Post-Game(s) Thoughts

There are plus-es to being a double fan.

For example, today was a good baseball day seeing as both the Giants and the Red Sox (I was present here at this game) won their games. When both my favorite teams with their games I get the double happy. It's like a double high so it's double-plus-good (1984, Orwell reference). You know that feeling you get when your team wins a game, it's pretty good, it's a happy feeling. Then imagine that x2, especially when one team is possibly gonna be in the play-offs. It's spectacular

There are minus-es to being a double fan.

• The feeling you get when your team loses? Now multiply that by 2.
• Double the heart breaks
• Double the anger when the season is over.

Most the time, it's hard work.

("really Becca, it must be tough, having to follow both the AL and the NL, I sympathize!)

Anyway, like I said, today was a good baseball day. Last night I went to the Red Sox vs. A's game, and it wasn't so pleasant. Josh Beckett was slated to pitch yesterday, but instead they changed the rotation and put John Lackey in for yesterday and Beckett for today. Let's just say that my feelings on John Lackey are not exactly positive. Plus, I feel so awkward at their stadium -- I feel like I'm in the wrong place or something. Thank goodness next Saturday I'll be back in San Francisco. (Oh and I'll fasho be back Tuesday night with some talk on Zito's start against the visiting Dodgers -- ah the Giants return from a 10 day road trip.)

We were doing alright until the 7th inning. Bottom of the 7th when Boston fans are feeling pretty comfortable.

So Daric Barton doubles on this crazy drive out to Kalish. The video monitors played this pretty much on loop last night and today too. Point is, Kalish can't get it and they have a man on second. So now I'm a little antsy knowing Lackey must be getting kind of tired out there...I mean, eventually they put Bard out. Usually I like Bard, but he must have had a bad day or something.

But we've dug ourselves out of such situations. Kurt Suzuki, the catcher comes up and Kalish redeems himself sort of and makes the catch. (bonuses of keeping your own scorecard, you know who does what when and where). Well now we're at 1 out; Boston fans settle down a little bit now.

Next several pitches, and BAM, Jack Cust singles and Barton scores, (2-1 Boston). Boston fans are a little more squirmy now. They have the tying run in position after a throwing error by Bill Hall. A's fans are suddenly enthusiastic. What the hell? They weren't minutes before.

Side note, at this point in the game it's pretty chilly. Thank god for my red therma base Red Sox jacket and my last minute smarts telling me that wearing short shorts to a night game is pretty stupid.

Mark Ellis comes up to bat. He's swinging his bat and all the A's fans are on their feet. Psh. He singles to score Cust. (2-2)

Anyway, no need for the play-by-play. Point is, Rajai Davis triples to Kalish and they score again. (3-2 Oakland). Ninth inning -- last chance. Recently I've been really into the late comebacks, in the 8th, and 9th and sometimes the 7th. It's impressive, so a pat on the back to the Athletics for that one.

Two pretty quick outs for Boston, Scutaro swings and misses and Nava's caught looking during his pinch-hit. V-Mart comes up and doubles. Oh yay, some hope. Adrian Beltre is next, he doubles to score Martinez, putting himself at 2nd and restoring some hope in the Red Sox fans now standing up. With the tying run on base...the Sox call up the ever so trusty Big Papi. Ortiz comes to the plate and now everyone's standing. Mostly because Red Sox fans are standing and the Athletic fans behind them can't see the game.

Anywho, we're all clapping now and Papi is up on full count. I keep clapping and doing this weird stop ritual because for some reason I think it helps him to stay alive. I shouldn't be one to talk about strange superstitions as I discovered this one late last night: aubrey huff's rally thong.  My friend, Marisa doesn't like the color. She says the guy has no team spirit and it should be orange and black. She missed out on the fact that the Giant's first baseman is wearing a rally thong to earn wins.

Papi fowls two back and the crowd is getting impatient. I do my little stomp exercises again and watch as the Athletics's closer goes into his stretch (no pressure to either him or Ortiz). He throws and it's like a moment where all that matters is that throw, and that ball -- erm and maybe the wind that could throw the pitch off. The moment seems to drag on forever and all of a sudden I hear the loud 'slap' in the catchers' mitt and the home plate ump turns in our directions and with his RIGHT hand sticks his finger out to declare strike 3. Papi strikes out looking and the game is over, the Red Sox stranding the tying run.

