I guess everyone is playing their "natural rivals" today, meaning, of course, their "natural rivals in the other league." Of course to have this happen, the Houston Astros had to move to the American League. They have apparently been assigned to be Colorado's "natural rivals." I guess that would be "naturalized rivals." It's kind of weird, Colorado used to have Seattle as the team they would play a bunch, but now Seattle is apparently San Diego's "natural rival." And with Texas and Houston in the same American League, their natural intra-state rivalry has been expunged. Texas is now apparently Arizona's "natural rival" while Houston is Colorado's. Many of the "natural rivals" make some sense, New York teams, Chicago teams, Los Angeles area teams, Bay Area teams, Ohio state teams, Missouri state teams, Florida teams. But Atlanta is stuck with Toronto while Boston plays Philadelphia. Atlanta should really be Boston's "natural rivals" because at least the Braves were originally in Boston. That would leave Philadelphia with Toronto, which kind of makes no sense, but without another Canadian team, Toronto makes no sense with anyone. Meanwhile, Philadelphia has to play Detroit.
Meanwhile, there was a game in Oakland and it was a game which the Giants lost. The game sold out, as Oakland-SF games tend to do. Madison Bumgarner pitched pretty well for awhile. He gave up 2 runs on a home run to Josh Donaldson in the 4th inning, then gave up 2 more on a double by Yoenis Cespedes in the 7th. Madison was over 110 pitches by that point, but he had set the A's down in 3 in the 5th and 6th innings, so I'm sure that they wanted to get him through the 7th. It might not have mattered. The Giants scored one in the 6th on a ground out by Buster Posey, but, with the exception of a couple of well-struck balls that were fly outs, they never really threatened. Sandoval, Posey, Pence and Belt were all 0-fers (although Posey did pick up the lone rbi). Andres Torres got 2 hits,Crawford 1 and Scutaro 1. But that was it. The A's only got 5, but Madison also walked 5. Tomorrow Mike Kickham makes his major league debut. He is from St. Louis.
5 comments:
Well, Kontos gave up the hit to Cespedes that tacked on the extra two and pretty much decided the game. Bummy walked Young right before that. He gets the out there instead (or Boch goes to Kontos a batter sooner) and that's a damn fine start. It wasn't bad, really, the Giants just could not solve the rookie and left Maddy out there to get Cain'd. The kid threw only 78 pitches for his six innings!
Speaking of rooks, I'm excited about seeing Kickham tomorrow.
Through April the giants were not walking that many hitters, except of course for Timmy. But since Timmy has cut his walks, Bumgarner and CAin have decided to walk more batters. The giants are now headed toward being one of the worst teams when it comes to walking the opposition. I do not know if the starters are tired from two long post seasons in the last 3 years, or like the Heat in Basketball, feel like they do not need to turn it up until the second half of the season. That behavior in baseball can find you out of the playoffs as team health is not a guarantee throughout the season. Despite scoring plenty of runs this year, the giants are not pitching that fantastically, and some days the hitters just seem to dial it in. While, other days they are fighting for their lives as if they were in a war and a fight to the death.
So baseball fans, I have a completely unrelated (to the A's game) question. Why is a there a big green void in center field at ATT park? Why aren't there stands going all the way around the outfield? What goes on behind the fence in the "green area"? Inquiring minds need to know.
@Russian River- "The batter's eye or batter's eye screen is a solid-colored, usually dark area beyond the center field wall of a baseball stadium, that is the visual backdrop directly in the line of sight of a baseball batter, while facing the pitcher and awaiting a pitch. This dark surface allows the batter to see the pitched ball against a sharply contrasted and uncluttered background" (Wikipedia)
Except that at some ballparks, it is much wider & much taller than at others. The one at AT&T is massive - don't know why. Think of Coors Field & Safeco Field - aside from others, both have seating above the 'batters' eye'.
In cricket these backdrops are known as 'sight screens'. They are usually only about 12' wide & 12' tall. However, the boundary in cricket is closer to the batsman than the CF fence is to a baseball batter.
Still, the baseball 'batters' eyes' still seem disproportionately large - think of all the extra tickets that they could sell.
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