I was slaving away at Tutor-Corps enterprises, both thanking my lucky stars that my employers had not killed me yet and simultaneously rationalizing not to commit suicide because, hey, this wasn't so bad, when I got a call from the Beck. "Can you make it down to a free Diamondbacks game by 6:40?" Why yes, yes I could. I texted her Dan's number (Why? You may recall that Beck lost her phone at a national park a couple of weeks back), and he, too, could meet us down at Chase Field. So after sending my student off with some wisdom re: the ACT (she was painfully nervous about her test Friday, so that day's tutelage involved a fair amount of counseling / confidence-building), I booked it home to take the dogs out and wait for Beck to pick me up. The dogs spazzed out and adopted "full-on crazy" mode as we ascended the stairs back to the apartment; Beck had returned home and oh boy oh boy they knew it. They sprinted into the bedroom to attack her while I got their dinner ready. We separated them by gate per usual and allowed the Prius to take us out to the ballgame.
The 101 was surprisingly uncrowded, and beside a little bit of brakelights and the brutal glare that is driving west in Phoenix at 6 pm, we made it down to the stadium without a hitch. Met up with Dan after some stadium circumnavigating and wound our way down to our 60 dollar seats. YOWSAHS! We were below the upper deck overhang but just slightly to the right (looking out on the field) of directly behind homeplate. Which means we got that perfect, why-don't-they-always-film-games-like-this view of the pitcher, the batter, the catcher/ump and the entire field. The roof and the outfield panels were open; Chase Field is only 1000% more enjoyable as an "outdoor" facility. And our seats afforded us a very limited view of the stupid 360 degree light sign that encircles the ballpark, so we were subjected to a lot less of the idiotic inter-inning mayhem that accompanies major league baseball games these days (though we were privy to the incessant "rattling" sound that the Diamondbacks sound guy plays. Oh, what, high pitched rattling sounds are annoying? Who Knew?). That cannot be emphasized enough: all of the "entertainment" that accompanies the games, the hot dog races and the amusement park in centerfield, t-shirt cannons and DBacks girls (who stand out, for the record, only slightly from the influx of midriff and/or boob-bearing Scottsdale skankhood seated in the stands), is painful, and somehow opening the roof countered a lot of this postmodern idiocy. There is also a new HD scoreboard in CF, and I am very impressed that they have managed to use it in a way that adds to the game - batter info, matchups, history, etc. It's like playing strat-o-matic in real life. On a screen that probably costs 15 million dollars.
I had forgotten to check the matchups on the way out of the house, so I was pumped to see none other than 2006 Cy Young award winner Brandon Webb on the hill for the DBacks. We got to our seats for the top of the second, which proved to be Webb's only remotely shaky inning: after an infield single by Matt "In Cambodia" Holliday, Webb walked Brad Hawpe and uncorked a wild pitch to Garrett Atkins, putting runners at second and third with no outs. A quick glance at a run expectancy chart (admittedly one from the heart of the, um, "lots of runs being scored" era) shows that you're looking at 2.052 runs scored in the inning on average in this situation. Yikes, especially with the Rockies ace Jeff Francis opposing. So Webb cranks up the dial, and gets a soft liner to leftfield from Atkins.
So, Eric Byrnes, or Eric "Boo-urns" as he should obviously be known (second place: "Eric Byrnes," pronounced as though your mouth is full of peanut butter) , is a total spaz. You know this, I know this. The whole "Eric Byrnes and dog reporting live from McCovey Cove" debacle from last year's all-star game is proof enough. And he flails wildly in the batter's box, and runs around left field like a maniac. But he's got a pretty good reputation as a fielder, and actually garners himself a "very good" rating on Start-o-matic fielding charts. But I was not so sure on Friday night. Brynes catches the soft liner, is falling over in the process and has more or less no shot whatsoever of nailing Holliday at the plate. But he does a FLIP-THROW home, presumably for style points and to impress the cute blond sitting in the front row of the bleachers. (Dan reports that Byrnes's wife is platinum blond and starting her own fashion line, aka living the stereotype). Predictably, Byrnes's throw was about 30 feet up the first base line, Holliday scored, and only by some baffling baserunning incompetence did Hawpe stay at second. I can't effectively convey how stupid this was and how stupid he looked as he performed this "athletic" maneuver; it was like watching bad stop-animation ragdoll kungfu. Dan glared and mentally noted how many laps Eric would be running for missing the cut-off man were he under Dan's Little League coaching system. Of course, it didn't matter, because Webb badly K'd Torrealba and got a weak groundout from Nix, escaping a scary inning with a single run scored. (Torrealba, it should be noted, looked stoopid against Webb all night - three AB's, twelve pitches, one barely foul tip and 3 K's. Egads, man). And that was more or less it for the Rockies - Webb threw nasty sinkers, slider and change-ups that reduced the Rockies to tears all night. Very exciting to see such an expert performance up close and in person.
Of course, Byrnsie was far from done - he tripped all over himself in left to make a couple of seemingly routine fly ball catches, and nearly decapitated himself against the fence tracking down a Helton flyball. Always an adventure... (though I would take Byrnes over, say, Soriano in left any day). Of course, two innings later, the words "DBacks overpaid left fielder Eric..." had just passed my lips when Byrnes launched a two run shot down the left field line, spaz-swing and all. So what do I know. Boo-urns a-trottin':
Oddly, Byrnes did not win the spaz swing of the night award. That would easily belong to one Justin Upton, the Rockies young and by all accounts future hall-of-famer right fielder. In the 6th inning, Upton got an outside cut fastball from Francis and swung so hard that he fell down. No, it's not like the ball almost hit him so as he swung he had to jump out of the way; no, this was strictly a close-your-eyes, kill-the-ball swing, spin into the earth that resulted in Upton sitting firmly on his butt in the batter's box. "Swing hard in case you hit it," everyone in the stadium simultaneously thought. And then, Justin Upton "in-cased," in 450-foot HR fashion:
You can see this sequence (and the rest of the devastation that the DBacks wrought) in this video highlight from MLB.com. Seriously, look where that stupid thing landed, and then imagine watching its path from directly behind the path of the ball - majestic. Speaking of words that start with "Maj," did I mention that Dan "Josh" Beckett spotted Thunder Dan Majerle in the crowd? Sitting in the sweet seats is living the good life. ANyways, just a hilarious sequence from the young DBack, definitely the highlight of a highlight-infused game.
The DBacks won handily, 8-2, and in case it's not obvious, I had a great time. The absence of people who thought that Matsui and Fukudome were brothers was a noted plus. Great night at the old ballpark - and it was fun to catch the DBacks in the midst of this uncanny hot streak. Looking up and seeing nearly every DBacks player with an OPS north of .900 - that's just great. It's not going to last - there will surely be some regression to the mean before too long - but as a whole, the team looks very plate-disciplined, and the pitching remains top-notch. I thoroughly enjoy living around a good baseball team, and as we all know, the Red Sox suffered for some 80 years before I showed up, and then won two world series in four years during my tenure as a New Englander. I guess what I'm saying is: hey Diamondbacks, where's my paycheck / consulting fees?
More on the weekend in the next post.
----------------
Now playing: Envy - A Cradle Of Arguments And Anxiousness
No comments:
Post a Comment