Winding Down
By
Amanda
Posted at 6:38 pm
It's Wednesday evening, and I'm sitting outside the Tropical Breeze Resort & Spa, taking advantage of their Wi-Fi. I started out over at the Daiquiri Deck, but when they couldn't find a table for a party of one even though the dining room was half empty and turned the gawd-awful music in the bar from 3 to 8 while I was waiting, I realized it just wasn't meant to be. Girlfriend needs a little peace and quiet for her blogging.
This is way better anyway. There are quite the characters walking by on the sidewalks, and so instead of catching up on the game wraps that I am behind on again, I'm taking a moment to tell you about it.
A rather top-heavy woman just jugged, I mean, jogged by with about 10% of her total body area covered in Spandex. I barely restrained the urge to do a slack-jawed double take, though I did sneak a peek when she jogged back the other direction later. I've seen lots of skin since I've been here, shown some of it too, but she was taking it to a new level.
Not long after her a man in Spandex rode by on his bicycle, thankfully significantly more covered by his attire. Bulging out of it, but at least covered by it.
An olive green VW Bus just turned the corner, coughing smoke. Not saying from where.
A middle-aged married couple just walked out into the road in front of oncoming traffic. (People do this all the time here, by the way. There are signs posted all over the place admonishing drivers that if they don't yield the right-of-way, they'll be faced with a $118.50 fine. Apparently the $118 fine just wasn't getting the message across.)
Anyway, they yelled back to the half-dozen adolescent boys following them who also ran out in the middle of the road to cross the street. Over a white t-shirt trimmed in sequins, the woman wore a pink cardigan, also decked out in sequins. Seriously, are sequins ever in style outside of a cocktail party or the seventh grade?
An elderly couple is making their way past me as I type this. The man is moving with the aid of a walker and just stopped short to tell his wife, “My pants are falling down.” He then stood there while she slowly made her way around him and hitched them up for him.
A bus (the public transit kind, not the smokey VW kind) just dropped someone off at The Beach Club across the street. The bus system here is called SCAT, which just wouldn't have made me snicker before internet porn made every fetish known to every person who did a Google search. I very much look forward to the Google hits I get off this post, in fact.
So you can tell that Siesta Village in Sarasota is really a happening place. And if you find yourself in the area of the Tropical Breeze Resort and Spa before I head for home after the game on Saturday, bring some of that VW Bus action over my way.
Well since you skipped the game summary, I’ll help out since I listened to it on WLW via MLB Audio.
Griffey got things started with an RBI double. This was followed immediately by a 2 run blast by my man Dunn who is sick of playing meaningless games and is very much looking forward to leading the offense to his first taste of the post season.
Bunch of runs and hits followed that and we would have easily blown them out except Harang, who was experiencing flu symptoms immediately before the game ran out of gas in the 5th. I saw it coming, and Narron should have as well, but he let Harang get knocked around for several batters before pulling the plug on him. This seemed to make Marty and Steve happy, to be honest, because they spent the first 4 innings of the game making all kinds of superstitious comments about Harang has been too good this spring. Apparently, he needed to get a bad inning or 2 out of his system before his season could begin, according to their belief system.
Maybe this is a vital reason we have a Cincinnati pitching curse. When a guy does well and acts like an ace, instead of acting as if it is natural and good, we get all freaked out and expect the good dream to dissipate. So let me make this clear: Harang is an ace that reported in top notch condition. This is going to be his first all star season and we should act like it is not a miracle, but well deserved success.
Belisle came in to relieve and immediately surrendered a 2 run jack to Ty Wigginton and it was a game again.
The Reds buckled down getting scoreless innings from Hammond, Mercker, and finally Coffey who did a tightrope act in the 9th after striking out a hitter on a wild pitch thereby allowing him to reach base safely. THis was followed by a basehit so it was runners on first and 3rd with no outs and the Reds clinging to a one run lead. The next batter attempted to squeeze (the Reds had failed on a squeeze in the bottom of the 8th) but Javier Valentin was able to pounce on the ball and reach back and tag the runner. The game ended when the next batter grounded into a 5-3 doubleplay to Frank Menechino — who has no business being on a major league roster.
AH-HAH! So *THAT* is why Harang left the game in the middle of an inning, looking like crap and doubled over. Poor fella.
According to my notes, the HR Belisle served up was a 3-run job, and boy-oh-boy did that just make me want to puke. Letting all your inherited runners score plus one on the first pitch? Ugh.
The failed squeeze appeared to be Womack’s fault, who failed to make contact on the bunt. However, the pitch was way outside, so I may have to give credit to the Devil Rays for sniffing the play (though I really want to blame Womack).
Also, the play with Javy tagging the guy out at home was fantastical. You’d never think a guy so short and round could stretch like that.
Anyway, thanks for the game wrap. I’ll probably still do my own later, because I’m a completist like that, but it’s nice to be up-to-date.
Yea, I figured you’d do your own later.. which is why I pretty much did a rough draft and injected plenty of my own opinion.
Incidentally, Narron was interviewed for the pre-game show and he made it clear he was going to ride his starters. He said the key to the season was how deep into games the starters could take us, thereby keeping the bullpen fresh (and minimizing the exposure of the young guys in late inning stress situations).
Well, Narron, was damn true to his word by riding Harang into the 6th despite the fact he had the flu and was questionable right before game-time. By glancing at the box score you might think Harang had a mediocre outing, but the opposite is true. He dominated for 4 innings despite the flu.. and he clearly ran out of gas in the 5th.