This was my third game this year, and second since I started the 101. After months of frustration against the Sox (0-8 to start the season), we came back and won convincingly, despite an average start from Joba (and Jorge demonstrating baserunning skills on par with Rain Man).
Joba has had a brief flirtation with “winning” and “the strike zone” since the All Star Break. He clearly has issues of focus, but most sportswriters, dying for an angle, have attributed his recent success to running around in the yard with his young son. If that’s all it takes to put up Cy Young numbers, John Smoltz should purchase a national park and get Heidi Fleiss on the phone.
Last night, although Joba was a mirror image of his prior bad starts (~5 IP, too many walks) the offense managed to get the job done in a huge 8-run 4th. Melky and Jorge both hit 3-run home runs in the game, and we ended up with a convincing win. Here is my video of Melky’s home run:
Some random game notes:
- Jorge said that his non-slide was because he didn’t see Melky signaling him to stay down. Jorge has been confounding this year – he continues to hit, but he is pissing off the entire staff and seems to especially get into it with Joba. This needs to go away before the playoffs.
- Pedroia was whining about getting hit late in the game. Granted, Melancon came inside and high in one at bat, but why start a fight when we were winning by so much? This was either an accident or something Melancon did on his own.
- Ortiz was booed heavily in his first at bat but not much afterwards. I couldn’t help but wonder – when the crowd was chanting STER-OIDS, was A-Rod offended?
- Despite the largest crowd to-date at the new stadium, turnout could have been better. Seeing ANY empty seats a few innings into a Yankee-Sox game during a pennant race on a nice summer night is inexplicable.
- The following is an actual ESPN headline from today: “Seeking to fortify rotation, Twins get Pavano”
Anyway, thanks to Brett for the tickets – this was the first game in my four pack for this season. The non-sports highlight of the game, besides Brother Jimmy’s BBQ, was the intense heckling of the Sox fans in our section. They had a lot to say in the beginning of the game, but that quickly stopped. Most of what Brett and I said to them is unprintable.
