Marinerds, etc.

In a measure of solidarity to my friends in Tokyo who can only go to afternoon games, I also went to an afternoon game today at Safeco Field.

(Just kidding. Actually, I went to it because it happened to be convenient. But, for the record, as I write this post, I'm watching the Swallows-Dragons game over the internet, which is happening in the afternoon in Tokyo, and a bunch of my friends are there, and I can't tell you how wholly homesick I am for Jingu.)

Anyway, I got there about an hour and a half early, which gave me a lot of time to just look around. I'm amazed by "The Pen", the new bullpen area, mostly in that they have such wacky food now (a creperie? REALLY?) and they've taken down the screen between players and fans at the bullpen itself, so you're just that much closer to the guys warming up or hanging out in there. I was surprised that despite the "no autographs" sign, several fans got autographs from Aardsma and Pineda out there, and probably others. I do have to wonder whether anyone considers it dangerous not to have a barrier between fans and players -- I suppose they're operating on the Reasonable Person Principle, and if anyone DOES try to throw something at an opposing pitcher or something, there'll be a huge smackdown? Who knows.

I'm also amazed by how they've still managed to raise the prices of food even more around Safeco. It's like... $15 as a "combo" for a hotdog, popcorn, and soda? Really? I think that'd still only run you like $8 in Japan without a "discount".

So in the pre-game time, I watched the Tigers take BP, I watched Pineda throw in the bullpen, I got my ticket signed by Phil Coke and Brandon Inge (he's so delightfully dorky!), and then I watched Rick Porcello and Erik Bedard do their pre-game bullpens as well.

One surprising thing that happened was another fan stopped me in the bullpen like "Hey, were you allowed to bring in your dSLR? I was under the impression we can't anymore -- they say any camera with switchable lenses..." and I'm like "I have no clue. I haven't really been around here much in the last few years; the policy used to just be 'don't piss off the fans around you with your big clicky camera, or stick your big lens in their faces'..." So we talked for a bit and it sounds like basically, it's possible I wasn't supposed to have it, but since I didn't piss anyone off and this was a low-attendance afternoon game (there were apparently 13,339 people there), I guess I got away with it. I didn't really take many photos during the game, anyway, just beforehand, for the most part. Though the idea of not being able to bring my big camera makes me pretty sad.

Also, this entire bullpen thing makes me wonder: does anyone know where Brandon Buckley is now? The old A's bullpen catcher from a few years ago? He was a riot.

We got to see Carlos Peguero's first MLB at-bat in this game. Unfortunately, as I realized later, the reason why is because he was called up to replace Justin Smoak, who is on bereavement leave since his father just died of lung cancer yesterday. There was a moment of silence before the game today for him. I know from personal experience that having your dad die of lung cancer really truly sucks, and so my heart goes out to Justin and his family. It's not an easy thing to deal with by any means, even when you're prepared for it.

This game was pretty boring overall, to be honest, though. I think that part of it is just that I don't know what to do during MLB games anymore, since there's no organized cheering, so I just keep score and watch. Erik Bedard started for the Mariners and kind of sucked (LOTS of walks, plus giving up a homerun in the 2nd AB of the game). Rick Porcello started for Detroit and did not suck. I was already intrigued by Porcello as being a young up-and-coming star type of player (the Tigers seem to always have a few of those around), and so he didn't disappoint, at least.

Ryan Raburn hit a homer off Bedard as mentioned, to make it 1-0, and in the 3rd inning Austin Jackson walked and was batted in by Miguel Cabrera to make it 2-0. The Mariners halved that lead in the bottom of the 3rd when Jack Wilson singled and moved up on a groundout, and then Ichiro singled to right to bring Wilson in (and made it to 3rd base himself on a throwing error from right field), 2-1. Raburn walked in the 5th and came in on a Brennan Boesch single, 3-1.

Actually, the odd thing about the 5th inning was that it was the Chone Figgins Blooper Reel. I'm still not sure how he didn't get charged with any errors given that he did things like drop grounders, not throw the ball, etc. As if the shoddy fielding wasn't enough, the booing around me definitely hammered in that I wasn't in Japan anymore.

David Pauley pitched a fine final 4 innings after Bedard, though, aside from a few wild pitches.

Jose Valverde came in to close out the game in the bottom of the 9th and the most improbable thing ever happened: Adam Kennedy (!) hit a home run off of him, a neat little 354-foot shot into right field. 3-2. But that's pretty much all the Mariners got -- well, Michael Saunders hit a double, but everyone else that faced Valverde, including a pinch-hitting Milton Bradley (!?) struck out.

