A Seven Nation Army Couldn’t hold me back..
Nothing against Monday night’s game, but winning trumps losing, so I probably had more fun last night at AT&T park. Today we go for a day game and a series victory. My father, Scott, & Laura were all on hand for the festivities.
We’ll do a seven nation army roll call this morning on the top players last night (no real order):
- Kenny Rogers. Can’t deny what he did and how impressive he was. Jonathan Sanchez, for the Giants, was fantastic as well, but he’s not 43.
- Ryan Raburn. He turned things around with his blast in the seventh. As impressive as Thames’ home run was in the ninth… Raburn hit the ball where few have hit it in the bleachers.
- Marcus Thames. Easy call here — moonshot to center field. AT&T / SBC / PacBell park is not a home run park (for those not named ‘Bonds’), and Thames dropped on in 450 feet from home plate. Interestingly, Thames got into a little tiff with the home plate umpire before the hit; he thought he had drawn a walk.
- Edgar Renteria. Impressive with his leading off (two walks and a single). Very good defense.
- Carlos Guillen. Great fielding night. He also provided us with some solid comic relief in the ninth inning — see below.
- Zach Miner. Solid with the hold. I wish he was better with inherited runners, but he’s sound when he starts the inning.
- Brent Clevlen. Plays half of an inning and helped save the game — Thames wouldn’t have gotten to that short fly to left. He was helped by having Captain Slow (Not James May — Bengie Molina) at third at the time.
No points to Todd Jones, who did his best Fernando Rodney impression in the ninth. To his credit, only Molina had a decent hit off of him, but when you bring the tying run at the plate with NO OUTS, including the previous night’s hero… not good.
Our seats were about 30 rows behind the on-deck circle. In the ninth, Laura noticed something wasn’t right about Carlos Guillen… she said “hey… um.. do all ball players do that?”. Luckily she had a camera:
Other Notes:
- We’ve had some solid pinch hitting this series.
- Jeff Larish will probably have to go back to Toledo, but I think he can play.
- I like our chances today against Zito
This morning I’ve had a steady diet of Raw Power, looking for the series victory. Hopefully I remember the sun block.