Photopost: Darvish vs. A's, June 7th

Uh, hi.  Is this thing on?  Yeah, I know I don't write here much (and even left off in the middle of my January uniform-wearing thing -- if you're really curious how the rest of the month went, you can go check out the album on Facebook).

Anyway, what I've been up to the last six months baseball-wise: not much.  Work has been keeping me pretty busy.  I went back to Japan for 2 weeks in April and went to around 20 games and stalked the Nichidai Sanko boys (which I should photopost about), and I went to a Frederick Keys minor-league game in DC with my brother, and I'm going to watch the San Rafael Pacifics tonight to see Tomochika Tsuboi, former Fighters guy, who is now playing in the indie leagues over here.  I also hope to see the Tacoma Rainiers sometime since Brian Sweeney and Luis Jimenez are playing for them, but last weekend it was 106 degrees in Sacramento and I couldn't do that.

The other game I went to was the A's vs. Rangers game on June 7th because Darvish was starting for the Rangers.  Go figure, the Rangers were in the Bay Area for an entire week and the only day he started was the afternoon game where my company was having a team-building event.  Of course, I skipped the event and went to the game...

I really wanted to meet Tateyama, which I didn't succeed in.   But I did meet a ton of Japanese people, who were all crowding the Rangers bullpen before the game, including a lady who came here from Sapporo by herself to see him, a guy from Ibaraki who was cosplaying as Darvish, some various other people, I just chatted with them in Japanese, very fun. Even the guy who was sitting two seats to my left was from Hokkaido, though he works in San Jose now. I wore my Imanari jersey so a lot of people were saying things to me about how "Ryota got traded to Hanshin, didn't he?  Too bad..."  Very cool times, even if Darvish sucked (he gave up 6 runs on 6 hits and 6 walks in 5 innings, no joke) and the Rangers lost, I still had a good time at the game.  (Plus in all honesty I kinda want the A's to win, they're really the underdog around here since I work with too many hipster Giants fans.)

I also brought my camera, so here are some shots from it.
See the entire photo set here with more Darvish and some Tanner Scheppers and whatnot.




Darvish in the bullpen warming up


Yoshinori Tateyama greets Mike Napoli at the bullpen


Koji Uehara goes for a walk in the late innings


Darvish cosplayer dude.  He came here from Ibaraki.

You know, the photos of Darvish remind me an awful lot of another photoset I took in March 2008...

I'm in Seattle and I went to a Mariners Game

Three weeks of glorious vacation in Seattle, where it's 72 degrees every day and not humid, and I have no set schedule of things to take up my time. Sounds great, right?

I had delusions of grandeur that I was going to spend my weekdays while Mike's at work just working on my backlog of baseball stuff to do, like going through and writing about all the high school games I attended before I came here, cropping tons of pictures, and planning out the trip I'm taking when I do go back to Japan next week.

Obviously, that didn't happen. I got pulled back into working on some stuff for a completely non-baseball-related event some friends are holding, and then also spent a lot of time going off and meeting friends for lunch, or doing some shopping for things I can't buy in Japan, such as clothes not intended for toothpick midget women. I find it amusing how I'm average here, but a huge tall pile of Amerikajin when I'm over there.

I have been watching bits and pieces of Koshien when I have time; I really wanted to see Kanto Daiichi and Waseda Jitsugyo (aka Soujitsu) since I actually saw them in the regional qualifiers, but so far only managed to see KD1. They crushed Sano Nichidai 9-2. Bizarrely, their foreign English teacher was interviewed over Asahi's TV feed -- I was super-jealous, I've always wished I knew how to get a job teaching at one of the powerhouse baseball schools. And as for Soujitsu, I had to miss their game last night, but they beat Kurashiki Shogyo 2-0 (and Yasuda-kun got two hits, yay). Their next game is against Chukyodai Chukyo, who I did make a point of watching because I wanted to see Isomura-kun again because I am a big dork, and they won 2-1 over Nanyo in a really close game.

If you want to read English recaps of all the Koshien games with play-by-play, as usual, the place to go is Edwin's blog. He's crazier than the rest of us, and was even up until 4am Pacific time for the end of the Asahikawa vs. Saga game yesterday. I've been trying to hang out a bit in the japanesebaseball.com Koshien chat room too, and trying to be more on-topic than I have been in the past.

So anyway, I went to a Mariners game last Wednesday, and am finally getting around to putting up any kind of post about it. I wasn't even going to bother watching the Mariners at all this trip, but I had something really really really important to do, which was to visit Brian Sweeney in the bullpen. When Brian first got called up by the Mariners, I sent out email to a bunch of my Fighters friends, and they pretty much all said "You have to go tell him a good 'GANBARE!!' for us when you go to Seattle!"

Of course, I nearly had a heart attack that morning when I checked the Mariners' website and it had a headline of "Mariners trade Sweeney to Phils". Fortunately, thank god, they meant MIKE Sweeney.

So, this game had the "Family Pack" ticket deal, so I ended up going with 6 other friends, as one guy figured out that if you had at least 4 people, it was cheaper to buy a ticket and voucher for a hot dog and drink than it was to just buy a ticket, so we did.

I wore a Chiba Lotte Marines t-shirt specifically because nobody in Seattle can ever tell that it doesn't actually say "Mariners" on it. Naturally, right outside the gate I ran into a Japanese dude from Chiba wearing a Kuroki #54 ticketholder neckstrap who immediately recognized my t-shirt, and we chatted in Japanese for a few minutes, much to the bewilderment of my friends, who couldn't figure out why someone would just come up and start talking to me like that.

Anyway, I went in earlier than the rest of our group, around 5:30, but Mariners batting practice was already over. And Rangers batting practice ALSO finished before 6pm, which is crazy early. The reason for this was that there was a Special Olympics softball game going on, which is kind of cool, but I spent most of that time still just wandering around the stadium -- it'd been a while since I'd gotten to just walk around the park and see what's there. I bought a few souvenirs for friends back in Japan, and I got my picture with the Moose again:



And I saw on the big screen coverage that Brian was being one of the batboys for the Special Olympics softball game -- a couple of Mariners and Rangers players were -- but by the time it was over, the ushers were being strict about who could go down and stand near the dugouts. Doh.

So I went to the bullpen and just hung out there until the pitchers came out. One of the coolest things ever was that the Mariners battery for the day was Doug Fister and Adam Moore. I had seen them as a battery once before... in Everett in 2006. I saw Fister's first pro game, and he pitched 5 perfect innings, and Moore was 2-for-4, and they were the two guys I was most impressed with that day, so it's really neat to see them in the bigs together again 4 years later.


Adam Moore, strapping on his catcher's gear


Doug Fister is still super-tall, but no high socks.

