Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Game Report: Mariners vs. Orioles - There Is No "Out" In "Bloomquist"

Astute viewers may note that the title of this post is actually false.

Today I went to Safeco for the second Lookout Landing night of the year. We had about 10ish people; offhand I think we had jtopps (and his wife), fett42, edgar for pres, gomez, bretticus (and a friend), etowncoug (and a friend), garces, me, and then one other guy whose handle I forgot and I feel dumb. To be honest, the game sort of sucked for the first 7 innings, and then the Mariners exploded and so did our group.

This is kind of what the eighth inning was like for our group:

"Our Hernandez is much cooler than their Hernandez!"

[Ramon Hernandez strikes out]

"Did you notice Sean Green is throwing sidearm? It seems to be helping him..."

[he walks Corey Patterson]

"...maybe not."

[they bring in Sherrill]

"I like George Sherrill. I took him on my fantasy team because he strikes out guys."

[Roberts strikes out]

"Like that?"

"Yeah, like that."

[inning changes, Chad Bradford comes out]

[Sexson pops out]

"Richie can't handle submariners because he's too tall to see the ball."

[Johjima strikes out]

"Dammit Kenji. Now we're going to make another out and Ichiro won't be up again until there's 2 outs in the 9th."

"Why are you so sure they're going to be automatic outs just because their names begin with B and end in T?"

"WHAT? That makes absolutely no sense."

"There's no 'out' in Betancourt."

"Yes there is."

"Hey, there's also an 'out' in Bloomquist."

"There's also umm, 'Boo', and 'lost', and 'bust'..."

"...and 'quit', and 'loot', and 'boom', and 'must'..."

[Yuni singles]

"WOOOOOOOO!"

[Bloomquist singles]

"HOLY SHIT WOOOOOOOOOO!"

[Broussard is announced as a pinch-hitter for Ellison]

"BROUSSARD WOOOOOOOOOO"

[pitching change, John Parrish comes out]

"Rally lion dance!" [we flail arms]

[Vidro is announced as pinch-hitter for Broussard]

"TUUUUUUUUUUUURBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

"Guys, this isn't so bad. We have two dudes on base and two outs, he can't possibly ground into a double play. Infact, exactly what we NEED is a patented professional Vidro single."

"TUUUUUUUUUUUURBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

"Wait a minute, who's going to play centerfield now that Ellison's out and Ichiro is the DH?"

"Hey, are those guys over there ALSO yelling 'Turbo'? I think they are!"

"Maybe Bloomquist will go to center and Vidro will play third. Ha ha."

"Maybe VIDRO will play center. Ha HA!"

[Vidro singles, Betancourt scores. Beltre comes in as a pinch-runner]

"ICHIRO!!!!! I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE YOOOOOOOOOUUUUUU ICHIRO!!!!!!"

[Ichiro doubles, Bloomquist scores]

[Lopez hits a shot up the right field line, everyone else scores]

[Lots of high-fives]

"Gahh, if Raul doesn't strike out here, I'm going to have to go to a new line on my scorecard and mess it all up."

"OH THAT SUCKS DOESN'T IT."

[Raul grounds out]

"Whew!"

[strains of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" start playing over the speakers]

"PUTZ IN, GAME OVER!"

"PUTZ WOOOOOOOOO!!!"

"HA, my luck is much better than Bretticus's luck. And even better, I just got a nice vultured win off George Sherrill. Wooooooo!"

Yeah.

Since the the Mariners won 7-4, that also brought my personal won-loss record this season up to 9-3.

Ichiro led off the bottom of the first inning with a home run over the 385 sign in right-center. That was cool.

Sean Green is throwing sidearm now. I swear he wasn't last year. It's neat, though I don't know if it's any more effective per se. But, I remember it worked for Ronnie The Bear in the past, so who knows.

I saw Mark Lowe walk into the bullpen before the game. Dunno what's up with that.

Crazy play in the top of the 6th with runners at first and second. I didn't see exactly what started it, but suddenly Kenji Johjima was RUNNING from behind the plate out to second base with the ball for some reason, and Brian Roberts found himself caught in a rundown between second and third. I marked it a "CS 2-4-5" but that doesn't even begin to capture how nuts it is to see your catcher suddenly running like mad towards second.

Honestly, it really was just a very boring first 6-7 innings or so. What we were mostly concerned over was the sheer number of line drives people were getting off of Felix, marked by the 11 hits in 5.2 innings, where even guys like Aubrey Huff and Corey Patterson were getting doubles, and Brian Roberts infact got three.

Yuniesky Betancourt now has a 16-game hitting streak. Cool.

Willie Bloomquist went 3-for-4. It really shouldn't surprise anyone, though, since he always picks some completely random lefty in the AL each year to own. Bedard is just another in the grand tradition of Washburn, Zito, etc.

I still hate the Orioles.

No pictures today, either. The stadium roof was open when we got there, but the sky was already sort of gray, and it started "raining" in the 4th inning or so -- more like a weird sprinkling. The roof closed and solved that. Either way, I decided not to bring my camera because of the poor lighting and being in the upper deck.

Still, in the end I think we all had fun hanging out, and hopefully we'll do another one of these in a few weeks!

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