I don’t suppose anyone reading this has an extra Sundberg bobblehead they wouldn’t mind trading for the Mike Young bobblehead from earlier this year, would they? I have a new one of that in the box, and would like to trade. If you would like to do this, drop me an email.
Why did I miss my bobblehead? Well, I left work promptly at 6PM. I work over near Northwest Highway & LBJ in Garland. So it’s a bit of a drive for me, but with a 7:30 game, there shouldn’t have been any problem. Then I got past the downtown Mixmaster after the usual slowdowns before it. I hit the wall. It took me about 45 minutes to go from the main post office outside of Dallas to Cocherel Hill. That’s what, two miles? It was 7:20 when I got past the accident, and fortunately, I got to 30 & Six Flags right as the first pitch was thrown. I parked my car right when the Mariners finished batting in the top of the first, and got inside the ballpark right after Carlos Lee flied out to right, so I saw all the real fun. But yikes, I detest being late for a game with a passion, and right up until the point I broke through the traffic jam, I contemplated turning around. However I was 2/3 there already, and I ended up not missing much.
Good thing I came, as I saw a whale of a game. This game was “over” after four innings. But those first four innings were highly eventful. Kip Wells put up a zero in the top of the first, but a couple of key errors in the bottom of the first kept the Mariners from doing the same. A Ben Broussard throwing error could have been a double play, and then a Betancourt throwing error could have been out three, had the Broussard one not happened. As it was we put up a big crooked line in the first inning; a seven. In all we got seven runs on just TWO hits, as Gil Meche was just abysmal, walking four in the first. In fact, here’s the play by play for the first inning:
- G. Matthews Jr. walked
- M. Young walked, G. Matthews Jr. to second
- C. Lee flied out to deep right center, G. Matthews Jr. to third
- M. Teixeira walked, M. Young to second
- H. Blalock reached on fielder’s choice, G. Matthews Jr. scored, M. Young to third, M. Teixeira to second on B. Broussard’s throwing error
- M. Stairs flied out to shallow left
- I. Kinsler walked, M. DeRosa to second
- R. Barajas safe at first on shortstop Y. Betancourt’s throwing error, H. Blalock and M. DeRosa scored, I. Kinsler to third, R. Barajas to second
- G. Matthews Jr. singled to shallow right, R. Barajas and I. Kinsler scored
- M. Young flied out to deep right
Quite an eventful first inning. Kip Wells was a little wobbly in the top of the second, but didn’t allow anyone to score. Then came the bottom of the second. Gil Meche walked the first two batters of the inning, which prompted Grover to take him out. Gil Meche faced only 13 batters, and walked 6 of them. He threw 54 pitches to get his three outs, 30 of them were balls, only 24 strikes. Again, abysmal.
Blalock then singled loading the bases. Mark DeRosa doubled to right center, but it wasn’t your traditional double, it hung up a bit, prompting the runners to hold up to see what happened. When it landed, it forced the always amusing to watch bit where two baserunners are right next to each other rounding the bases (BLalock & Teixiera). Tex scored, but Blalock was tagged out, denying DeRosa a three run double. Instead he just had two. DeRosa scored a minute later when Matt Stairs singled him in.
The Mariners broke the shutout in the top of the third with a double (Beltre) and a single (Ibanez). Still, we’re doing OK. One run through three is not bad. Then we came up in the bottom of the third, and got the run back immediately, as Carlos Lee annihilated the first pitch of the inning way WAY over the left field fence, past the seats and almost down the walkway behind Section 8 in left. Very impressive looking home run. A couple of batters later, Mark DeRosa had another home to almost the same place, it too was very impressive looking. That gave DeRosa just the triple needed for the cycle, which he didn’t get unfortunately. But he still had a pile of RBI’s, can’t complain about that.
The wheels fell off a bit in the top of the fourth, the Mariners put up their own big ugly squiggly number on the linescore, a 6. Here’s how they did it:
- K. Johjima doubled to deep left
- Y. Betancourt singled to left, K. Johjima to third
- A. Jones doubled to deep left, K. Johjima and Y. Betancourt scored
- I. Suzuki safe at first on second baseman I. Kinsler’s fielding error, A. Jones scored
- J. Rupe relieved K. Wells
- J. Lopez singled to right, I. Suzuki to third
- A. Beltre grounded into fielder’s choice, I. Suzuki out at home, J. Lopez to third, A. Beltre to second
- R. Ibanez homered to deep right center, A. Beltre and J. Lopez scored
- R. Sexson singled to right
- B. Broussard hit by pitch, R. Sexson to second
- K. Johjima struck out swinging
- Y. Betancourt flied out to right
Kip Wells came out in this inning with what we’re told is a foot injury. That’s two injury issues since he’s been here, which has been just a couple of weeks. That’s rather troubling. Not sure what to make of that now, but Wells did get dropped on the one fantasy team I had him on.
In the bottom of the fourth, we got one of the runs back on a Gary Matthews home run into the Rangers bullpen. And that would be it for the scoring, save for a sac fly by DeRosa in the seventh. That was a total of 20 runs in the first four innings for both teams.
I was glad I went, nice to see an offensive explosion in person again, but I did miss getting my Sundberg bobblehead. Bummer. When I was walking out after the game, Sunny was still signing his bobbleheads. I heard he was doing that before the game; I wonder if he was there the whole game or not. If so, he was there for quite awhile.
And as a final kicker, when I was coming home, I was just getting to Reunion Arena, and saw Rt 30 backed up as far as I could see. I shot up onto 35E North and took it to 635, and over to 30. I spent a lot more time driving back and forth to the Rangers game than I would have liked tonight. We need a high speed rail line that goes to the Rangers games, dammit!
