One, two, three: not it

You know, I questioned the wisdom of wearing a Dan Haren T-shirt to a Randy Johnson start, afraid that it would bring the Big Unit bad luck. I was right. Johnson gave up eight runs and was pulled in the fifth. What followed was the most furious game of paper, rock, scissors ever witnessed as an exhausted bullpen tried desperately to avoid being sent out, lest their arms fall off.

We lost 12-3. My record at Chase Field now stands at 1-2, with both losses being blowouts. An interesting statistic, to be sure.

Less than a month and we'll both be at Fenway. Let's see if my luck is bi-costal.

Game day

Another day, another Dbacks game, one that I will be attending.

Randy Johnson takes the mound today against the Royals, and let's hope it's a nice long outing because after three straight days of extra innings, the bullpen is pretty much spent. If that game last night had gone on past ten, they would have needed to take volunteers from the crowd to pitch.

Also, I'd like to see a win, since the last time I was at Chase Field was that awful game against the Phillies.

Game Day, Char here

My first trip down the old BOB Chase Field since 2002 (I remember because they gave away World Series DVDs that day) was a resounding success. The Diamondbacks secured their seventh win in a row, pounding the Colorado Rockies 8-2. Brandon Webb was masterful, going eight innings allowing two runs on four hits and striking out six. Eric Byrnes homered and drew a walk, finally starting to look like he can do more than whack away at any pitch that comes in his general direction. Justin Upton and Orlando Hudson also homered. I was a little disappointed not to see Baseball Boyfriend Dan Haren live and in the flesh but, well, we can't have everything.

A Chicks and Sticks salute to the guys in section 203 for general awesomeness. Not only did they give a friend of mine a high five for her, shall we say...enthusiastic rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," but they also adopted one of my nicknames. Itty bitty Stephen Drew, shortstop to the Dbacks and brother of Red Sox JD Drew looks about 16 and since his brother plays for the Sox, I've started calling him Baby Drew. Well hell, if by the fourth inning, the guys in front of us weren't going "Come on, Baby Drew!" Spread it like wildfire, folks.

Conor Jackson (seen above, doing the pee pee dance) also returned to the lineup after leaving game three of the Dodgers series early to have his wrist examined after he was hit by a pitch, his third HBP in two games. I have decided that Conor "Gravity" Jackson keeps his powers in his eyebrows, which are so large they clearly have their own gravitational pull. No wonder he keeps getting hit.

A question: sequestered where they are behind screens and fences, the bullpen is the kids' table of baseball y/n?

And a tip for anyone making the trip to Chase Field (which I recommend, the stadium is quite nice now and the HD scoreboard is a thing of beauty) be careful where you walk. Downtwon Phoenix is very industrial so if you're walking away from the stadium and all you see are warehouses, you might want to turn around and try going another way, or you might find yourself in a situation where it takes you an hour to get to your car. Hypothetically. Not that I know from experience or anything.

When you can't get to the ballpark

Trin here. Char's off at the Diamondbacks game, so I've been forced to take over blogging duties. Not a whole lot going on. The Sox are losing to the Yankees, the Orioles are tied with Tampa Bay. I just recently discovered that Nick Markakis is really hot. Not that he's a threat to Josh Beckett's position as Baseball Boyfriend. He's just nice to look at. Really nice.

Anyway. If you're like me, you get a little irritated that you don't live in New England and can't watch Red Sox games on television, and you're on the world's worst satellite internet connection and couldn't watch MLB.tv even if you could afford it. So you do the next best thing - those gamecast things that a couple different sites offer. They're absolutely nothing like watching a ballgame, but at least you can kind of get an idea what's going on. I know of two - one on Yahoo! and one on ESPN. After following most of the game on the Yahoo! thing, then getting frustrated because it was so freaking slow and switching to the ESPN one, it's clear that the ESPN Gamecast is far superior. For a while I had them both going, and Yahoo!'s Gameday was at least a pitch behind ESPN. It was a couple pitches behind real time, too, when compared with the Orioles game on my TV. The ESPN Gamecast is a little crowded; in addition to the play by play and the graphic of the field and players, it's got a chart of the strike zone, scrolling information about the batter at the bottom of the screen, and larger pictures. It's just more...graphic. And with animation! You can watch the ball being pitched and in play, and a little box pops up to show you the result of the play. I really don't need all that; reading the play by play text is enough for me. I gues maybe it's meant to make you feel a little more like you're at a ballgame? At any rate, I think it's slightly strange that even with all that extra stuff, ESPN still runs faster than Yahoo.

Anyway, long story short is that if you can't watch the game, check out ESPN Gamecast. It's like being at the ballpark...only not.