After that it's just chaos. Getting out of there is just a mess, I imagine we look sort of like migrating...penguins or something out of 'March of the Penguins.' In all honestly, I saw the marching part and then I fell asleep.

Today's game. While the game was for the most part interesting...actually, the beginning was more of me freaking out about the Giants game which started at the same time. My attention was definitely divided between there -- and maybe at Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester and Daniel Nava some rows in front of me. Clay Buchholz trading sunglasses with the guy sitting to his left ("do these glasses make me look smarter?" "No, Clay." as for the guy with Buchholz's sunglasses on, 'lemme just look into the sun to make sure they work.') What a bunch of baseball players.

 I went from paying attention to the actual game and clapping for the wrong things to my phone and the Giants game. While nothing was going on in Oakland with the Red Sox, the Giants were winning their game in the 1st against the Padres. Buster Posey hits a homer to score Huff who singled during his at-bat before. Maybe the thong is working for him. It must be because the duo ended up helping out some more as the game progressed. Two nights ago we were tied for division, yesterday they lost and today was a crucial game. I was also paying attention to the Phillies, the Braves, and the Rockies. See what I mean about hard work?!

A lot of people showed up to the game today in Giants gear. I never understood that, it's like "hey buddy, you got off BART a few stops too early, you gotta go across the bridge." Then there are people who show up in Yankees gear. What the hell? Just go to hell. Of course I'm BIASED; biased...but right.

Nothing happens for awhile. The Athletics's are doing well behind their fearless mothers' day perfect game pitcher Dallas Braden. The scoring happens rather early on, bottom of the 3rd for Oakland. It's a walk off. Coco Crisp (all in all, despite the teasing of his name, I think it looks cool on the back of a jersey. I mean "CRISP." It's cool. I want my last name to be "FRESH." I'm done with all the cereal references). He walks. Beckett ain't happy.

Oh man.

We didn't see that today, but still, he was not happy. Especially with how this inning went down. Speaking of which, I'd better get back to that. So Barton (the A's man who ignited the runs last night) is having his at bat and Coco steals 2nd base. Then Barton just walks. Kurt Suzuki comes up to bat and also walks. Lots of walkin' going on --  a pretty slow game. Anyway, bases are loaded now with one out (earlier Pennington struck out swinging). This entire long inning, my sister keeps handing me the giant back of colorful cotton candy. The problem is when you put something edible in front me, I'll eat it, and half that bag will be gone and I will feel sick.

But all that is besides the point -- I get derailed easily, sorry. So now Jack Cust is up -- he can swing well. He's up on full count ... but Beckett walks him and Coco struts home (0-1 Oakland).  Boston fans are starting to feel a little like they did during the 7th at night, not so comfortable. Beckett puts his angry yet cool composed game face on and strikes out Mark Ellis (another last night hero) in three pitches -- caught him looking. Hermida comes out and lines out to J.D. Inning over; time for a San Francisco Giants update.

The 3rd inning seems to be nice inning for the Giants. Mr. Aubrey Huff doing very well in his rally underwear -- he singles. Buster Posey singles as well sending Huff to 3rd. Power to the Posey-Huff duo. It's Guillen who drives Huff in of a sac fly and that's how they score in the 3rd to make it 3-0 San Francisco.

Returning to the game at hand. There's some spacing out between innings. Dallas Braden is no doubt pitching rather well today though he did walk a lot. Actually I believe the first Red Sock...is that the singular of Red Sox...? Or should I leave out the 'K?' The first Red Soc...man he saw he walked. Other than his that his efforts showed great results. He had offensive support and good defensive support for the most part until we see some bloopers later on. For now, we see Mark Ellis return to the plate in the 5th to double and drive in Kurt Suzuki (who was on base after getting hit by a pitch pretty much square in the back by Beckett, though I'm sure Beckett felt a little better after that). Barton also comes in to score to make it 3-0 Oakland.

At this point I returned my attention to the scoreboard. During the 4th the Giants scored some more runs. This time it is the pitcher, Tim Lincecum, who was slumping a couple weeks ago who drives in the rubs. He is a switch hitter. From what I've seen he isn't the most amazing pitcher/hitter combo. Those are rare anyway. In terms of bunting, it's 50/50, which quite frankly is better than Matt Cain (in my opinion) and Jonathan Sanchez who can't seem to bunt. Zito in my opinion is probably best at the whole bunting situation, his numbers look pretty good. So at the end of the 4th, the San Francisco score is 5-0 Giants, which looks much prettier than 3-0 Oakland.

