scoring

thanks to the magic of the Digital Video Recorder, I got to see all of today's game in Florida, and was in the mood for experimentation. So I looked all over the web for scorecard templates, finding most of them woefully inadequate for my scoring needs. I ended up with a Word template, which actually worked just fine, until the Mets started hitting in the second inning. I tried, but it just took too long to record the plays in Word the way I want to record the plays.

So I went back to my old standby, the legal pad, which never fails me. But by the 6th inning, it became your basic spring training game, with so many substitutions that I stopped scoring and just started watching. Which was pretty awesome, too.

Unfortunately, my camera is broken, but I'll add pictures both of the Word scorecard and the legal pad scorecard ASAP.

Ollie gets touched, LHJ scores

when I was nine years old, I knew how to score a baseball game well enough for my father to use the bathroom whenever he wanted to during a game, confident that I'd be able to "pick [him] up" on the scorecard. it's an important milestone in my family, when one has reached proficiency with scoring a baseball game.

LHJ had never scored a game when we met more than six years ago. Last night he went to the game with a friend from work, and scored it for the first time without me there. he did a great job! I was teaching as the game was going on last night, so it was really exciting to see how the game unfolded on his scorecard when I got home.

it was not, however, exciting to see how badly the Braves beat up Oliver Perez in the first three innings.

nor was it exciting to see how much the Mets did not hit.

but I know LHJ is a real member of my family now-- he writes the weather conditions and seat locations for the game on the top right hand corner of the scorecard, as we all do.

the scorecard says it all

here's how the Mets lost to the Yankees, play by play:




(as always, you can see the scorecards much more clearly if you click on the image)



if my dad had been there, he would have been making notation of the ball-strike count when the hit, walk, strike out, etc. happened, and I know it would show what he's been seeing for a while with that extra notation-- falling behind the hitter is a killer for a pitcher, and the 3-0 is particularly deadly.

April is Over

Game 35: Brewers 12, Mets 3
22-13 for the season

LHJ and I went to today's game, and witnessed the Mets ravaged by the Brewers. A week ago, I would probably have been devastated. but it's not April anymore, and so every win and every loss doesn't have the same effect that it did even a week ag0; I am better able to recognize that the best teams have awful days, and the worst teams have great days (not that the Brewers are among the worst-- they're not), and getting worked up over any win or any loss in the regular season is a fool's game. we're all allowed to be fools in April, but once May comes, we need to wizen up.



ouch, ouch, and more ouch. I can't say I'm sad that Pelfrey was on his way back to New Orleans after this game.



ineffective offense will screw a team every time.

in happier news, I made a prediction that turned out to be right-- Jose Reyes had no more hair on Saturday. it didn't help him hit, but I'm happy to report that he is still adorable.

Toto, I don't think we're in the NL Central anymore

Game 34: Brewers 4, Mets 5
22-12 for the season

the Brewers came to Shea today with the best record in baseball, having won 24 and lost only 10. though the Mets had a good road trip (5 for 7 in Arizona and San Francisco), the Brewers just finished an even more impressive home stand (9 of 10), so I was not optimistic about our chances going into this game. Jeff Suppan, who killed the Mets in the NLCS last year, was on the mound for the Brewers, and though Jorge Sosa pitched well his last time out, he was hardly a sure thing against a red hot Milwaukee lineup. however, I failed to control for the fact that 17 of those 24 wins have come against the NL Central and that three more were against the Nationals. the Brewers were the ones who had something to prove at Shea tonight, and indeed they proved that they've played very well against mediocre teams.




though Sosa walked the Brewers lead-off man, LoDuca caught him stealing (he's got 10 of 16 runners, 63%. no one ran against him again for the rest of the game. I have to admit, with Paulie behind the plate and in the clubhouse, I don't miss Mike Piazza at all. ). Jorge retired the next 9 batters, and gave up just four hits in the 6 and 2/3 innings he pitched. Two of them were solo homers, but with only one walk (that very first batter) until the 7th inning, Sosa had a good outing, and the fans let him know it when he was replaced by Pedro Feliciano with two outs in the top of the 8th after giving up the second of two walks. Feliciano had a great strike-out against the pinch hitter Corey Hart, and was replaced on the mound by Aaron Heilman in the top of the 8th.

