ozzie chose to go ahead and put in Mr. High Socks Darin Erstad to pinch-hit for Terrero. Fine. Morrow got off to a slightly shaky start, but then it was whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, HE GAWN. So of course, instead of Ozuna, out came Alex Cintron to pinch-hit. One or two pitches broke a little wild here too, but Cintron couldn't catch up with Morrow's 95-ish fastballs either, and he also got to sit down.

I don't think the Sox had anyone to pinch-hit for Iguchi, but oddly, Morrow seemed to be more unsure of himself pitching to a right-hander, and Iguchi walked on four straight pitches. The crowd seemed sort of annoyed with that and rose to a low murmur.

So up comes Jermaine Dye, and the second pitch just KNOCKS HIM FLAT ON HIS ASS, at which point the crowd's getting excited, expecting to see Morrow blow by Dye with some more heat. Except Morrow ends up throwing two more balls and gets up to a 3-1 count. So I can hear the people around me booing; some little kids a few rows back are yelling "TAKE HIM OUT, TAKE HIM OUT" and whatever.

Me, I just sat there calmly, watching. "I believe in you," I think I murmured.

And sure enough, whooosh, ball comes in twice, ball gets swung at twice, Dye is out!

Lots of pumped fists, lots of happy kids. The Mariners managed to get a whole bunch of runs in their half of the 8th. It was all good.

The Mariners next get to play a whole bunch of Yankees games, interweaved with some Tigers, Angels, and a make-up against the Red Sox. While all of those teams have a few slow starters, I think they'll provide more of a challenge and let us see what Morrow really can handle. I know a lot of people would like nothing more than to see him strike out Alex Rodriguez. We'll see, I guess.

But for now, hey, the Mariners are two games over .500. Who knew?

Dear Random House,

I think that you should produce a children's book about the baseball postseason. Since I know it would take a very long time to write an entire book from scratch, I have helpfully assembled some proposed changes to your book, Fox in Socks, which would make it more topical for this October.

Yours truly,
Deanna the Marinerd

Fox

Sox

Knocks

Box

Sox on Fox.

Knocks in Box.

Foxy Sox hit knocks in box. Knocks in box put Sox on Fox.

Brats with hats come.
Brats with bats come.
Brats with hats and bats and stats come.

Look sir, look sir, Mister Vlad, sir,
Won't you sign my ball and bat, sir?
Won't you sign my glove and hat, sir?
Why're you being such a prat, sir?

Byrd throws curve balls.
Byrd throws dirt balls.
Byrd throws third balls.
Ump's absurd calls.
Byrd's earned runs falls.

Scot Shields fields wheels.
Scot Shields yields steals.
Scot Shields wields schpiels.

Here's an easy game to play!
Here's an easy thing to say:

If Podsednik is a redneck who should be in Triple A
And Pierzynski's got a hist'ry disregarding rules of play
And Ozuna's like a tuna who is flopping in the air
And Konerko is a jerko who's got really stupid hair

But ol' Finley's rather thinly getting to the warning track
And Cabrera's got his share a' throwing over Erstad's back
And that Garrett's like a parrot as he's flapping off his beak
And Molina's a hyena as he tags you in the cheek,

We're not rooting for Chicago! But we hate the Angels too!
When you're faced with lousy choices, what's a baseball fan to do?
Let's ignore the whole caboodle, let's go out and have a beer,
And just hope and pray the Mariners can win it all next year.

This is really a report about a wedding/ballgame on September 17th, 2005.

I got up super-duper early, at like 7:30am CDT, and got all dressed up for Laurel and Kevin (and 82 other couples') wedding! ...meaning I put on a Mariners shirt and jeans. Hot damn, it's cool to go to a wedding and not have to wear a dress. I got a ride to the light rail, and whoooshed down to the Metrodome.


Matthew LeCroy wearing a white bow tie, coming
back from the Matrimonial First Pitch.

Showed up at the stadium at about 8:50ish, and found Peter, who had a baseball ticket for me, and some other friends of Laurel's whose names I have forgotten or never quite caught. Apparently we were actually there BEFORE the stadium opened! So when they did open it finally at 9:10am, we plodded in. I went around for a while taking pictures of the place (metrodome shots: 1 2 3 4 5), since I hadn't been there before. My impression of the Metrodome is that it reminds me of the Tokyo Dome, but smaller. I don't think I'd really like seeing games there on a regular basis, but it was fun to be in a new place for once. Everybody was extremely friendly and nice.

It turns out that they actually discriminate between the two levels of the place, though, and you can't just go to the lower level if you have an upper-level ticket. However, since I was so early, and my ticket did say "Multiple Matrimony" on it since Laurel's parents bought the group tickets for it, I found a very nice stairway guard lady who said she'd just let me go down, but I'd have to talk the ushers down there into letting me go in to take pictures of the ceremony. I went downstairs (and bought a long-sleeve Twins shirt because all their t-shirts were sold out except in M and XXL), and snuck into the lower field section by 115 or so where there were no ushers guarding it. There was no batting practice, but pitchers (read: Francisco Liriano) were out throwing, and some fielding practice was going on, so eventually I got Scott Baker to sign my ticket, and Matt Guerrier and J.C Romero to sign my Twins program. That was pretty cool. They were very sweet about signing stuff; it seems like the players are in general. There was a gaggle of teenage girls who kept shouting out "JOE!!!!!" "JOE, COME OVER HERE!!!!" and Joe Mauer would just look at them and wave and smile like "Oh god, not another bunch."