Actually, if you want to see some better bullpen shots, go look at Megan from Section 331's. It was funny, I saw her standing on the OF concourse with her camera aimed at the bullpen but didn't think she'd hear me or recognize me if I yelled up, so I didn't. Either way, I only had my pocket camera with me rather than my big one.


I was also happy to see that JJ Putz's pink backpack or a descendant thereof is still being used to bring out snacks and whatever to the bullpen, and of course, provide some mild rookie hazing. I have happy memories of watching Brandon Morrow walk across the field carrying it.


Looking into the bullpen during the top of the first inning. John Wetteland seems like a really good bullpen leader guy.

So anyway...

When the pitchers came into the bullpen, I was still stuck at the top half of the area because there had been a private party in the CF patio before the game, and the guards wouldn't let me down there. But, I yelled out to Brian, and he waved, and after the national anthem and after the bullpen had their meeting to high-five Doug Fister heading out to pitch and so on, Brian had me tap the guard and they let me come down to the lower fence.

First thing he says to me, of course: "What the heck are you doing wearing a Chiba Lotte Marines t-shirt? I would have thought you'd show up in a Fighters Morimoto shirt or something! I saw that 'Satozaki' on the back during the anthem..."

"Brian, you're the ONLY non-Japanese person in this entire stadium that can even tell that this shirt is missing an R. I think they all have 'Satozaki' confused with Kazuhiro Sasaki, who also wore #22..."

"Oh, you've got this all figured out, huh?"

But I put on my Mariners jersey anyway, and hung out for a while down by the bullpen until the middle of the first inning (fans aren't allowed to talk during innings, but before the game and between innings is okay). It was just really great to catch up with Brian for a bit, he's just as nice and funny as he was in Japan, and I did get to tell him that everyone in Japan wishes him good luck, and so on. And he was asking how I'm doing, how stuff is going back in Japan, etc. Seriously, I was really sad when he left the Fighters and I think it's beyond cool that he's pitching for the Mariners again.

And it was funny to hear about how they have a lot of the same pre-game stuff here as they do in Japan, at least the pre-game meetings and bullpen huddles and whatnot. It's just so unbelievably cool. I was tripping over words a lot, I think, because it was actually pretty crazy to be out by the bullpen chatting with an actual major league pitcher. I mean, Brian's still Brian, but now he's wearing an MLB uniform and there are a bazillion fans who speak English around, so the fact that he'll still come chat with me is really awesome :)

Anyway, I convinced him to take a silly photo so that I can relay back to the Fighters fans (and maybe players) that he returns their greetings...



I dunno, I figured this was a photo that nobody except me could take -- who else would have a Fighters mascot doll keychain on their bag?

But Brian was a pretty good sport about it. Seriously, he's got to be one of the nicest guys in baseball ever. Maybe it's a Sweeney thing, as a quick websearch on the string "nicest guys in baseball" uniformly comes up with Mike Sweeney.

I didn't want to bother him too much, so I went to my seat to catch up with my friends in the bottom of the first inning. None of them are huge baseball fans or anything, so when they asked where I was, I just said I'd been chatting with someone I knew from baseball in Japan.

And so there was a game. You can see the box score and wrapup on the Mariners site, really. The Rangers won 11-6. I took a few photos of events along the way...


Adam Moore hits a 2-run homer in the 3rd! This made the score 4-2 -- the first few innings actually were pretty close and it seemed like the Mariners might actually win the game.

Funnier, the guys behind me showed up in the 2nd inning, so one's like "Who hit the first home run of the game?" because they thought the #2 referred to the evening, not to the number of HRs Moore hit this year.


Immediately after that, Michael Saunders gets caught stealing second in a rundown. I start writing down "CS 2-6..." and trying to count who had it afterwards, and they helpfully put up the fielders on the board. Also, "Jumpin Jack Flash" Wilson lists his last read book as the Bible. I am not sure what that indicates.


See this thing in the wall? Can you guess what it is? It is what happens when Franklin Gutierrez makes a RIDICULOUS catch to steal a homer from Vladimir Guerrero. You can see a video of it from this article.

It's kinda funny that it happened on the same day that everyone was asking me about Masato Akamatsu's catch out in Hiroshima, I guess.


Guerrero lost his HR, but Murphy hit one shortly afterwards, to make it 6-5.


And this grand slam by Michael Young pretty much put the final nails in the win for Texas here, bringing the score to 11-6.


BUT I WAS REALLY HAPPY BECAUSE BRIAN SWEENEY PITCHED THE 8TH INNING!!!!!

No, really -- it was funny because I turn to one of my friends like "That's the guy I was talking to before the game!"

"What? You're kidding."

"Not kidding. He pitched for the Nippon Ham Fighters for 3 years in Japan. I used to cheer for him all the time in Japan too. But now I feel like if I get up and yell a good luck cheer and clap my hands, I'm going to get punched."


Brian pitched one inning and didn't give up any runs. He walked Nelson Cruz and gave up a single to David Murphy, but that was it! Very cool.

I applauded, but I think everyone around me thought I was crazy.


Anyway, yeah, the game ended around 10:30pm, which was pretty late.

I always have a tough time explaining the "Eighth Inning Exodus" to people in Japan, since beating the traffic isn't really an issue there, but this game went late enough that I could kind of understand it. The funny part is, if you wait long enough, you also end up beating the traffic as there's nobody left!

I was also able to wander into the "Mariners Wall of Fame" area behind the food court near home plate, and take some photos with stuff, since almost nobody was around:


Here's something they have set up so you can pretend to be Ichiro, which is exactly what a bunch of Japanese tourists were doing. Do I count as a Japanese tourist now?


One of the exhibits is a bunch of bats and gloves from former Mariners players. Since I was wearing a Johjima jersey, I got Mike to take this photo since I thought it'd be kind of cool.

Yeah.

Being at an MLB game is weird. I don't really know what to do most of the time without the organized cheering. I think I've been brainwashed.

On the other hand, it's a reasonable enough way to hang out with some friends for an evening, and it was really, really awesome to see Brian, and even luckier that I got to see him actually pitch! Hooray.

A Post About The Seattle Mariners, For A Change

Or more like, a rant. Whatever, it's my birthday and I'll rant if I want to.

So, I went to Seattle for about a week as part of the Japanese holiday season known as Golden Week. Under normal circumstances, I spend Golden Week hiding in my house and/or going to college ballgames and other local stuff, and trying to avoid travelling or anything involving crowds, but this year I wanted to come spend some time with my boyfriend, who was crazy enough to take me to the Mariners game on Saturday. Which they lost 6-3:



I've been wanting to talk about the game for a few days, but it's really difficult. And really, it's not like anyone would be reading this blog to find out about a Mariners game any more at this point, so I can just rant without feeling any obligation to rant in a timely fashion.

