He's number two

In the midst of the Dbacks slump (which I'm not going to talk about right now because first, I don't want to think about getting swept by the Giants and losing last night to the Nationals and second, I want them all to go into their clubhouse and think about what they've done) their was one bright shining moment. One thing that left me excited and smiling:

Randy Johnson tied Roger Clemens for number two on the all-time strikeout list. He now has 4,672, good enough to share the second spot - for now. Barring any freak occurances, Johnson should surpass Clemens for second to Nolan Ryan on his next start.

Johnson came close to strikeout number 4,673 more than once, getting to strike two on three batters while the small crowd got to its feet and roared. He was able to get the outs but not the strikes. No matter. That will come in a few days.

I really enjoyed watching him go for the record. I've always counted myself that in a time where I didn't follow baseball regularly, I just happened to be watching the night Johnson threw his perfect game.

It's been an honor watching him make history.

A bit of tomfoolery

I came across this today and thought it was worth linking to. Just a bit of lightheartedness, and we need a bit of that around here since the Dbacks lost 6-3 to the Giants and the Sox lost to the Mariners. The other thing the Sox lost was Dice-K to shoulder fatigue.

Anyway, we could use a laugh.

How Me Breaking Up With You Is Like Jon Lester Pitching A No-Hitter Against the Royals.

He Who Must Not Be Named

Trinity: Ha, A-Rod's getting booed.
Char: See, everybody hates A-Rod.
Char: We should have a nickname for him, the kind of name that makes a person sound like a dick.
Char: Like Clancy.
Trinity: Or Voldemort, because he's evil.
Trinity: Volde-Rod.
Char: Perfect!

It's a mad world

Eric Byrnes has hit a grand slam.

In this crazy new world in which we find ourselves, anything is possible. Down is up, left is right and I fully expect it to begin raining chocolate pudding at any moment.

Before yesterday afternoon, the only thing Byrnes knew about a grand slam was what they serve at Denny's. Now he knows how a major league baseball grand slam feels: less bacon, more glory.

If anyone needed it, it was Byrnes. His batting average for the season was down to .217 and his average for the month of May was so low, I'm embarassed to even type it. It was roughly the equivalent of his annual salary, give or take a few decimal places.

Congratulations, Byrnesie. This is what people expect from you, why you're the face of the franchise. You've earned yourself a couple days of goodwill from me and hopefully this is sign of you turning that slump around for good.

A message from Baby Drew

Baby Drew is tired, y'all. Every night he goes to work, makes the plays at short and then well, he literally steps up to the plate. That's why he's so tired. Baby Drew is carrying this team on his back right now. Three of the Diamondbacks' four hits against the Marlins were Baby Drew's and their only run came off a Baby Drew homer. Baby Drew remembers when Conor Jackson was getting hits all the time, when Mark Reynold's was hitting homers. Hell, Baby Drew even remembers when Eric Byrnes was hitting and it's been a long time since that's happened with any kind of regularity.

Baby Drew is generous, he wants the other guys to get hits too. Baby Drew doesn't want to have to do the work alone, but while the rest of the team tries to remember just what they're supposed to do with those bits of wood, Baby Drew will be in your ballparks, hitting all your runs.

You want me to wear what?

You know what I hate about being a baseball chick? The clothes. I've got plans to make the trek up to Chase Field next month and was eagerly anticipating a trip to the team shop. Sure, I've only been doing this baseball fan thing with any regularity for the past couple months, but I'm starting to accumulate a variety of merchandise. I have my Dbacks cap, my tenth anniversary T-shirt (free giveaway night, woohoo!) and my #15 Dan Haren shirt (I love you!). But what about my next trip? Should I splurge on a jersey? Or get another player shirt - appropriately, like his nickname, Conor Jackson calls to me and I'd love to wear his shirt. Debating, I went online to investigate options.

