Game 2 vs. Cleveland

Another disappointing loss. I hoped that all three of us going for the first time might bring them luck, but if it did the good fortune only saved them from an even more humiliating defeat.

In the stands, Amy is making friends with the usher in our area. It was great fun to watch her make the seat-hopping booze hounds and woo girls go back to the seats they bought (or at least move away from our section).

It goes without saying that the pregame hoopla was substantially reduced. The Buck Seat was occupied by Amy’s former boss at Audio Reader, a white woman on Jackie Robinson Day. I guess John Mayberry used up our quota of ethnically-differently-abled persons for the year. And it isn’t that Audio Reader isn’t a nice service for visually impaired persons. It’s just that it’s part of the KU bureaucracy rather than an independent charity that dedicated volunteers have to struggle to keep alive.

The anthem was performed by a kids’ choir, and the color guard was firemen. That should have been good luck as well.

On the field, things were both better and worse than Opening Day. The Sunday starters played, which meant that we got Chris Getz rather than Yuniesky Betancourt. How could that possibly be a bad thing? And behind the plate Brayan Pena played like he wanted to be the regular starter again. It’s always nice to see guys act like they actually want to be there.

And we got off to a reasonably strong start. Cleveland struggled in the first couple of innings, going in order in the first and grounding into a double play in the second. We put some offense together, scoring three runs off a string of singles and doubles.

In the third Luis Mendoza got the first two batters to ground into 4-3 outs, and Getz made a great throw from deep up the middle that very nearly put an end to the inning. Sadly, the missed shot proved to be the loosened nut that made the wheels come off. The next seven batters made base, including a home run by Duncan. So six runs later we were in a hole from which we would not emerge.

In the fourth Cleveland went in order, and in the bottom Getz hit a triple and scored on a ground-out, so maybe we could have clawed our way back into it.

But no. Mendoza gave up another huge inning in the fifth, including a home run by Travis Hafner that went all the way to the bar behind the seats in right field. If that isn’t the farthest I’ve ever seen a ball go in the stadium, then it’s at least in the top ten.

Some time ago Amy and I nicknamed this guy “Frunk” due to his resemblance to a character on a reality show in which contestants sought to become the “kept man” of Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger’s ex-girlfriend. Things ended badly for the real Frunk, but baseball’s version seems to be faring a bit better. He lost some bulk in the wake of the steroid nonsense a few years ago, but he seems to have gained some of it back.

After that the game was fairly quiet. Kotchman and Kipnis hit back-to-back home runs in the eighth. Cleveland may have recognized this as piling on, because in the ninth Ned Yost put new guy Jason Bourgeois in center and brought Mitch Maier in to pitch. A fly-out and a 6-4-3 double play later, Maier became one of our least-scored-on pitchers of the year.

Then in the bottom of the ninth things just turned silly. Two runners advanced on defensive indifference and then came around to score. But the big moment was Maier striking out to end the game. It wasn’t so much the K as it was that he was batting as the pitcher. There’s something you don’t see every day in the American League. So that rare moment actually became the Play of the Game.

The Mule of the Game is new color guy Steve Physioc. He’s the mule rather than the goat because he spent an entire half inning rattling on about some guy he knew back in the day who got bit by KC A’s mascot Charlie-O. Earlier he actually managed to take an anecdote about Jackie Robinson and do such a protracted, muddled job of telling it that the story went from heartwarming to annoying. When you do a Google search on this guy, the second suggested search string that comes up is “Steve Physioc fired.” Really.

I know it isn’t fair to expect every announcer in the world to be as good as Vin Scully. But I honestly believe that the second week of the season is far too early to be so bored with the job that one dishes out an endless parade of inanity and irrelevance rather than providing actual color. Maybe this guy will settle into the job and get better as he goes. If not, it’s going to be a long season.

Just so we don’t end this on a sour note, the weather was great (windy but not in our seats). And of course it was wonderful for all three of us to be there together. Also, six of Cleveland’s ten starters had socks. The pitcher even had the full-on, old school stirrup socks. Proof perhaps that if skill and talent can’t carry you to a lopsided victory, perhaps juju can. Something for the Royals to consider.