There were two big things that were driving me nuts about being at this game:

1) No sense of being involved in the game, like a reason to actually BE there. I'm so used to Japan, where almost everyone who comes to the game has some emotional investment in either team, and I'm used to sitting in the outfield with a whole ton of people who are cheering and singing for each batter and hanging on every single pitch of the game. Without the ouendan, it's so quiet, relatively; all you can hear is booing, the murmur of people talking, occasional clapping, and uh, the cries of "BIG HUMONGOUS BEERS!" from certain beer vendors:



But seriously. I felt like I wasn't sure what to DO while watching the game. I used to say that baseball was a sport where it really was better to go to the stadium than to watch at home, but now I'm not so sure that it's quite so far apart as I once thought, at least, without cheering groups. Obviously there's a big difference between a full stadium and an empty stadium, and I'm sure players prefer being in the former, but for the most part, how exactly do people "support" a team in the US, really? I'm pretty sure that buying a jersey and showing up and yelling obscenities at the opposing team is not really the way to go.

I've been told that I should probably consider becoming a Sounders fan when I move back to Seattle, if I want to continue cheering and yelling and singing with a big group of people during sports events.

2) Do any of these players actually give a shit about the game? Do they actually PRACTICE fielding? At ALL?

I mean, in Japan, if a player isn't giving their all, if they're not running out a grounder or hustling towards a fly ball, or throwing it in with all their might, or whatever, they'll probably get taken out of the game and berated by the manager, possibly sent down to the farm team, and you might even see them apologize to the fans for their lack of effort. (Actually, I guess that doesn't happen all that often anymore, but I also don't usually see players goofing off in the field in Japan.)

I was astounded by how many miscues happened in this game on both sides. Some were hard plays, but some were just guys being dumb or lazy. It started with Milton Bradley in the 2nd inning basically letting a ball just fall for a single in left field -- like he had briefly forgotten he was actually playing baseball or something. I mean, there was this ball, and it was landing in front of him, and suddenly he seemed to go "Shit, I'm an outfielder, I need to uh, catch that?"

Supposedly, he thought Gutierrez was going to get it. So what? You run towards it anyway for backup. What if something happens to Guti? There's no excuse for that play. And the kicker? It wasn't called an error.

Then, right after making a fantastic field of a bunt, Michael Young let a ball go through him at 3B (also not called an error). The next half-inning, Jose Lopez repaid the favor by throwing the ball over first base, but apparently that ALSO wasn't an error. The guy in front of me claims that Matt Treanor might have been safe even if the throw hadn't been towards the upper deck, and it only would have been called an error if he got an extra base on the play, which he didn't. But he didn't get an extra base on the play because he ran through first and didn't even stop to turn around and see what was going on. And then some people yelled about interference. Whatever.

Elvis Andrus, two batters later, hit a grounder to short, and Jack Wilson picked up the ball, went to throw it to first, and literally dropped the ball on the ground behind him. Huh? (And why is the play not at second anyway?)

I finally got to write down the 6th or 7th error of the game as an actual error in the bottom of the 4th when another grounder to third didn't make it successfully to first base. Hooray!

Now here's something more messed up: Michael Young booted another grounder through first base, and it ended up going into the stands, and that was called an error. Fine. But then Gutierrez bunted, and the pitcher and the first baseman both charged the play -- and Ian Kinsler DIDN'T GO COVER FIRST, so the pitcher and 1B are standing there with the ball like "...who's on first?". I guess not bothering to work out who covers what play is also not an error, or a mistake at all?

The last play of the game that pissed me off was in the top of the 8th, where Julio Borbon was standing on second and Michael Young singled to center, and Gutierrez just kind of stood there with the ball for a second or two, waited for all the runners to be safe, and then threw it in. I fail to understand that one either. "Shit, there's no play at home" doesn't really fly for me; let a relay man deal with it then, you can still get the dude running from 1st to 3rd.

And as for "WTF is going on" moments on the field, someone's got to tell me why Vladimir Guerrero even thought about trying to steal second base in the 3rd inning.

Yeah.

Anyway...

I wonder why there's this perception that the MLB is so exciting, and that Japanese baseball is boring compared to it? I mean, in the MLB, so many of the players look so similar -- all around 6'2 or 6'3 and weighing 220-225 pounds, and built up so that they all pretty much look exactly the same when playing. Even before I moved to Japan, I always got really excited about players who were *different* in some way. I loved sidearmers and submariners, and guys who had different batting stances from the norm. Or guys who were only 5'9 and managed to make it to the show anyway, or guys who were 6'9 and had to wear high socks in the minors (I'm looking at YOU, Doug Fister).

I love how in Japan I don't even necessarily need to see a player's uniform number to know who they are, because I can recognize a lot of them from their build and their play style. With the Fighters, we usually see a pinch-hitter coming in all the way from the outfield, but it's not hard to tell who it is just by seeing the guy. It's odd, but for a country which is known for homogeneity and for everything being and looking the same, what I love about the baseball here is how unique every player is, and how you get to know a lot more about them and their history and their personality than you would with an MLB player.

I suppose a lot of people in the US don't really care about that kind of thing. And worse, because of how much money the players make and how elevated the celebrity status is, as well as how much they can get in trouble for interacting with fans (ie, photos from parties getting out on the internet, or even worse in some cases, like some of the things that used to surface here), that there's more of a wall up between them, and the players probably guard their personal lives even more than they would otherwise. But here in Japan, it is not really that impossible to meet a player if you really want to.

(Heck, this morning at my school, I had brought my Hichori Morimoto folder with me to a class of 7th-graders, and not only were we sharing stories about going to his parents' yakiniku restaurant which is relatively near here, but one of the other kids told me about another Teikyo HS grad named Takaaki Matsumoto who plays for the Hiroshima Carp now -- and who grew up 4 blocks from the JHS I teach at, and his parents run a restaurant there too. I knew he was Teikyo, but had no clue he was from this area!)

I get the feeling that most people who call Japanese baseball boring do so because they don't really know who the players are or any of the rituals behind the game, and if they learned about it, they'd see that it's just as interesting, if not moreso, than the American version.

So on another note, the player I was most excited to see in the game was this guy, Darren O'Day:



Since he came up to the pros after I left for Japan, I had barely really heard about him at all. But he's a sidearmer! And even better, he has some crazy stuff in his past. Like, apparently the day the Rangers claimed him off waivers, they put him in a major-league game and he didn't even have a uniform and he wore someone else's. And in another article it turns out he's got a bit of an intellectual side; apparently he studied to be a doctor, spent a significant amount of time working in hospitals and such, and that he basically had good medical school and law school test scores, but decided not to go in favor of trying professional baseball first. He picked his sidearm delivery up in his senior year at Florida as a way to get himself back onto the team, and went all the way to the college World Series.

I guess there are still interesting stories to be had in the majors sometimes.