I wanted a Gravity T-shirt but since my Haren shirt is men's I navigated to the women's section online to look for player shirts. And I looked. And looked. And looked. Where were they? I clicked around in other sections, trying to find the shirt I wanted. It doesn't exist. There are no player shirts in women's cuts.

Why the hell not?

The women's clothing section of the Dbacks shop leaves a lot to be desired. First out of of two pages of results for T-shirts only one is in the Diamondbacks signature color, Sedona red. Everything else is black (which ok, is a team color but not as good as red), white or worse, pink.

Why would I want to wear this? It's ugly, barely affiliated with the team and if you're going to a game, why wear pink? A player on the field doesn't know that some random pink shirt is for him.

Is it supposed to be ironic? Is it an ironic T-shirt because omg, girls totally like baseball too, isn't that like, so funny?

No. It's not. I don't have to prove I'm a girl by wearing pink because clearly, there's something off about girls like sports. I don't have to reconcile my feminine side with sports. I can be a perfectly normal girl who enjoys baseball and that means I want to wear my team colors in shirts that are designed to fit me correctly.

I'll still pick up Gravity's shirt and like my other Dbacks gear, resign myself to the fact that I have to purchase it in a men's cut (the website describes it as an "authentic chest cut" but I don't know who's chest it authentically fits, cause it ain't mine), making it small in the chest and baggy in the shoulder and waist. It won't fit right but what choice do I have? I've got money to spend and I want to support my team and my favorite players. Just don't expect me to wear pink.

We don't need no stinkin' base hits

Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe

FOX's Jeanie Zelasko has been looking for it all season and now we've got one - Jon Lester picked up the first no-hitter of the season and of his career tonight as the Sox took down the Royals 7-0. Looks like I've underestimated you, Jon. Nice job.

Miscellany

I feel like a bullet point list tonight.

• Red Sox are up 3-1 at the top of the third. All three of those runs were scored in the first inning. Beckett's pitching. I love when the Sox play the Orioles, because I live in Orioles territory and get to see the entire series. Don't think I'm not still thinking about calling in sick to work tomorrow and taking off for Baltimore for the 3pm game. If it weren't nearly state testing time, I'd so do it.
  
• I have yet to watch a Sox game on any channel where the announcers don't spend at least five minutes talking about Dustin Pedroia like he's the second coming. Not that I'm complaining - I love Pee Wee Petey. And Pedroia really has been hot shit so far this season.
  
• Book review! I recently finished reading The Code: Baseball's Unwritten Rules and its Ignore-at-Your-Own-Risk Code of Conduct by Ross Bernstein. It's mostly a collection of anecdotes, all centering around the unnoficial baseball honor code. Things like sliding hard into second, plunking batters, celebrating after home runs, etc. I enjoyed it, even though at times I felt like I was reading the same thing over and over - the code is about honor, respect, and looking out for your teammates. That's pretty clear after the first chapter, so most mentions of those three concepts in the following chapters felt like beating a dead horse at times. The book could have benefitted from more anecdotes, especially from current players. One of the themes of the book seems to be how the code is changing, between more stringent official rules and higher-paid players and various other things, but little is said about what, if anything, ballplayers are doing to compensate for this. But still, an entertaining read that really makes you see some elements of the game in a new light.
  
• Oh look. JD Drew's leaving the game with a wrist injury. Three words for you: Made. Of. Glass.
• In the time it took to write that book review, the Os scored four more runs, making it 3-5 Orioles, bottom of the 3rd. Three of those runs were off a Luke Scott homer. Boyfriend is not happy.
• Baseball books on the ever-expanding list of books to read: One Day at Fenway by Steve Kettman, A Tale of Two Cities: the 2004 Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry and the War for the Pennant by Tony Massarotti and John Harper, and Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts, and Nerve Took a Team to the Top by Seth Mnookin. Reviews forthcoming.
• And I think that's all I have for the night. Top of the 6th, score hasn't changed.
  

