7:00 PM. Hello, Gary Thorne. Hello, Barry Larkin. Larkin kind of has Marcelo Balboa disease where he just repeats himself over and over and over again, but he's an alum so we forgive him. Also he doesn't rock an ear stud and Slayer hair.
Let's not see if this Stutes kid can do what Reyes did. Because that would be the suck.
7:04 PM. JEBUS! For the record, if you're the kind of person who turns Google's Safe Search off because you don't quite trust it to not throw away useful results in the name of Saving the Children and you type "beaver" into Google Image search, you get:
- Hits 1 & 2: Pictures of actual beavers.
- Hit 3: @ right.
- Hits 4 & 5: pictures of, um... not actual beavers.
Anyway. Baseball. Soon.
Top 1. I realize it's relevant to the game, but if they could stop talking about yesterday that would be sweet.
Christian fires the first pitch of the game to the warning track. It's nice that we got a ball out of the infield. I don't understand why the guys hitting like .360 or .370 aren't at the top of the order. I know it doesn't matter, statistically, but it's kind of odd.
Stutes walks the second batter; encouraging notes from last 3 starts: 7.07 ERA, 11 BB, 12 K. Nearly picks the runner off twice, but I like this guy a lot better than Reyes already... dammit. Reck flies out on a hit and run and we get doubled up to end the inning. Strategy grumble grumble.
Bottom 1.Canadian Mike Wilson on the mound. First batter strikes out. That is what I am talking about. That.
Larkin makes a good point that the pitchers aren't pounding the zone quite as much as they were yesterday -- Oregon State isn't, certainly, though Putnam put a few guys on base with walks -- as Wilson runs his guy to 3-2 and then strikes him out with some wicked offspeed stuff.
Falls behind the third batter 2-1, then strikes him out... but the ball gets away and the batter takes first. Pickens didn't do much of a job getting in front of the ball.
Side note: is that not one of the weirdest rules in sport? Dammit: another wild pitch sends the runner to second. Pickens again faulty. Those are charged as wild pitches, but both should have been dealt with.
Cleanup guy walks. Yuck. Behind 2-0 to the next guy. Yuck. Ball well outside the zone swung at wildly; fortunate. Misses inside. 3-1. Fastball right down the middle taken for a strike... payoff pitch; swing and a miss. One inning, 4Ks for Wilson. Not a good start for his pitch count.
Top 2. Putnam goes down swinging kind of weakly. I am enjoying Gary Thorne doing this game, by the way. Some people don't like him; these people are communists.
There are entire families of people perched in scaffolding just outside the ballpark. Larkin compares them to people displaced by Katrina. Um. Long fly out from Abraham; two down. Dude, Pickens went in the 50th round of the MLB draft. He could have been Mr. Irrelevant. After all, he was drafted by the Indians. (ba-dum ching!) Pickens chases high; inning over.
I would like the team to hit the ball.
Bottom 2. I would also like Canadian Mike Wilson to throw strikes. He falls behind 3-0, then throws two strikes right down the middle. Grounder up the middle for the first out. Nice play from Christian.
Larkin starts talking about this weird fieldturf stuff Oregon State plays on. It is slow, as is apparent to anyone who watched the first game and its groundball orgy, and I don't like it much. You're outside, man, play on grass. Hell: you're outside in Oregon. If you can't grow grass in Oregon there is something wrong with you.
Meanwhile: Wilson hits a batter and runs another count to 3-2. Beaver runners terrified of Wilson's pickoff move. Wilson already at 44 pitches; walks the next batter. I should probably throw this out while I still have time:
Canadian Mike WilsonAaaand a double steal from Oregon State. No throw? WTF? Wilson has the batter at 3-1. This is going poorly. Walks him. Bases loaded, nobody out, it's talky time. Maybe I should never liveblog again.
Wilson starts the next hitter off with a ball in the dirt. OMG. Ball two. I... strikes? No. Ball three. Ball four. Walked him on four pitches. Has walked a run in. There have been no hits in this inning. 1-0 OSU. Next pitch is way outside, and Wilson is gone. Ugly.
Pitching change: Mike Powers is in. I really hope this doesn't go like that Louisville game yesterday; they kept a play-by-play on the right side of the screen and it seemed like every time I looked at it, it said "pitching change." Powers walks in another run on three straight pitches. What, is this the one year I played little league?