Since there game progressed faster than ours, I also saw that in the 5th San Diego had a run score. It would be Eckstein (whom the Giants hate, and for a good reason) who knocks in Will Venable. While we're talking about the Padres, I just want to quickly add some words. They've had a great season and I'm going to be honest, I was surprised what the Giants pulled together for this series. I know that San Diego had their 10 game losing streak but they usually pull it back together pretty quickly and the Giants just can't seem to hit them. Yesterdays win, while attributed to the home run hitter, is also impressive in terms of the pitching. The only scoring run for San Diego came on a homer by Torreabla (his 5th) in the 3rd, but Stauffer (1.54 ERA) was able to hold the Giants bats still for the remainder of the game. That is impressive. Bumgarner was almost as impressive seeing as he held the Padres down for the rest of the game as well, doing what he could, hoping that the offense could maybe do a little something. Speaking of Bumgarner, how he's a pitcher who seems to be a pretty good hitter as well, fan of doubles.

Back to the A's and Red Sox game that suddenly becomes eventful enough for me to stop checking the Giants score every few minutes.

In the 6th, the team seems to wake a up a little ("hey, we can't let the Oakland sweep us!") Beltre comes up to bat with two outs. Beltre is a pretty consistent guy. You can depend on him to hit the ball well. He doubles and up comes DH Big Papi from last night. With some help from the wind, he singles and Beltre advances to third. It's not a magnificent hit, but it's a hit nevertheless. Mike Lowell comes up, today at this time all he'd done was ground out into a double play. He walks and the bases are loaded.

I wonder if there'll be chatter at the mound soon and action in the bullpen. J.D. Drew comes up to bat and doubles to score Beltre and Ortiz closing the score gap to 3-2 Oakland. It doesn't look as ugly anymore. Some pitching changes occur, Dallas Braden leaves the mound to Henry Rodriguez and Ryan Kalish bats in place of Bill Hall.

I find that everytime I remember to clap and stomp for Kalish he seems to produce good at-bats. Kalish ends up at second after scoring Mike Lowell and J.D. Drew making the score 4-2 in favor of Boston. Yay Kalish, glad last night's all behind you. Lowrie is next and it's a quiet end to the inning that had Boston fans on their feet. It's not that late in the game, but I still like come backs. The Giants game has mellowed out now, the Red Sox game has done the same.

There is little Boston action until the 8th. We start the rally off with Beltre singling and then Ortiz cranks out the first out of the inning walking back into the dugout, frustrated (I'm guessing) that what just happened was it. Lowell walks. J.D's back and he singles and Beltre scores (5-3 Boston), now that's a reasonably pretty score, right?

Reddick (who replaced Lowell running) ends up at third and Drew at 2nd after an error on the pitcher. That's all the scoring that happens there. In the 9th, Daric Barton is thrown out of the game, but I missed what actually happened (guess where my attention was?) Papelbon comes out to replace Atchinson who was in earlier to replace Beckett. Everyone's standing (I love it when we stand) and Paps strikes out Barton looking. The ump turned around again and took his RIGHT hand just like he did last night, stuck his finger out and called the 3rd strike, only this time, it was Sox fans' hands that went up in the air.

The Giants score one more during the 8th. It's Burrell who singles and Ross comes out to take his place running. Pablo knocks it in and also gets to first on an error. Exciting.

In the 9th we had some chances to score. Nate Schierholtz singled and Rowand is out but sends Nate (his last name is just too long, it's almost as bad as Saltalamacchia -- it arches over the numbers) to second.

Huff singles (whoot) and Nate trots on over to third. Posey walks and Huff moseys (get it? mosey, posey? "gosh becca you're so stupid and your jokes aren't funny!") on over to second. But nothing happens.

Sweet. We see a very long second half of the 9th. Some people are on base (I'm getting lazy), and finally after some pinch hitter rotation Brian Wilson shows up and then there's some more delays involving base moving due to defensive indifference. Uh, whatever.

So Wilson and his new facial hair take the mound. He puts it on full count. It always SEEMS intentional, I feel like he does it too often for it not to be intentional. I don't mind as long as that last pitch is a strike. Luckily for us, it is and Matt Stairs is called out on strikes.

AND THAT'S THOSE ARE THE BALL GAME BALLGAMES.

there goes my future as a writer.  

Tuesday though, I'll try again, and I'll come armed with better grammar, I promise.

Right now I'm running on low sleep and caffeine.