Went to Chicago last week to catch a couple Tigers-White Sox games on Tuesday and Wednesday. If no one remembers, Tuesday night was the game where the Tigers gave up a 6-1 lead, then blew a two run lead in the 14th only to lose on a walk-off 3 run homer. Ouch. Funny thing was, the whole game I had no confidence, no hope of a victory. When Rodney was pitching, I was trying to decide the most creative way he could blow it. I think my favorite was hit the lead off man, air mail the pick off attempt so the guy gets to third, then wild pitch in the winning run. 2 pitches and a loss. (Surprisingly, Rodney was very good that night. It wasn't till today when I looked at the box score that I knew he pitched 3 innings. Nice job...that time.) Anyway, it was just the tried and true equation of Zumaya + Renteria = Heartbreaking Loss. It took about 12 hours for me to remember that Renteria had an error in the inning to lead to the loss. But it was still more on Zumaya than on him, in my opinion. You can't squander 2 homers from your light hitting second baseman. Just can't. The instant the ball cleared the fence we were off to the subway. The car was almost empty, just us and some other fans. Unfortunately, the car stayed put till it filled up with gloating Sox fans. We had to endure stuff like one guy saying to another: "Do you just HATE something, even though you've never been there? Like L.A. - I like L.A., but I've never been there. But I hate Detroit." Stupid stuff.
Next night, Leyland tried to pitch Verlander's arm off (130 pitches? Seriously.) in another loss. In between we caught a game at Wrigley. Good times, I'm glad I caught a game there before it becomes "Mark Cuban Presents HDNet Field."
Of course the Tigers won the one game in the Sox series I wasn't at. And took 2 of 3 from the A's for their first series win since sweeping KC (thanks to Rod and Mario for pointing that out today). Brief flashes of hope mixed in with gut wrenching defeats. As my friend Andy said, at least they're still listed on the ESPN screen that shows the AL Central race. Though maintaining their 8 game deficit won't help. If the Rockies can basically go on a month-long winning streak, this team can win 10 of 12 and get back in it, too. But this year isn't about what they CAN do - it's about what they HAVEN'T done all year. And that is win consistently.
3 comments:
Can't believe it took me this long to get to your blog. Sorry about that. I am now subscribed and will be reading each post right away. And commenting too, unless you delete my comments. Anyway, just wanted to say for now that the site looks awesome! I had no idea you were such an artistic person.
Regarding Leyland's decision to leave Verlander in, I think I know where he's coming from. Verlander is our ace and our best bet is to let him pitch. Of course, most of us have already decided that this season is toast. But I think managers care more about overall win-loss records than the rest of us do. This season was all about making the playoffs. Once that's no longer a reasonable possibility (Rockies-esque winning streaks aside), we should be focusing on next year. I think Leyland, like all managers, wants to be able to point to a respectable W tally at the end of the season.
Also, White Sox fans totally lived up to their reputation for being low-class. What a bunch of assholes. It was like being in a stadium filled with clones of their awful announcers. I'm looking forward to our baseball trip next year, but it will be a while before I need to go back to US Cellular.
Man, I saw two comments and was excited...it should say 1 commenter x 2 comments.
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