And look who else I got to see play:



I didn't move to Seattle until 2002, so I've never been part of the Griffeymania. It vaguely reminds me of when Tatsunami was being the Uber-PH for the Chunichi Dragons last year, except I actually think Tatsunami was more likely to get a hit and help his team than Griffey is now. Still, I guess now I can say I've seen the guy play in a Seattle uniform.

Something I thought was funny is that they're giving away a "95 Slide" Griffey Bobblehead thingy to all fans 14 or under. But think about that -- by definition, those are all PEOPLE WHO WEREN'T ALIVE WHEN GRIFFEY'S SLIDE EVEN HAPPENED! Shouldn't it be a giveaway for "people who have lived in Seattle for at least 10 years"? I'm not sure how you'd prove that exactly.

And ranting side, I love the new scoreboard in left field, in full color and with the out-of-town scores on it:



I'm sure if I was back in the US and doing fantasy baseball again, this would be both the greatest thing ever and the worst thing ever -- greatest because I could keep up with all the other games going on, and worst, because I would never want to pay attention to the game going on in front of me. They not only show the score and the current pitchers, but also how many people are on base, and who is at-bat, and so on. It's pretty crazy. The display also looks quite nice for showing information about pitchers who come into the game or who are warming up in the bullpen.

On another note, I looked around the Mariners website just to try to get any context at all for what the heck is going on this year, and found an interesting article about Brett Merrick, who is an insurance salesman by day, and batting practice pitcher by night. The article is great and it's a really interesting story -- but me being me, I noticed they made a mistake in saying Tim Lincecum won two American League Cy Young Awards. I haven't even been living in the US for the last 3 years, and even *I* know that's wrong. Sigh.

Also, Eric Byrnes got DFAed, which is sad. I missed seeing him in a Mariners uniform by one day, apparently. It's a little sad because Byrnes was always one of my favorite A's players because he was just batshit crazy and always looked like he'd had a few too many cups of coffee on any given day.

On one final amusing note, I wanted a photo of us in front of Safeco Field...



The funny part is, I couldn't find anyone to take the shot. Every time I tried to approach anyone to ask, they either happened to walk off, or looked at me funny, or whatever.

Then I saw two Japanese guys walk by; one had a Hiroshima Carp Ogata #9 jersey and I had seen him in the Team Store a bit before, so I asked him in Japanese if he could take a photo, and he said sure! He took the photo (and knew EXACTLY what kind of "tourist shot" I wanted), and then commented on how I speak Japanese really well, so I explained I live in Tokyo and was just in Seattle for Golden Week. Turns out, so were these guys. They both live like 20 minutes from me and are huge baseball travellers. The Carp guy was actually from Hiroshima, and we talked about Colby Lewis and about Koichi Ogata and Tomonori Maeda and whatnot. It was great. I find it somewhat amusing that I feel more comfortable talking about baseball in Japanese than in English these days.

So, yeah, now I am back in Japan. Hooray?

Friday Foto: Free Feierabend!

I swear, there are actually very many players featured in this photo set, but I really liked this sequence of Ryan Feierabend warming up, so I figured it'd make a nice preview. Those are not all from the same pitch, but were different shots of his throwing motion from various pitches. Click on any Feierabend to see the full photo set, or you can just click here.

These are pictures from Sunday, June 3rd, Mariners vs. Rangers. Lots of Rangers bullpen guys, a whole bunch of my "portrait" shots, and some other fun shots of the Mariners beating up on the Rangers in general.



Yay.

While I'm at it, happy 31st birthday to Kenji Johjima! お誕生日おめでとうございます!

I am mostly going to be ignoring baseball again this weekend, though at some point I need to rant about the Japanese all-star game voting results. And I need to talk about how awesome Hichori Morimoto is. (I am avoiding talking about certain other things.) Also, Tomokazu Ohka was DFA'ed. I wonder if the Mariners could trade Jeff Weaver for him? Something tells me even the Jays aren't dumb enough to do that...

Game Report: Mariners vs. Rangers - There is Nothing To Fear But Feierabend

I'm sunburnt and exhausted and really should be sleeping instead of going over photos and writing a game report, but dang, today's game was really pretty cool. Well, or hot. It was something like 80 degrees and sunny the whole time. I lasted approximately one inning before moving back several rows into the shade, and still got baked a nice shade of red.

Of course, I also had a pretty fantastic pre-game, getting autographs from CJ Wilson, Akinori Otsuka, and Joaquin Benoit. That was pretty awesome. I also took about ninety thousand photos of Ryan Feierabend warming up. He rocks the high socks.

The Mariners winning the game brought my personal record for the season up to 8-3, too!


The few, the proud, the young, the left-handed.

"Short version": Victor Diaz hit two home runs for 5 RBI and Mark Teixeira hit one solo home run, and that pretty much sums up the Rangers' offense. Ryan Feierabend stayed out there for seven-and-a-third innings, and basically threw a whole lot of strikes, and occasionally some of them got pounded. Jon Huber actually gave up Diaz's second home run in the eighth inning, as he finished out the game.

The Mariners, on the other hand, managed to capitalize on poor pitching by Robinson Tejeda and poor fielding by most of the Rangers' infield (which had Matt Kata at third and Ramon Vazquez at short, as Blalock is out with a rib operation and Young was DHing) and despite no home runs still scored 11 runs along the way.

Jose Lopez scored a run in the first inning after a throwing error by Tejeda and an RBI single by Guillen. With the score 4-1 in favor of the Rangers in the fourth, the Mariners batted around the order to remedy that. Ibanez singled, Broussard walked, and Willie Bloomquist was hit in the back by a pitch. Jamie Burke "singled" to Matt Kata, who dropped the ball, scoring Ibanez. 4-2. With the bases loaded, Tejeda walked Ichiro, bringing in another run. 4-3. Jose Lopez then hit a scorching line drive that nearly cleared the left-field wall, scoring everyone else, and reaching third base himself on the throw. 6-4.

Yuniesky Betancourt led off the 6th inning with a double, and stole third, and THEN DID A SQUEEZE PLAY, taking off for home as Jamie Burke bunted. It was awesome. 7-4. Ichiro walked, and Tejeda walked off the mound and into the dugout. Sidearmer Wes Littleton replaced him, giving up an "infield single" to Lopez when Kinsler overthrew, and then Jose Guillen doubled both of them in. 9-4. Ibanez singled in Guillen, before accidentally getting himself caught in a rundown. Whoops. 10-4.

The Mariners added another run in the 8th off lefty CJ Wilson, who was all over the place, walking two, striking out three, and giving up one hit. Unfortunately, when Ibanez struck out with the bases loaded, catcher Chris Stewart didn't get the ball, and so everybody advanced, which brought in another run, a run that was neither earned nor batted in. Either way, by then Diaz's second home run had happened and this cemented the final score with the Mariners winning 11-6.