We're on a break

Char: Is it bad that I don't know if I want to watch the Dbacks today?
Trinity: Wow. That is bad.
Char: ANTM is on MTV and I kind of just want to watch that. Plus I'm angry at Eric Byrnes and the rest of them for sucking yesterday
Trinity: Ha! I'm in a fight with the Red Sox. Specifically Papelbon.
Char: Eric Byrnes STRUCK OUT INTO A DOUBLE PLAY
Trinity: Paps GAVE UP TWO RUNS IN THE NINTH.
Trinity: BLEW THE SAVE
Trinity: Two outs, two men on, Sox are up by one and stupid Paps gave up the tying and the go-ahead run.
Char: Well, it happens sometimes....
Trinity: This is his second blown save in a row!
Char: Ouch.
Trinity: Yeah
Char: Eric Byrnes flailed around so much when he struck out that the ump called him on interference. They said he blocked the catcher's throwing lane to second where Augie Ojeda had just stolen second base, so they called Augie out
Char: TWO OUTS ON A SINGLE STRIKE OUT
Trinity: Ugh. Stupid Byrnes!
Char: And Byrnes is FIVE FOR HIS LAST 50 with no walks and no extra base hits
Char: AND HE'S ALWAYS IN THE TOP OF THE ORDER
Char: Angry! I am angry with you, Eric Byrnes!
Trinity: I am too! Just because!
Char: Because he sucks!
Trinity: He does!
Char: Stinking baseball.
Trinity: Srsly.

Wanted dead or alive

WANTED:
Eric Byrnes' hitting ability.
Last seen sometime in early April.
If found please return to Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona.

Really, who hasn't spent their birthday lying facedown in the dirt?

Poor Conor Jackson. He gets himself a birthday RBI and gets hit by a pitch, because hey, we don't call him Gravity for nothing. Basically, it was business as usual until the above happened. There was a collision at first and CoJack took a batting helmet right to the eye. It wasn't pretty. The only this missing from that picture is a chalk outline around his body. With Gravity pulled from the game, the rest of the Dbacks collapsed like a bad flan, losing to the Phillies.

Cue Brandon Webb, who left the Phillies crying for their mommies today. He threw a complete game, holding the Phillies to six and three runs (two earned). He is now 8-0. Basically, Webby brought it today.

Baseball Boyfriend Birthday

Happy Birthday Conor Jackson!
May the immense gravitational pull of your massive eyebrows brings lots of home run pitches your way - to your bat, not your head, as is usually the case.

You never forget your first time

I'm playing catch-up here a bit, I know. On Friday, a friend and I took her kids to their very first professional baseball game ever: Indianapolis Indians at Norfolk Tides (the Tides are the triple-A team for the sort-of nearby Baltimore Orioles) in Harbor Park. My friend has a four year old boy and a six year old girl. She was pretty sure it was her first ballgame, too; she couldn't remember ever having been taken to games when she was younger. Taking the kids to the game had a bit of sentimental value, because a Tides game was my first professional baseball game, too, back when baseball was something I was forced to watch my younger brother play every Saturday afternoon in the spring and summer and going to Tides games for family nights with his Cub Scout troop was a semi-regular occurence. That was back when they were the Tidewater Tides, they were the farm team for the Mets, and they played at Met Park near the airport. Definitely some nostalgia going on.

As far as the game itself...well, we went down 9-3. The pitcher seemed to have forgotten where the strike zone was, the fielders had apparently taken the night off, and the bullpen was definitely playing homage to the Red Sox with their complete suckitude. But you know, I didn't really care, and not just because everyone in Hampton Roads knows the Tides suck.

No, what I enjoyed about the game was all the other stuff. Watching the kids devour hot dogs and cotton candy. A three year old's face as he leans on you, eyes glued to the game. Explaining things like the seventh inning stretch and the bullpen. Overpriced ballpark beer. Winning a gallon of wiper fluid because the bullpen finally managed to strike a guy out. The silly games in the middle of each inning. Listening to my friend call everyone she knew because she'd just caught a foul ball that had almost hit her daughter in the head! Singing "Take Me Out To the Ballgame." Watching two amazing little kids tear around the bases after the game, waving at you as they round third and head for home.