I still don't quite get how people think this is more exciting than Japanese baseball, but that's neither here nor there. You know what else was ridiculous? I saw a little boy get a baseball from a ball girl, which he came back up and showed off to his family like he was the hottest thing on earth for getting it. And then the ball girls changed in the 5th inning, and would you believe it, that same little boy went up there and got a SECOND ball from the other ball girl, edging out a bunch of other little kids who wanted them. How selfish is that? I realize that all's fair in love and ballhawking, but seriously, WTF? Half of me wonders if the kid decided to do it or if his parents told him to.

I stopped in at the team store after the game and bought an Ichiro birthday card that I'm going to send to my Hosei birthday doppleganger Kazuki Mishima, and tell him he better come play at the Japan-USA collegiate tourney this summer because I miss him and everyone else so much.

Anyway, photos...




Michael Pineda




David Aardsma, who I thought was supposed to be in Tacoma. Apparently not...




Erik Bedard






Rick Porcello


Thanks to commenters for pointing out that this is Tom Wilhelmsen. I'd actually read about him a little but just didn't know the face yet... I don't know the Mariners bullpen very well anymore now that they don't have cool former Fighters players.


More bullpen guys.


Brandon Inge signing for people.


My ticket. Whee.


Seriously, these prices! I was amazed when I asked a vendor walking by how much it was for a soft pretzel and he told me $4.75. Really? Shishkaberries are apparently up to $7 or $8 now, too? I'd give anything for a 1000-yen bento at this point.


Raburn's Tale of the Tape.


Peguero's "First MLB at-bat!"


Kennedy's Tale of the Tape.


Ichiro at 3rd base.


Jose Valverde.


Final score.


Well, the Swallows beat the Dragons 2-0 as Shohei Tateyama pitched a complete-game win because HE IS THE MAN! Apparently the Tsubamegun guys were up at the top of section D, but I didn't see them on TV. It's nice that I can watch some NPB games during the evening here, since they're going on during the daytime there. I'm annoyed, however, that the Pacific League TV thingy still won't let me pay them money so that I can watch games over their service.

I've also been following my normal college ball and high school ball circuits and keep meaning to write some posts about those; maybe I'll get to those soon. I had a whopping Nichidai San post in the works and the Spring Taikai finals are this coming weekend too.

Matt Murton breaks the single-season hit record with number 211, a 2-RBI single to center off Masato Nakazawa. Of course, the record will undoubtedly be somewhat asterisked in that Ichiro did it in 130 games.

They did bother stopping the game to put up this sign and give him flowers and let him take a bow, at least.


A lesser-known milestone was also reached tonight when Takashi Toritani singled in the 3rd inning for his 1000th career hit. He also got flowers (I was too slow to take a picture of the board announcement).


Other than that, who cares? The Tigers killed the Swallows 17-4. Kanemoto hit a homer and Brazell hit two homers (up to 47 on the season). Nakazawa seriously gave up 9 runs in one inning -- poor kid.


Murton was the game hero. To his credit, his hero speech only had the word "God" once or twice, though he pointed up at the sky when he said "I'd like to thank the fans", which was kind of funny.

Actually, something kind of cool is that when Murton his position in right field again in the bottom of the 2nd, the Swallows fans ALSO gave him a big round of applause. He went on to hit #212 (4th inning single to right off Tatsuyoshi "Break Your Heart" Masubuchi) and #213 as well (9th inning RBI double to right off Koki Watanabe).


Also, for the record, when I got my token pinbadge before the game, which I joke is going to be "the player of the game", the badge that came out of the machine was Shigeru Takada #88. No joke. So if that's the player of the game, you could kind of write it all off to iffy managerial decisions, I suppose.

On another note, the Keio-Rikkio deathmatch finally ended when Keio beat Rikkio in 14 innings, and yet again delayed the Swallows game. I ran into a few of the Keio players when I arrived at Jingu at 5:45 for the Swallows game, who were probably more surprised to see me than I was to see them. I had no time to say anything beyond "Otsukaresama, that was a REALLY long game, good thing you won!", but it was still kind of bizarre. And now I can theoretically summarize Weeks 3 and 4. I can't believe the fall semester is already halfway over...

We interrupt my normal trying-to-write-entries by the fact that I'm watching the Chunichi-Hanshin game on BS1. Matt Murton got his 200th hit of the season, a home run to left field off Kazuki Yoshimi... and the game didn't stop at all (though BS1 put a 200安打達成 line on the screen when replaying the HR). No flowers, no announcement, no nothing beyond the normal high-fives after a player's home run.