Akinori Otsuka!

Okay, so I wasn't originally going to show up early because I knew it was a Little League Day and so that meant there'd be tons of kids out in a parade and no batting practice or even much of any sort of practice going on. Also, the Rangers are a notoriously bad team for signing anything. For some reason I decided to show up around 11:45am anyway. If nothing else, I figured I could just do some more food price research, and at least that'd keep me out of the hot hot sun.

But when I got there, much to my surprise, the Rangers bullpen guys were all out there with a trainer doing exercises! Whee!

So I took some pictures, and then followed them back towards the dugout, where some people were getting CJ Wilson to sign stuff. I've been following CJ's blog for a while and think he's pretty neat, and so as he turned to go into the dugout I yelled "CJ!" and he looked up, and some other people were like "Hey CJ!" and so he ended up signing some more stuff, but when he got to me I smiled huge like "I love your website! It's so awesome!" He signed my ticket and was like "Hey, thanks."

I guess I could have stopped there and been happy enough, but then I remembered that I brought the tickets from the other two Rangers games I'd gone to this year, and Joaquin Benoit was over by the first row fence, so I caught him too and got him to sign my ticket, and then a couple of little kids who were part of the Little League parade were all sad that they didn't have a pen, so I let them borrow mine and he signed their stuff too. I know, the kids just love me for my Sharpie.

And I could have been happy enough then, except I noticed that AKINORI OTSUKA was signing stuff for a couple of Japanese people about halfway up the infield line!

Let me stop and explain for a second that I was actually wearing a Chunichi Dragons Kawakami #11 t-shirt, because I thought it'd be funny, especially since Otsuka pitched for Chunichi for a year before coming to the MLB. Yes, I actually sort of intended to try to find him, even though I didn't really expect to. So, imagine my surprise when I go up to him and he signs my ticket, and continues talking in Japanese to this other girl (who had a CD and some other things for him), and suddenly he looks up like

Otsuka: "OH! Chunichi!" [points at my shirt]
Me: "Hai... er... yeah! I remembered it was Otsuka-san's old team."
Otsuka: "You from Nagoya?"
Japanese girl: "You like Chunichi?"
Me: "No, er, umm, I was in Nagoya last year, went to a Dragons game..."
JG: "Wow! Can I take picture of you?"
Me: "Errr... sure?"
JG: "Hai... cheeeeezu."
Me: [poses and smiles, remembering I'm supposed to do that]
Otsuka: [signs for a few more people, then walks off, shakes hand of Japanese girl, waves at me]
Me: [notices Chunichi jersey in Japanese girl's bag] "Oh, you have Chunichi shirt too, what player is yours of?"
JG: "Ochiai. Number 26."
Me: [looking confused, thinking Ochiai is the manager, forgetting about Eiji]
JG: "The pitcher, he retired last year."
Me: "Ohhhhh. So you ARE from Nagoya?"
JG: "Yes, I am from Nagoya. Do you like Kawakami?"
Me: "Actually my favorite Dragons player is Morino, but I have the Kawakami shirt... Kawakami's pretty good though."
JG: "Kawakami, Kenshin, he is very nice pitcher, he is our ace."

About half of that was in Japanese and half in English. I swear I felt like such an idiot trying to talk to Otsuka in Japanese that my brain just sort of melted. I'm pretty bad at speaking any language at all when I'm nervous, I guess.

But still, I was pretty happy about it. After all, I can't remember the last time, if ever, that I managed to get any Rangers to sign anything, and today I got three. Sweet.

I went and got food and tried to hide out in the shade for a while, since it was so hot and sunny out. Eventually I headed back out to catch Robinson Tejeda's warmup, but then got out of the sun yet again and went down to the bullpen, where I took about a bazillion pictures of Ryan Feierabend.


Ryan Feierabend rocks the high socks.

Seriously, just wait until I put up my photo set from this game, I really did take a ton of pictures of him. Much like last year when I felt there weren't enough pictures of Eric O'Flaherty around, I seek to remedy the deficiency of Feierabend photos as well.

In the meantime, George Sherrill was also doing his normal routine of amusing the beer garden kids by flicking sunflower seeds, and Sean Green was watching him, while Brandon Morrow was acting amused but mostly yawning. Suddenly, George got choked up in a bear hug from behind by somebody, and I was confused for a second, until suddenly I realized that the bear-hugger was actually someone quite familiar...


Look, Arthur Rhodes came by to say hi to everyone!

Funny part is, when I think about it, Rhodes was last on the Mariners in 2003, and the only players left from that year now are Ichiro, Willie, and JJ Putz.

Still, it was neat to see him, though a lot of the fans around didn't actually seem to have any idea who he was, which was sort of odd to me, given that I keep seeing lots of throwback old player shirts most of the time at the stadium. Heck, today I even saw a "Joey Cora Memorial T-shirt". I'm not making that up.

While I was watching the antics in the bullpen, I saw Eric O'Flaherty walk across the field. It appears that he was carrying the pink backpack today:


Rookie Of The Day, Eric O'Flaherty

I fail to understand why Jon Huber or someone else more recently called up was not carrying the bag, though.

Anyway, that was enough adventure and excitement for me for one day, so I made my way to my seat, at which point I realized I hate sunlight. But, I did at least stay there long enough to see Jose Lopez hit the grounder back to the mound which Tejeda booted into Mark Teixeira's foot, allowing Lopez to get to third. Maybe it's just me, but Jose Lopez seems to really kick butt on Sunday afternoon games.

I moved back to row 30 or so to be in the shade after the first inning. I sat down saying to the people around me that I already felt burnt (which I was, though it hadn't reddened yet) and then literally a moment later Mark Teixeira launched a home run onto the Mariners bullpen ramp to lead off top of the second. Sheesh. To lead off the bottom of the second, a bunch of ladies behind me were singing Happy Birthday and giving flowers to one of their friends, during Ben Broussard's at-bat. That was sort of surreal.

"Ask the Mariners" today was "What video games are you good at?"

Reitsma: "None, I'm not very good at video games."
Jose Lopez: "I like soccer."
Sherrill: "I play the football games."
Raul, Ho, J-Rod: "Madden football."
Jeff Pentland: "The only video game I ever played was Donkey Kong..."
JJ Putz: "Navy Seals!"
Bloomquist: "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out. Yeah. I did beat Mike Tyson... regularly..."

The third inning ended with Jose Guillen hitting the ball to Matt Kata, who sort of sucks at the whole aiming-at-first-base thing, and overthrew. Guillen took off for second, except Gerald Laird had actually astutely been counting on Kata screwing up and was running around to back up first, and recovered the ball in time to get Guillen in a rundown, Kinsler eventually making the tag. The people across the aisle from me saw my scorecard and were like "Uhh... how exactly do you score THAT?" I was like "I dunno, I'm just going to write down what happened. E5, 2-4?"