Driving home with the windows down and the music up, knowing that for the first time in a long time, two little children and their mother were able to escape the mess their lives have become and just enjoy a night at the ballpark.

Because that's why we do this, isn't it? Why baseball is the national pastime. We go to a ballgame, spend too much money on beer and souveniers. Yell, scream, curse, and laugh; make new friends with people sitting around you who are there for the same reason you are - to get away from the stress of everyday life and watch some guys playing a game they love. Ballparks are interesting; they're almost completely enclosed and being in one is like being in a whole different world, a world where all these people have come together for love of one thing - the game of baseball. It's a pretty amazing feeling. Those kids are never going to forget that night, and I'm just lucky to have been a part of it.

In other news, Josh Beckett may have some competition for the coveted position of Trinity's Baseball Boyfriend because hello, Conor Jackson, you are a stud! Char says I can have an AL boyfriend and an NL boyfriend, so I'm totally going to. I'm terribly jealous that she gets to see him in person tonight (hi, my name is Trinity, and I go from introspective to shallow in 0.6 seconds).

The Sox are taking on the Tigers tonight, with Dice-K on the mound for us. I can't tell yet whether Dice-K hasn't found his stride yet this season or if he's really just an average pitcher. He doesn't often go deep into the games (which, given the state of our bullpen, is not what we need), and he walks a lot of guys. He pitches into full counts a lot and throws a lot of pitches. Dice-K throws for strikes but doesn't get them, and doesn't pitch to contact, which is what he should be doing with mediocre stuff like his. It's not like our fielders aren't going to back him up. If there's one thing the Sox can do, it's field. Maybe with the exception of Mr. E6 himself, Julio Lugo. But as long as nobody hits to shortstop, we're fine.

Hey, Dice-K just walked his fifth guy tonight. And Julian "Batshit" Tavarez is already warming in the bullpen. Sigh.

Game day

If anyone needs me tonight, I'll be at Chase Field, watching Max Scherzer make his fist big league start.

Bad Luck

For the second time in a row, the Dbacks lost the same day I posted praising them.

Am I bad luck?

Round up

Time for a new post because everytime I see the tongue lashing (keyboard lashing?) I laid on the Dbacks, my heart hurts.

No one likes to see their team lose. And the Diamondbacks can lose games and will lose games, probably lots of them. But when it comes down to it, I'd almost rather lose in a one-run heartbreaker than to watch my boys suffer a total meltdown either on pitching or defense. I just want them to compete and compete well.

And they have. The Dbacks are sitting on the best record in MLB right now. In Arizona, this is shocking. With the exception of the Phoenix Suns who have reemerged in recent years from their pit of mediocrity, nobody really expects our sports teams to succeed. In Arizona, we don't believe in waiting for next year because that implies that we believe next year will be better than this one. We simply grumble and move on. The Diamondbacks, with their World Series victory over the Yankees in 2001 (insert customary Yankees suck comment here) became the first Arizona team to ever win a championship. Only the Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA have joined the Dbacks as champions.

I just want to see the Dbacks win.

Time for shout outs! Big well done to Micah Owings who came into the game to pinch hit and knocked out a two-run homer on Weds. to tie the game with Astros. The Dbacks would rally from four runs down to win the game 8-7. Pwnings is a starting pitcher. My team's pitcher is better than your team's DH! Personally, I vote that on inter-league games, Pwnings plays as designated hitter, shaming and embarrassing spoiled American League pitchers and sending them back into the dugouts crying for their mommies.

Also, the Dbacks were in the New York Times today. I feel like a proud parent. My baby's in the New York Times.

Oh, and Yankees suck.