Eventually, there was a wedding! They led 83 couples onto the field from inside the right field stadium bowels. It was really interesting to see all the different couples. Some were getting married; some were renewing vows. Some were extremely dressed up - there were some traditional huge white wedding dresses, and a few guys in tuxes, but there was also a lot of people in Twins clothes, and what was kind of cool was how each couple was *unique* -- like, there were a few of 'em where the women used Twins homer hankies as veils; some where they weren't dressed in Twins apparel at all; some where just in jerseys and jeans; one or two couples renewing vows where they had a son or daughter with them; some hybrids where the guy was in a Twins jersey and shorts and the girl was wearing a gigantic white dress.

I spotted Kevin and Laurel as they came out and were greeted by TC Bear. Laurel was wearing a red camisole and a white floofy skirt and a Torii Hunter Twins jersey, and she had baseball Keds. Kevin had a black suit on, but with an all-black Twins jersey as his vest. It was very cool. (Later on, they had "Bride" and "Groom" baseball caps, and their parents had "Father of the BRIDE" and such baseball caps.)

The ceremony was about 20 minutes long. They had the processional where everyone came in; then they had this reverend guy speaking for a while, and they had a lady come out and sing "We've Only Just Begun", and then there was more speaking, and some vows, and they put on rings, and kissed, and waved to the crowd, and all that stuff. To be honest, it was a (not unexpectedly) generic wedding service. The funny part was that the Twins were stretching and running out in left field and the White Sox were in right field, while the ceremony was going on. As Laurel commented later, from her position near third base, she could see players signing stuff by the dugout. (Laurel: "Look! Little Nicky Punto is signing stuff!" Kevin: "Dear, we're getting *married* right now!") A few of the players stopped to watch the ceremony, though.

They had one of the couples throw out the matrimonial first pitch. Matthew LeCroy caught it. He was wearing a bowtie. It was PRECIOUS.

I snuck back up to the second level and found my seat. I was sitting in a row with Laurel and Kevin and some of their friends. We were all in section 228, rows 7-10, or so. Batling PJStP stopped by for a while. Some people down our row had a whole bunch of signs since they had held up "CONGRATS LAUREL AND KEVIN!!" during the ceremony. (Here's a picture of that someone else took.) So, anagramming, they figured out that we could also use those letters and spell out "SANTANA!!" since Johan Santana was pitching the game. So we did that a few times. It was funny.

The game itself was ABSOLUTELY FUCKING AMAZING. I am totally in awe and fear of El Presidente, Johan Santana. No, really. He was mowing the White Sox down. He had a perfect game until the 5th inning when Aaron Rowand smacked a single into center. And through the course of the first 8 innings, the White Sox only got two hits off Santana, and struck out 13 times. That's THIRTEEN STRIKEOUTS. I joked later that it was a shame he didn't get fourteen -- then you could say it was a 14-K-Rat wedding game! He ran into a little bit of trouble in the 9th, and I'm sad they even put him out there since he was up to 102 pitches. He loaded the bases, and they brought in Joe Nathan, who promptly struck out Everett, Rowand, and Dye, to win and save the game and shutout. It was amazing. I almost think I need to go buy a "Don't blame me, I voted for Santana/Nathan" shirt after that performance. The Twins' offense also didn't totally suck, and Morneau and Cuddyer both hit home runs, to boot.

(As an aside, the Twins have a LOT of really good-looking guys playing for them. Why don't the Mariners? Sigh.)

Actually, the thing about the game is -- there isn't much to report, since my entire White Sox scorecard looks mostly like "K K K K K K K" with occasional other things. Such as Johan Santana running down Pablo Ozuna at first and diving to tag him out. It looked cool, but crap, it's a good thing he didn't get injured doing that.

Oh yeah, and El Dookie sucks.

Somewhere in the 4th or 5th inning, a guy proposed to his girlfriend and it was up on the big screens. Now, normally that wouldn't be so weird, but the fact that he was proposing on the day where 83 couples were there getting married seemed just a bit like his timing was off, eh?

Later in the evening Laurel and Kevin had a wedding reception at a hotel, which was pretty fun. They had two wedding cakes (and plenty of peanuts and Cracker Jacks!), one of which had a baseball diamond on it. Nobody seemed to actually want to cut into that part. I suggested that L & K should save the baseball diamond -- much like you normally would save the top layer if you had a multi-tiered cake -- and freeze it and eat it in a year. I also suggested they should go to Twins Spring Training for their honeymoon. Man, Laurel is totally living my dream wedding :)