The Safeco scorers were really pretty generous with not calling an error an error, though, since Kata booted a play in the 4th inning as well, and then in the 6th Betancourt hit the ball to center, and Marlon Byrd lost it in the sunlight and that was called a double. And again, I have to stress that it was pretty super awesome seeing Betancourt take off for home plate with a pitch to Burke. I can't remember the last time I've seen a squeeze play like that at Safeco, but two things are notable to prove that it's the kind of thing that happens when Hargrove goes away for the weekend:

1) Betancourt's a fast runner, so he's one of the sorts you'd try it with
2) Burke is a decent hitter but Bloomquist is not, and they tried it with Burke after Willie struck out

If Grover was doing a squeeze play I'd almost expect Vidro to take off from third with Bloomquist at bat. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but you get the idea.


Bloomquist: I'm scrappy and white and everyone in the Mariners blogosphere hates me.
Kinsler: I'm scrappy and white and everyone except Deanna hates me too.
Bloomquist: I wonder why? We are both fantastic major league baseball players, aren't we?
Kinsler: No, I rock the high socks. You need a shave.

I guess Kinsler had to atone for forgetting how many outs there were at a point in Friday's game, where he could have gone for a double play but just went for the force-out. This time, he booted a throw into the stands, turning the third out into a runner on third base. Whoops. And yes, I still like Ian Kinsler, even if Jeff will pick on me forever for it. I also like Jose Lopez, after all.

Victor Diaz's second home run actually went into the concourse in left field and was measured at 428 feet. You have to understand that getting a home run into the concourse on purpose would actually be a fairly tough task for a hitter; if the home run has any arc at all it's either going to land in the bullpens or in the left field bleachers. So this was a line drive that flew out fairly flat with a slight rise, and didn't bounce on the scoreboard or the front of the bleachers or anything, just shot into the concourse. It was pretty cool. I bet it was even cooler for those in the concourse.

The AM-PM "Too much of a good thing" was 112 bags of potato chips.

Okay, and well, this is the last part of the post, and completely silly (not like the rest of this isn't completely incoherent as well), but when going through my pictures I came across this one I'd taken of Yuniesky Betancourt in the second inning and couldn't help but think it lends itself well to a "baseball macro" sort of Photoshopping...


I can has doublez plz? DO WANT.

Real photo set will come along in a day or two. I'm going to tonight's game though for the Revenge of Lookout Landing Night, so if you feel like sitting up in section 340, row 15, come join us! It'll be King Felix pitching vs. Erik Bedard (who is, sadly, another one of my All-Cute All-Stars). It should be an interesting game nonetheless, though I also believe it's supposed to rain, which kind of sucks. It's better than more sunburn, though.

Game Report: Mariners vs. Rangers - Baek and Call

I think the first thing I need to mention is that two Mariners-related things are going on this Saturday, June 2nd, which were mentioned at the game tonight.

First, there's a fundraiser for Esperanza at Bellevue Square in the morning. The website says there are sessions from 10-11:30am and 12-1:30pm; each session costs $50, which gets you an 8'x10" photo and autograph from each player in attendance. (It says the first session has Morrow, Putz, Reitsma and Washburn, and the second session has Batista, Betancourt, Felix, and Jose Lopez. I guess it's white boys vs. latino boys or something.)

Second, the evening's game is another Edgar Martinez Day, this time to induct him into the Mariners Hall of Fame. The ceremony starts at 6:30pm before a 7pm game, and the first 20,000 fans get a commemorative placard. Also, FSN will be showing various things on TV if you can't make it. 5pm is a rebroadcast of "Edgar: Before the Bigs", 5:30pm is a show called "Edgar Martinez: In My Own Words", and at 6pm the pre-game show will start and go on for an hour and include the ceremony.

Anyway, I went to tonight's game mostly because it was really nice out, sunny and 75 degrees. I went with my best friend, who spent half of the game hunting down the candy store and the other half correcting my kanji writing. I'm kidding, mostly, but I did miss a whole bunch of plays while we were talking and such. It's sort of a novel thing for me to go to a game without a camera and without the intent of really paying attention beyond keeping score. We didn't even get into the stadium until 7pm.

The scoreboard folks originally had the lineup as Victor Diaz batting 5th and playing right field, and Matt Kata batting ninth and playing third, and Marlon Byrd playing left field. It took them an inning or so to correct all of that -- Frank Catalanotto was actually batting 5th and playing left field, Byrd was in right, and Ramon Vazquez got the start at third. Me being unfamiliar with the current stRangers lineup, I didn't even know who #12 was, though I knew it sure as hell wasn't Matt Kata.

This game was definitely a product of "the big inning", as the Mariners batted around their order in the 1st and 3rd, and the Rangers almost did in the 4th, and both starters were victimized, Cha Seung Baek for the Mariners and Vicente Padilla for the Rangers.

It was Mark Teixeira's 500th consecutive game, apparently. And just as I was pondering that streak, Ichiro led off the bottom of the first with a single, a stooper to center, which extended his hitting streak to 24 straight games, tying Joey Cora's team record in 1997. I call it a "stooper" as in a "stupid blooper", where three fielders all run for it and it falls in the middle of them. Vidro grounded out, advancing Ichiro to second.

Then, about ninety years and two pitches later, Jose Guillen ran out an infield single and Raul Ibanez walked, and another fifty years later Richie Sexson was at the plate, and I'm telling my friend that "This is Richie. He's our 'big' hitter, by which I mean he's 6 foot 8," and Richie chose that moment to hit a single to straightaway center, scoring Ichiro and Guillen. We would also learn in the next inning that it ACTUALLY BROUGHT HIS BATTING AVERAGE UP TO .200 WOOOOOOO. Johjima also singled to center, scoring Raul. Beltre popped out to first in foul territory, and then Yuniesky Betancourt hit a hard grounder towards Vazquez at third, which bounced into his glove and then waaaay up in the air, and suddenly Vicente Padilla found himself stuck with the bases loaded again. Lopez hit a grounder off the third base umpire's shoe which was declared foul, and then ultimately grounded out to end the inning. By this point, 43 pitches of Padilla's outing and 43 minutes of the game had passed, and the Mariners were up 3-0.

Baek kept the Rangers hitless in the second and third innings, mostly by way of a fantastic play by Yuniesky Betancourt, where he was crazy deep in the hole and made a huge throw to first base to nail Gerald Laird by a few feet. It really does seem like Yuni's problem this year isn't the tough plays, it's the EASY plays that get him all messed up.