Well, Murton's next at-bat he cranks one off Masafumi Hirai that bounces on top of the centerfield wall, and is first waved around as a homer, then Ochiai comes out to argue and the umpires take it back and make it a ground rule double.

It's nuts, really. I've seen the NPB stop games and give flowers to guys for less impressive milestones. I guess maybe it's because Hanshin is the away team, but... I'm wondering, if Modasho Boy makes it to 200 too, what they'll do to commemorate the moment.

Heck, I almost think there was more of a celebration for it being Naomichi Donoue's 22nd birthday today.

Murton, for his part, seems to be taking this all very much in stride; they keep showing him on TV and he's just... out there doing his job like it's any other game. Very stoic, very Japanese. No wonder he's doing so well this year :)

(Anyway, the real message here is, congratulations to Murton. I don't follow the Tigers much, but it's a fantastic accomplishment regardless of what country a ballplayer was born in.)

EDIT>
Murton WAS the game hero in the end. They only showed the first part of his hero interview on the BS1 broadcast, though.

First he came out and tried to say, in Japanese, "神様は私の力です。" (God is my power.)

The interviewer asked, basically, "You got your 200th hit today, how are you feeling?"

"I'm so thankful. I'm humbled by the whole thing. I have such respect for this league. I first want to first say thank you to God and to my family, to the organization, the coaching staff and my teammates that made this possible."

"--And how can I forget the fans? Can you get that in there? Make sure..."

Then the next question was, "What's your secret to staying healthy and hitting well?"

"There's really no secret. You work hard, you have a god-given ability, and then you're given an opportunity. An opportunity is all I could ever ask for and I've been given that, this organization's been good to me and my family and made it a lot more comfortable for us and a lot easier, so I thank them, and we've still got a ways to go here yet, though."

And then it cut out, so I have no idea what else he said, or whether they presented him with anything cool afterwards. I was only watching this game in the first place because today's a national holiday so I had the day off, but it's raining, so all the college/etc baseball games outdoors got cancelled.

I am so totally going to get punched in the face for making this one, but I couldn't help it when I saw this photo on Sanspo...



I realize they're not exactly in the right positions for the joke. Whatever. The Dragons managed to actually beat the Tigers in the 3-game Central League first stage playoffs. The game was tied at 0-0 for what seemed like freaking forever until Kyuji accidentally gave Tyrone an offer he couldn't refuse, and BAM, 2-0. Crazy.

Also, the Rays and Phillies are playing in the World Series! Awesome! I am, of course, rooting for the Phillies. And in a weird twist of fate, at the new place I just moved into, I don't have internet, and I don't have very good reception for terrestrial TV stations, but I *do* have BS1 and BS2, which means I should actually be able to watch the World Series, assuming I wake up early enough, but I won't be able to blog it.

(Yeah, so I moved from the south butt-end of Saitama to the north butt-end of Tokyo; I'll be living there for the next month or so before I head back to America for 2-3 months for family reasons, and then I hope to return to Japan early next year for baseball season.)

It also means that my blog-updating is going to be even more sporadic over the next few weeks. Sorry. You should go read other blogs like the Tsubamegun, they've been on a mad updating rampage recently despite the Swallows crashing into a glass window this year.

I went to the Seibu Dome on Sunday and watched the Fighters win a game there for my first time EVER. Seriously. In 3 years of watching Fighters-Lions matches, I never managed to see the Fighters win. And boy, was this the right time for it. I do have an entry in the works about that game, hopefully I'll be able to finish it sometime, when I'm not going nuts finishing up my job or cleaning my old apartment or unpacking in my new place or trying to actually GO to more postseason games, like this coming Wednesday night at Seibu, when the Fighters will win the championship!

At the same time, on Wednesday night, the Dragons and Giants will start the Central League Second Stage. I wonder whether all those Tigers fans who bought up tickets will still go to the games, or whether there's suddenly going to be a whole bunch of tickets available at the resellers...

It occurs to me that if I listed all of the players that I've seen JJ Putz strike out to end a game, it'd really be a pretty impressive list. Barry Bonds and A-Rod immediately come to mind, of course, and today Magglio Ordonez also joined that list.

Still, this was a pretty crazy game overall, and a good way to get back to Mariners baseball. Plus, now I'm 14-4 in games I've attended! It was also a fantastic night weather-wise, cool and in the 70's, especially after that 96-degree day on Wednesday. On the other hand, due to two extremely crazy plays, this may have been a better game to take in on TV, just so one could see replays and hear the commentators. I'll explain in a second.

