One of the many things I like about baseball is that for the most part, I know when a game is going to end. If the home team is leading, the game only goes on for 8 1/2 innings. If the visitors are leading, you go to the bottom of the ninth and hope that your team can make a comeback. However, if the home team comes back to tie it, they have to go on to extra innings (not one of my favorite things). At that point, you have no idea whether the game is going to end in the tenth, the thirteenth, or as was the case in yesterday's Orioles-Red Sox game, the seventeenth inning. Yes, the first-place O's beat the struggling Red Sox in a six hour marathon, which my cousin-in-law said that at times it felt like watching a cricket match. And sometimes, when you have these long games, you end up using up all your pitchers and the manager then has to get creative. In yesterday's game, Orioles' manager Buck Showalter told DH and infielder Chris Davis to warm up and go pitch the sixteenth inning. Davis had not pitched since his days in junior college back in 2006, but he surprised everyone with a 91mph fastball and a split-finger pitch that confused Red Sox batters. Davis had gone 0-8 including 5 strikeouts, so why not try pitching, since hitting obviously wasn't going well? The O's ended up winning 6-9, sweeping the Red Sox and winning their last 5 games. I am very happy for the Orioles and their fans - I hope the players got a good night's rest and are ready to take on the 18-10 Texas Rangers at Camden Yards starting tonight. Go O's!
But what about that other team in the DC area? Well the Nationals (also in first place) had an interesting game last night, losing to the Phillies 9-3. The game got testy right from the start, when Phililes' pitcher Cole Hamels deliberately hit Nationals' left fielder Bryce Harper on the back in the bottom of the first inning (Hamels admitted after the game that he did mean to hit Harper as a "welcome to the big leagues" gesture). Harper answered by scoring a run, but not in a traditional fashion. With Hamels distractedly throwing pickoff attempts to first base, Harper stole home and scored the Nationals' first run. I was so excited to see such a seldom-done feat that I called everyone into the living room to watch the replay. When I was a little girl, my father used to tell me how he saw Puerto Rican baseball player Victor Pellot (known in the US as "Vic Power") steal home twice in one game; now my son can tell his kids that he saw Bryce Harper do the same thing. It was pretty cool!
Unfortunately, the game's excitement pretty much ended there for the Nationals (except for Nats' pitcher Jordan Zimmermann hitting Cole Hamels in the top of the third). In the sixth inning, right fielder Jayson Werth broke his left wrist trying to field a ball - the same wrist he had broken before that caused him to miss the entire 2006 season. While Werth's lack of hitting won't be missed, he is an excellent right fielder and will be hard to replace out there. The Nationals lost 9-3, but they won the series and are still in first place. Now they go on to Pittsburgh, where I have a bet going with a co-worker. If the Pirates win the series, he owes me a cookie and vice versa. I can taste the chocolate chips now...
So this whole thing about hitting batters on purpose... what's that all about? Despite being female, I like to think that I know as much about baseball as many men out there; but this hitting batters thing, I think that's a guy thing that I'll never understand. Nolan Ryan was a big bully in his day, hitting batters on purpose or pitching them way inside to make them flinch. Why is that? I find that so immature! And then later in the game, the pitcher from the team whose batter was hit feels obligated to hit a batter too. Then the umpires are obligated to issue a warning and the fans have to boo. Is all this really necessary? At least we don't have bench-clearing brawls anymore, like we did during the "steroid era" - I saw many a fight involving Manny Ramirez, Roger Clemens, and now-in-prison Lenny Dykstra. Those episodes were considered "entertaining," yet one guy spits at an umpire and his Hall of Fame membership gets questioned! Just because you're playing a boy's game doesn't mean you have to act like little boys - grow up and stop hitting each other! That's about as stupid as the intentional walk!
OK, cleansing breath... time to think about more positive things, like the fact that Albert Pujols FINALLY hit a home run and Robinson Canó hit a grand slam yesterday. See how exciting baseball can still be without people hitting each other? Let's just all get along, and everything will be fine.
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