The Mariners hit approximately fifty singles in the bottom of the third to bring the game to 7-0. Some of them were kinda dumb and some of them involved Ichiro barely beating out a throw from Mike Young. And somewhere in there Kenji Johjima got hit by a pitch, which was sort of funny to me because I was like "Man, you've got to be a moron to be throwing Johjima high and inside, he pounds those over the scoreboard," but I suppose actually hitting him only limits him to getting one base at a time, and that's pretty standard fare for the Padilla Flotilla, especially now that he doesn't have to get up and bat himself.

Cha Seung Baek plunked Mark Teixeira to lead off the top of the 4th, right in the side, and the umpire came out to yell and wave and point voraciously at both dugouts. Unfortunately, things only got worse from there. Sammy Sosa (my friend said, "Hey, I know who he is!") even hit a weak single to center, and then Frank Catalanotto hit the ball up the right field line into the corner for a double which scored the aforementioned runners. Marlon Byrd popped out, but then Ian Kinsler drew a walk, and quicker than you could say "How the hell did Catalanotto get a double anyway?", Gerald Laird hit a ball right into the Mariners bullpen for a 3-run homer, scoring Catalahotornotto and Kinsler and bringing the score to a much closer 7-5.

"This is the part where the Mariners suck, right?" my friend asked.

Fortunately, no, it wasn't. Infact, despite the fact that only 4 innings had passed and it was already getting up towards 9pm, things actually sped up a lot at that point, as the Rangers called on their bullpen, bringing out Willie Eyre (which led to us debating which Bronte wrote Jane Eyre), Frank Francisco (at which point he left to go find the Sweet Spot), Joaquin Benoit ("Wah-what?") and then Akinori Otsuka (which led to an impromptu kanji lesson. Would you believe that I have been missing two strokes from his name and Tomokazu Ohka's when writing them? I am so terribly careless).

Of all those, only Otsuka really ran into any trouble. Betancourt almost led off the bottom of the 8th with a home run, but thanks to that meddling scoreboard in left field, it was only a double. Lopez bunted him up and then Ichiro brought his tally for the evening to 3-for-5 by singling, and stealing, because he's Ichiro and he does that. By then it was 8-5, and Vidro also singled, moving Ichiro to third, and BEN BROUSSARD came in and pretty much just hit a loooooong fly ball to left, allowing Ichiro to tag up and score, and the Mariners did ultimately win the game 9-5.

Baek eventually did end up staying out there until the 7th inning, coming out of the game after he hit Kenny Lofton in the foot. Brandon Morrow came out to replace him.

I have to stop for a second because you all know I'm a surprisingly big fan of Brandon Morrow, so what happened next was pretty sad. He threw a ball, and another ball, and a ball, and a ball, and a ball, and HEY, KID, CAN YOU SPARE A STRIKE? Michael Young walked on four straight pitches, and even the next two pitches were balls, before Kenji Johjima came out to the mound like "I would like it very much if you would please throw a fastball in the strike zone, okay?" And well, that's kinda what Morrow did, getting up to a full count on Teixeira, who flailed at fastballs and fouled them around before ultimately walking and loading the bases. Sammy Sosa, on the other hand, came up hacking, and went down hacking. I have to admit that it was pretty nerve-wracking for a bit there, and by the time Catalanotto grounded out to second, Morrow had racked up an even 10 balls and 10 strikes. It's crazy watching him pitch, and at the same time, I somehow know he's going to get out of these messes, and it's still crazy to think that a year ago he hadn't even been drafted by the Mariners.

Jason Davis came out and was kinda iffy, and then George Sherrill came out and TOTALLY KICKED ASS -- two batters, two strikeouts -- making it almost anticlimactic when JJ Putz came out with what was no longer a save opportunity at 9-5, and also got two strikeouts. I suppose that once upon a time striking out Sammy Sosa to end the game would have been a big deal, but alas, that time has passed.

I don't really have a lot to say about this game. Despite college night, it was pretty sparsely attended, and most of the student groups we saw were actually high schoolers, so I'm not really sure what was up with that. The weather was really pretty fantastic. The Rangers really kind of sucked. It brought my personal attended-games record for this season to 7-3 -- and I still have yet to see a game started by anyone other than Baek, Felix, or J-Rod, although that will change this Sunday when I get to see Feierabend and his high socks, which I'm looking forward to.

Padilla Padilla Padilla, that's all folks!

Game Report: Mariners vs. Rangers - A Cold Friday Night

You know, with all the excitement that happened in other games this weekend, I suddenly feel like Friday's game was a billion years ago.


Spot what's wrong with this picture.

My original plan involved showing up early to snap some BP photos and maybe even shout out to CJ Wilson about how awesome his blog is. What really happened is that the weather was dark and grey and rainy, and so I took my time walking to the stadium, even stopping in at Elliott Bay Book Company to get a copy of Zack Hample's book Watching Baseball Smarter, which I'll review sometime next week.

The roof was closed, but I did take some BP shots. Most did not come out well, and I may not even bother making a photoset out of this game. I think next time I'm just not going to bother taking pictures at all in those lighting conditions. Also, the Rangers are a notoriously crowd-avoidant team here, although I did see Sammy Sosa actually sign for a few people when I first got there. But other than that, they were all noticeably determined not to acknowledge most of the fans watching BP. Ron Washington was being pretty friendly, but I think he took that with him from Oakland.

While trying to find Conor Glassey, I ran into Bretticus (one of the commenters on LL/USSM), or more like, he spotted me with my big camera and Phillies cap and said "Hey, are you Deanna?" and I ended up chatting with him for most of the pre-game. Ironically, he doesn't actually read Marinerds, so I could totally trash-talk something about him here, and he'd never see it!

During the game, I ended up sitting in front of a group of guys who had graduated from the University of Texas sometime in the last few years. They were mostly drunk and all quite loud. A few of them seemed to be Astros fans, or at least anti-Rangers, while others were wearing Rangers jerseys. One guy didn't even have a jacket, and kept going on about how "I've never been to a game where it was less than 90 degrees out, what the hell is with this cold crap?" This same guy also uttered such gems as "Where's Bucky? Cmon, Bucky, take this guy out!" (he wasn't aware Buck Showalter was no longer the manager), and every time Sammy Sosa came to bat he'd stand up and let out a really loud "COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORK".

Rather than sum up the game, I'll just try to remember the interesting parts of it:

- When Raul Ibanez came up to bat in the first inning, they actually displayed on the scoreboard, "Raul has 199 career doubles, one short of 200," and I swear, less than five seconds later, he hit a ball into the gap in right-center for... a double. Seeing Raul's 200th double is not quite as exciting as when Edgar hit his 500th on my birthday a few years ago, but it's still pretty awesome.

- Beltre REALLY smashed a few of those long fly balls he hit. Infact, in general the Mariners were really smashing fly balls, but maybe something about the cold wet weather or the wind kept a lot of them in the park. Also, strangely, Millwood was the one giving up a bazillion fly balls, whereas Washburn was getting all grounders (Millwood's GO/FO was 4/12, whereas Washburn's was 9/5).