I didn't show up for batting practice due to finishing things up at work -- my last day is tomorrow -- but I did show up to see Andrew Miller warm up. He's really tall, and his motion is pretty swift, it's hard to pick up specific parts of it at first glance. After watching Miller, I also watched field warmups from row 1, and what do you know, Curtis Granderson came over to sign stuff for some kids, so I went over too and got his autograph, and said "I really like your web page, Curtis!" and he smiled and said thanks. To be honest, I actually only check his blog out every now and then, but I know what a pain in the ass it is to write in a baseball blog all the time, and so I feel an obligation to let players who do it know that their efforts are appreciated. Curtis seems like a pretty decent guy.


Some tall lanky kid who's still almost a year older than Felix.

Short version: Curtis Granderson was batted in by Magglio Ordonez in both the first and third innings, but those were all the runs that the Tigers could get. The Mariners had trouble getting anything off of Andrew Miller, and scored all of their runs in the 5th inning on a play that people at the ballpark couldn't really make heads or tails of, but essentially Adrian Beltre managed a bases-loaded bases-clearing "single", and that gave the Mariners a one-run lead over Detroit, which they fortunately kept all the way until JJ Putz struck out Magglio Ordonez to end the game with the Mariners winning it 3-2.

Long version: Well, let's see.

Right before the game, there was a highlight reel shown of Ichiro's All-Star appearance on the big screen, and they had him take a curtain call for the Seattle crowd. I thought that was a pretty nice gesture.

There was a female announcer doing the game as part of "Girls Night Out", whatever the hell that means. Being as I don't come to the park to get my nails done or have a makeover or whatever -- I come to watch a goddamn baseball game -- I really have no clue what the promotion was, other than that they had some random women come out onto the dugout near the 7th inning like "Lookee at our makeovers wheeeee!" Whatever. I liked it better last year when Girls Night Out involved a free pastel blue Mariners visor, which was actually nice enough that I've worn it several times.

The Tigers got off to a hot start with Curtis Granderson singling, and running to second base on Thames's grounder, so that even though I have it as a 6-4-3 play, it wasn't a double play as Granderson beat Lopez to the bag. Gary Sheffield stole a base (hell, later he stole another base. I think he wants to prove that he's not old), and Ordonez grounded out, scoring Granderson.

In the Mariners' half of the first, Jose Guillen managed something that was scored as "singled to catcher", and my friends even asked me about it later since they were late to the game, and I had to explain that it meant the ball was on the ground and buntlike in front of the plate, but Andrew Miller fumbled fielding it. Not sure why they called it to catcher, honestly.

That error aside, Andrew Miller seems like a pretty good pitcher, with a nice mixture of 96-97 fastballs and lots of random breaking stuff. I see now why people made such a big deal about him.

Third verse, same as the first -- Granderson doubled, hitting a hard line drive to centerfield which Ichiro ran after and did a leap for but missed. Sheffield walked, and Ordonez hit a Baltimore Chop which bounced high over the left side of the infield, and by the time Beltre fielded it, Granderson had scored.

Beltre's first taste of the WTF factor surrounding the evening came in the fourth inning, when he first struck out, but the ball got away from Pudge and it was ruled that he advanced on a wild pitch. After Johjima struck out, Beltre stole second during Yuniesky Betancourt's at-bat. Or more like, they threw a pitchout of sorts, except Pudge Rodriguez threw the ball over Omar Infante, so Beltre was safe at second, and then also ran to third. Which would have been the end of it all, except that Pudge started arguing that Betancourt was in his way of the throw, and wanted the umpire to rule that it was interference, except the umpire wasn't having any of that and tossed Pudge from the game, and so Mike Rabelo had to come in spontaneously to take over behind the plate.


When I took this picture I didn't know who he was.
Imagine my surprise when he ended up in the game.

Seriously, I had no clue who Detroit's backup catcher was, because Pudge is so well-known and plays in so many games anyway. I knew it wasn't Vance Wilson anymore, at least. Funny thing -- do you remember who Detroit's backup catcher was before Vance Wilson? He's definitely someone you've heard of, but you've probably forgotten that he was a catcher back when the Tigers were abysmal.

Rabelo came out and the rest of that half-inning passed without any further strangeness, and aside from Sheffield stealing another base, the top of the fifth passed uneventfully as well.

Then came the bottom of the fifth, which involved a lot of weirdness.