Barney hits a single; 2 RBI in. Now 4-0 OSU. No hitter gone. Drat. Oregon State steals second. Powers throws three straight balls. Greenlighted on 3-0, Lissman fouls it back. And he takes a chop at a fastball way inside, blooping it to Christian for an... out? I think they're called "outs." Unless the language has shifted since the last time we got one. Do we have rocket cars yet?
Powers strikes out the final batter. I can say without reservation that this has been the most frustrating inning of baseball I've ever watched.
Arrrgh! I hate you Comcast lady!
Top 3. Oregon State has four runs and one hit. I can't help but notice that I didn't even watch that Vandy game, which worked out just fine.
Hey, a hit. Van Buskirk slaps a single past the shortstop. A desultory cheer from the beleaguered crowd. See... why are the guys batting .385 and .371 7th and 8th in the lineup? Maybe they never walk or something. Cislo strikes out. Rose nearly gets a bunt single, but it rolls foul. Eventually flies out.
Long digression on aluminum vs. wood bats as Christian is attempting to not strike out. He does not succeed at this. EOI.
Bottom 3. Chopper is just over Powers' head and slips into the outfield. Leadoff single. Do I have to institute a basketball-esque mercy rule? Powers strikes the next guy out with a slider. I wonder what would happen if they stopped swinging? Most of the stuff they have taken rips at has been well out of the strike zone. Next batter is a virtual repeat: strikes out on the slider. Two down.
Note from yesterday: OSU's road uniforms are sinfully ugly. Like Terrail Lambert attempting to cover Mario Manningham ugly. The pinstripes, the orange numbers, the white "OSU" across the chest that looks like it was assembled out of construction paper by autistic second graders. What is it with the state and their campaign against your eyeballs?
Lederton (?) fends a pitch off into the outfield for a single; runners on the corners. Powers strikes out the third batter. End of inning.
I can't believe it's the end of the third inning. Yesterday it was the sixth or something.
Top 4. Oh, also: someone left a snarky comment along the lines of "you can't CATCH the ball, you have to BLOCK it." This was two innings and six Barry Larkin mentions of this little piece of wisdom ago. You see what I mean about Marcelo Balboa disease.
Groundout opens the inning. Recknagel pops out. Putnam strikes out. What happened to this .330 batting average?
Bottom 4. That Wong kid who hit the one hit of yesterday is apparently the first base coach's kid. He flies out to Recknagel and his dad looks like he's totally going to give that kid a... piece of his mind later. Single to center.
Coverage of Arena Football! Joy. Barry Larkin seems disappointed there are no rattlesnakes in Oregon.
Abraham muffs a potential DP ball, probably because of the stupid turf, but gets the putout at first. Man on second, two down. Barry Larkin loves fishing. He attempts to relate this to the rattlesnakes comment. I don't think it's working. Larkin does rip on the turf, though, after relating a story -- Powers issues a walk --about the "grass seed capital of the world". I'm with him and wouldn't mind him repeating this eighty times the next two innings.
Ack. Wild pitch, runners now at second and third. Pickens tried to CATCH it, not BLOCK it. Actually relevant this time, though. Powers falls behind 3-0 to the next batter. Woo! Manages to get it full and get a groundout to end the inning.
Top 5. Abraham pulls a potential double just a little foul, then grounds out. Pictures of Barry Larkin from back in the day. Second batter flies out. Cislo strikes out.
THINGS I HAVE ENJOYED MORE THAN THIS GAME SO FAR
- The Offspring
- packing peanuts
- "History Of Africa After 1850", AACS 450, as a freshman.
- getting circumcised.
Bottom 5. Leadoff batter walks on four pitches. Powers is done; Fetter, the scheduled starter for a hypothetical game three, has entered the game. Sac bunt; man on second, one out. AAAAAARGH. Fetter down 3-0 in the count; walks the first guy who's not all bunting at him.
I'm mildly surprised that three of eight top seeds making it to Omaha is regarded an unusually low number. Fetter falls behind 3-1, then just barely gets the corner to take the count full. Fetter walks the guy. Eight walks.
!!!
Squeeze play suceeds; 5-0 OSU, second and third and two out.
"Wong is rising to the occasion." Stupid O.
And, hey, we've got to get these runs in somehow, preferably weird... Fetter balks in another run and we've got a double that picks up the other baserunner. Michigan is down 7-0. Mercy rule? Mercy rule.
Screw you guys, I'm going home.
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