what a minor league stadium looks like in the top of the 11th of a rainy midweek September game. There were people there, I swear.
Official attendance was 815, which should be the lowest of the system. By this time, it was closer to 300. The weather was fine for most of the night. The weather said rain, and I said “don’t try to score the game if it’s going to the rain”, because I’ve been down that road a lot this season, but there was no rain for the first 7 innings of a fast moving game (though it did drizzle a bit before the game got started.) It started coming down in the bottom of the 8th, I think, and I was momentarily relieved I didn’t waste my time writing on what would’ve been soaked paper. The moment passed, and then I remembered I was cold, wet, and a bit tired. The storm didn’t stick around for long, but neither did half the crowd, between the rain and the game (which was other wise moving fast) going extra innings.
This went to 11th, I went home to watch the Cubs go 11th, I caught up on some lucha, and I flipped thru the channels to channels just in time to see the White Sox and Angels go 11. All ended with walk off hits towards center field. That’s just plain weird.
Really good starting performances by guys. That’s the rep of the White Caps and how they got here. Their pitcher – Burke Badenhop – was 14-3 2.84 during the regular season and looked that way here; the Cougars were never that close to scoring until things broke down in the 7th. KC’s Ben Jukich was just as good for most of the game, and ended up going 8 really good innings. He wasn’t dominate, but he didn’t let people on.
White Caps (dumb name!) got a run in the 2nd, and then we saw tons of zeros and 1-2-3 innings. From the top of the 3rd until the bottom of the 7th, there was only one inning where more than 3 batters came up.
Badenhop started to run out of gas in the 6th, putting two on with no one out, until he almost got out of it with a double play. Raul Padron picked up the runner left on base with a single, and the White Caps brought in Matt Rusch. Jose Pineda stepped up, and hit a ball as far as I’ve seen it in the stadium, clearing the left field scoreboard by a fair margin. The whole Cougars team went nuts on that hit; I still kinda wonder what this means to the players, but it seemed like it meant a lot tonight.
Unfortunately, the Cougars late inning pitching badness from games where it didn’t matter carried over here. WM got a run back in the top of the 8th off a HR, and they dinked in the tying run in the 9th – a walk, a single move the runner over to third, and a sac fly to get them in. Two relievers were not much help.
The bullpen redeemed itself in the extra innings, getting in and out of trouble in the 10th and the 11th. Meanwhile, in the Cougars 10th, there was another double play taken off the board, just like the last the home game. This time, with a runner out first, Matt Sulentic tried to sac him over, and I believe this is how it happened
– bunt was popped up (which happened on an earlier sac)
– 3B can easily catch the bunt
– but lets it drop!
– Sulentic thought to run it out
– but 3B’s throw beats him to first
– 1B throws it to second, tag is made, 2B Ump calls the runner out
– 1B Ump and HP Ump call foul
– runner returned to first, batter out
– no explanation is given
The best I could figure then is Sulentic made the bunt from outside the batters box, so the play was dead from the start. Judging from the way they wrote in the game log, it may have simply just been a foul bunt on strike 3, which made the play dead as soon as the 3B picked up the ball. I don’t remember it being two strikes, but I guess it could’ve been.
Cougars finally found a pitcher who didn’t have good stuff that night in the 11th. Recker doubled to start the inning, another bad bunt was caught (that’s what happens when batting practice is rained out!), White Caps put Jose Pineda on, and Issac Omura did the A’s philosophy proud by working very hard for a walk of his own. The bases were loaded for Steve Kleen, and he just had to put the ball in the air – and it was one where, as soon as he hit it, you knew the game was over. It got ruled a single, though I think the CF could’ve caught it if there was any point to catching it (he was running straight towards the fence and had 0 shot at getting the runner at home on a sac fly.) The whole team hit the field to celebrate at home, and then at first.
I’m pretty sure I was incredible annoying tonight. Not that I’ve bothered to sit anywhere close to my actual seat during the playoffs, but I was completely bebopping around the stadium for the last hour, switching from random section to random section about every other inning. Partly was not my fault – a family ended up sitting in front of me just to talk, and I’m fine with that, but then other family members came to sit in my row, and I decided I was in the way. From there, I was just moving around just to move around and see the park from any place I hadn’t seen it yet. This is completely because I wasn’t taking score; I seriously think I need to be doing (at least) two things at any given time, or my mind wanders and I get a slight bit nutty. The more I’m doing, the better I can focus, and I know that doesn’t sound good at all.
Somehow, I drank hot chocolate with a straw, and still got it over my hand. I’m so gifted. The end of this stretch of games will suck for the lack of baseball, but it does occur to me that it’ll save me some money.
They’re running a shuttle bus to go the game 3 on Thursday. I kinda wish I was unemployed enough to go (though $140 to go to Grand Rapids seems a bit much.)
(I may steal borrow a camera tonight to take better pictures. Why not. Gotta remember to get baseball cards.)