- Jeff Sullivan and I usually agree on most matters, but we wildly disagree about Ian Kinsler. Jeff thinks Kinsler is horrendously overrated; I think Kinsler's pretty good. In addition to all the hitting-type stuff, during the 2nd inning Betancourt hit a liner up the middle which Kinsler managed to jump and snag, and then he fired to first to double up Johjima on the play. Later, Young and Kinsler combined for a bounce-stop on an Ibanez grounder up the middle; although it was a single, it still looked cool. Maybe I'm just easily impressed. Also, he wears high socks, which gives him extra cool points.

- Speaking of Johjima, HE IS ON FIRE! In the last three games he went 8-for-10 with four doubles and a walk. However, this also only resulted in one run and one RBI, which either accounts for the Mariners sucking or for him being misused at the bottom of the order where he has nobody to knock in or knocking him in.

- Weight Watchers notes that after Friday's game, Ichiro (.182), Beltre (.136), Vidro (.174), Sexson (.190), and Betancourt (.158) were all on the program. Actually, I guess technically Ichiro is listed at 170 so maybe he wasn't. Still. Fortunately, Ichiro and Beltre and Vidro all had good days during Sunday's slugfest and have managed to acquit themselves.

- The grounds crew danced to "Old Time Rock'n'Roll", the "we lost the game" theme was "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow", and the new scoreboard game gag seems to to be this "traffic jam" thing where they have a bunch of cars in a pinball-like game and you have to guess which one will get to the finish first.

- I'm not sure how raucous the festivities were for College Night, as I'm pretty sure the guys behind me were UT alumni, not current students. However, for "fact and fiction" the category was "Division 1 Team Nicknames", including things like the "Pillowfighters", the "Banana Slugs", the "Blue Hens", and the "Heffalumps". I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to look them up.

- Matt Kata hit a home run, among going 3-for-4. I somehow had completely forgotten about Kata's existence since his stint in the Phillies minor league system and didn't even know he'd spent a year on the Reds AAA team before signing with Texas. Crazy.

- Joaquin Benoit was pitching in the 7th and was vaguely struggling - after Lopez hit a line drive single to center, and then Beltre hit another line drive for a double, scoring Lopez, I saw CJ Wilson warming up, and I was thinking he'd come in to pitch to Ibanez, but after striking out Vidro, they let Benoit stay out there, and he got a groundout. At that point, Akinori Otsuka stood up to warm up and Wilson sat down. I hadn't seen Aki pitch in person since sometine in early 2005 with the Padres, I think, so that was kind of cool. The only hit Aki gave up was a double to Johjima. It should be a goal for Johjima to double off every Japanese pitcher in the MLB, I think.

- Eric Gagne pitched the ninth and got the save for Texas. To be perfectly honest, I thought he looked terrible when warming up in the bullpen, from my vantage point -- didn't look like he was throwing much of anything at all -- but then he came in and pretty much smoked everything across at about 94 mph, even causing Ichiro's third strikeout of the day.

- No game post would be complete without a shoutout to George Sherrill for actually getting into the game for one out, where he got Blalock to ground out to first base in two pitches. On the other hand, one wonders whether he was really necessary to pitch to Blalock in the first place. It'd be nice if George could actually get in for a full inning one of these days.


And yes, for whatever reason, the RAUUUUUUUUUL gang was sitting behind first base instead of in left field. I'm not sure what was up with that.

Friday Foto: Loe and Outside

I don't have time to write a game report -- I'll get to it later this weekend.

In the meantime, enjoy the strangest photo I took tonight. No, seriously. The Rangers pitchers were bouncing these soccer-like balls back and forth during BP. The guy with the grin is Kameron Loe.



Seriously, it was a pretty freaking cold evening to sit at the park, and I think that actually had a pretty big effect on whether or not baseballs were home runs or warning track shots. Oddly, J-Rod the Washburninator was getting the groundballs, while Kevin Millwood was getting the flyball outs. Despite that all, Ian Kinsler was definitely the Boyfriend of The Day... for my fantasy team, of course. If the Mariners could be said to have a Boyfriend for a 2-5 loss to the Rangers, it'd be Kenji Johjima, who refused to come to the plate without getting on base one way or the other.

Game Report: Mariners vs. Rangers - Who Wants To Be A Millwood Heir?

I could write a game report from Saturday's game, but I spent most of it taking pictures, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Click on any to see the full photo set (and I've got more I could add, but I want to see what these look like on another monitor before recalibrating). Page 6 is the incident where the umpires actually changed the ruling on Ian Kinsler being safe at first in the 8th inning.



To be honest, it was a downright crappy day. I overslept and ended up driving down; then the route I usually take was unavailable due to construction up around Western and Denny. I got out of the car at the lot at about 12:25pm, and notice that it's cold, windy, possibly dripping a tiny bit of rain, and they're CLOSING THE STADIUM ROOF. So not only did I miss batting practice, but it was a grey cloudy day which already meant awful lighting, and then the roof closing was only going to frustrate me more.

However, I'd bought a ticket for 10 rows behind the Rangers dugout, figuring I might as well get a great seat to my last game of the year, plus the whole Kevin Millwood thing.

So I took a whole lot of pictures. Some of them actually came out well, though I took a bazillion of Michael Young and Mark Teixeira that didn't come out at all. I took an inordinate number of Felix, and of Millwood, but many didn't come out that well just due to the lighting. I took a lot of Ichiro and Kinsler just due to their high socks. And sadly, even at close range, getting a good shot of post-homerun high-fives is really sort of a pain. It's one of the things I'd like to work on next year -- maybe I'll even bother getting a faster lens. We'll see. That 18-200 VR is looking juicier and juicier every day.

The thing is, when you take 600 pictures, you're bound to get at least a few good ones. I'd say that about half the ones I put in this photoset almost evoke "good enough for Yahoo Sports" and the other half evoke "Ha, that's pretty funny". Maybe I'll reduce/reorder the set sometime later. I dunno.

Either way, this is most likely my final baseball photo set for the year except for my Japan pictures, which I was figuring on releasing during the offseason, maybe as a Friday Foto series, maybe something else. I do have a LOT of Friday Foto fodder this year, it seems, if people want me to do that again this year.

What can I say about the game? The Mariners won it 3-1. Millwood was lovely to watch, but Felix was even better. Beltre's home runs were fantastic. Seeing the umpires reverse the call on Kinsler was pretty bizarre. Seeing JJ Putz pitch a nice 9th was good. My only real complaint about the game was that it was too damn short, seriously -- if I'm going to bother buying a Box seat, I want to enjoy my view for more than just two hours, y'know?

It was really weird leaving the stadium after the game, too, realizing that I wouldn't be back there until April, except maybe for Fan Fest. Very sad.