The fifth inning started off the same way the first and third had -- with Ichiro making an out and Jose Vidro getting a single and Ibanez making an out. Fine. But then rather than singling, Jose Guillen walked. And then Richie Sexson also walked (right after my friend asked "does he ever do anything besides strike out and hit home runs?"). So with the bases loaded, Beltre hit a single which scored Vidro, and Ordonez threw the ball home not in time to catch Jose Guillen scoring, and then all hell broke loose.

As far as I could tell, Rabelo threw the ball to second to try to get Beltre, who advanced after the throw home. Beltre, for his part, slid so far into second that he ended up almost in the outfield, and when Carlos Guillen came up with the ball, Beltre started playing a game of cat and mouse, evading the tag. In the meantime, Richie Sexson scored as well, making it 3-2. After Carlos Guillen failed to tag Beltre, who had been called safe at second, Beltre broke for third, and was called safe there for real. Which pissed off the Tigers again. Kenji Johjima started to come out to bat, but then Carlos Guillen went with the ball and stepped on second base and appealed to the umpires, saying Beltre never touched the bag. Which, on replays several hours later, I can totally believe. So the inning was over, but the runs scored. I gave up on trying to score it and just wrote a single to right and a "?!?!?!?!" for the out designation.

And yeah, that turned out to be the game. Miller came out after 5, and Felix came out in the middle of the 7th -- while a whole bunch of idiot fans were doing the Wave. I took great delight in telling my friends about Sean Green's Magical Sidearm, and we actually took some great delight and amusement in watching Macay McBride strike out the Mariners' side in the 7th for a 1-2-3 inning. I explained why we all think George Sherrill is cool, right as he got taken out after one batter due to Craig Monroe pinch-hitting for Sean Casey.

I also explained the bullpens, and one of my friends ran down there to watch; he got to see Zach Miner, Eric O'Flaherty, and JJ Putz warm up. Since he's a Yankees fan, he doesn't usually get to see pitchers warm up so close, so he thought it was awesome. It got me thinking about how there's a lot of things I really take for granted at Safeco Field, and that I'll miss once I move away.

JJ Putz pitched the ninth, and he rules, and that was that.

The buses got majorly messed up and we ended up waiting for a good 40 minutes for a bus back to Ballard -- yes, we took a shuttle uptown, before you say anything, I've been bussing to/from Mariners games for 5 years now, I know the routine. Either way, another thing I was thinking about was how crowded this game seemed -- all of Box was filled, most of Field was, the bleachers were sold out, so the only majorly empty area was in the upper decks. Pretty crazy. I know there are a lot of Tigers fans, sure, but you know, the Mariners are actually winning games, which means that a lot of people may actually start coming back to the stadium.

It's funny, because I actually like a nice empty stadium where I can run around and do whatever I want, and it's never tough to get tickets, and so on. So part of me is glad that I'll be moving away before the late-season crowd madness starts, especially if tonight's proliferation of loud drunken people and The Wave were any indicator. On the other hand, if the Mariners do make the postseason, it'll just prove once and for all that my presence in a city is ultimately death for a team. No, I can't really explain my 14-4 record there this year -- though even in the worst of their losing years, it's still seemed like my personal record's been over 50%.

Over the weekend while I was obsessed with taking pictures of the A's bullpen, the Detroit Tigers finally managed to sign Andrew Freaking Miller, the number-onesix overall pick in this year's draft. It seems he got a major-league contract for a whole ton of money and is already on the 40-man roster and everything. Exciting. The idea that we may see him called up in September seems a little far-fetched to me, though.

The real question is, when will he show up on The Dugout, and will he have a better screen name than Justin Verlander?

Nate Robertson cracks me up. It's good to see that they're already gumming up Sean Casey. But I'm still disappointed that the Indians got our Big League Choo instead of the Tigers.

Speaking of other Tigers, if I'm counting correctly, I think Hanshin's Tomoaki Kanemoto is supposed to hit the 1000th game in his streak of playing every consecutive inning of every game, on August 15th against Yokohama. Crazy.

(The Mariners beat the Devil Rays tonight, 5-4, but I only caught about five minutes of the game, when Tim Corcoran walked Richie Sexson with the bases loaded. I was nursing my baseball hangover from the weekend by doing more exciting things, like laundry.

You know, when I was a kid, there was a guy named Tim Corcoran who played first base for the Phillies. I remember him because he was left-handed, and the year he was hitting really well for us was the year I learned that left-handed gloves go on your right hand, and how to 1) spot which fielders were left-handed and 2) whine at my mom on Glove Giveaway Day until she'd take me back to Guest Services to get a proper glove. I know next to nothing about this modern-day Tim Corcoran, but the name still reminds me of the older one. Anyway.)