Aaron had a fantastic road trip, but looked like he'd left his arm in San Francisco, giving up an infield hit to Weeks and then a home run to Hardy, bringing the Brewers within a run of tying up the game. But Heilman battled back, striking out Prince Fielder (son of Cecil, with a duplicate of his father's body) and retiring the next two batters to end the inning. Billy Wagner pitched as brilliantly as he has all season, bringing his ERA down to an astounding 0.58 after 16 innings, and ending the game in less than 2.5 hours.




how about that 4th inning? though it can't change last October, it sure felt good to watch the Mets beat up Jeff Suppan (though in fairness, they could have done better-- Reyes stranded two at the end of the inning). Easley's homer in the 7th turned out to be necessary for the win, thanks to the homer Heilman gave up to Hardy in the top of the 8th. Both Wright and Delgado hit (which was especially nice to see, again, against Suppan, and because they're the guys who need to be getting the grove right about now), and LoDuca continued his hitting streak.

Armando Benitez is a head case

Game 33: Mets 5, Giants 3
21-12 for the season

it sure looked like a perfect afternoon for baseball in San Francisco. the game started out with an interesting mistake-- when Carlos Delgado lined out to the Giants' first baseman, everyone assumed that he forced Beltran out at first and that the inning was over. the replay showed that Klesko, the guy playing first, never actually touched first base. the inning should have gone on, but no one caught it on the field.

David Wright has been breaking bats left and right-- I didn't count how many in Arizona (though there were definitely a few), but three last night and one in his first at-bat today. it was looking like the positive effect of the shearing might only have lasted one night, but he had the two-RBI double in the 9th that gave the Mets the win. sadly, it seems to be that those who look good with a shaved head keep doing well (Delgado had another good day, with a double and a homer, LoDuca had two hits, and Ruben Gotay had his ninth major league home run), while those who look... erm... funny with the new 'do had some trouble behind the plate today, for the first time in a while.



Mets scorecard. from a scoring perspective, it was a first for me-- I don't remember ever scoring a catcher's interference before, and it was a catcher's interference that sent Shawn Green to first base in the 4th inning. thank goodness for Gary Cohen, who mentioned off-handedly that it ought to be scored just as E2. seems kind of boring for such an unusual play.

it was, of course, Armando Benitez who gave up the lead in the top of the 9th-- as soon as Reyes had the hit that shouldn't have been, Benitez just got so wound up in his pissed off that he couldn't pitch decently anymore. it would be hard for me to decide whether I'm happier not to have him or Steve Traschel wearing a Mets uniform anymore, but the nice thing is that I don't have to choose-- neither one of them will ever pitch for my team again.



check out the Giants' first two outs of the game-- both guys Paul LoDuca caught stealing. he's throwing better than he ever has before, having caught 60% of the guys who've run against him thus far this season. his papa should be proud. Maine didn't have a great game-- and got his first no-decision of the year-- but the bullpen and the hitters managed to pull it out.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Brewers (with their best record in baseball) this weekend. looking forward in that nervous kind of way.

overidentification

Game 31: Mets 4, Giants 9
19-12 for the season

I feel for Oliver Perez. a lot. He really didn't pitch all that badly-- really not badly at all. until the awful 5th inning, he'd pitched really well. he went through the lineup in order the first time through, and though he allowed a lead-off hit in the 4th, he also had his first strikeout in the 4th. that might have been the issue, actually, that he wasn't throwing strikeouts-- except that it also kept his pitch count very low going into the 5th.

in reality, very few pitchers can withstand back to back errors followed by yet another blown call by Bruce FREAKING Froming (particularly one that costs two runs). Ollie was obviously upset with himself for the awful inning, and I don't blame him. I understand how he feels. It's hard sometimes to be either nearly perfect or totally awful and never a shade of gray in between.


when I was a girl, I hated west coast trips because I wasn't able to stay up to see the games. now that I'm an adult and work most weekday evenings and am an insomniac, west coast trips are a highlight of my spring and summer. they mean I can watch the whole game even on nights when I work, which feels like a special treat.

I celebrated the treat by scoring the game and taking some notes on watching it. as usual, you can see the homemade scorecard and my notes more clearly if you click on the picture. in fact, you'll see all the notes I took about the game, many of which I have not reported in this post. that's mostly because it's late and I'm tired, and I'm hoping to weave a lot of the notes I didn't relate into another post. but hell, isn't blogging about being transparent with the process?!



Mets scorecard. They stranded 10 base runners over the course of the game. It's hard to do that and win.



Giants scorecard. it's not complete (I did have to go to the bathroom a couple of times), but the 5th is brutal.

multi-tasking

I'm trying to edit something for LHJ and catch up on recent game day posts while "watching" the game on ESPN Gameday and proctoring an LSAT. one thing's for sure-- it's hard to form extensive thoughts when one is obsessively clicking on a window to see if the Mets can come back from a bad first start by Chan Ho Park.

A friend has been posting her scorecards just by taking pictures of them, which is yet another way in which she's much smarter than I am-- I haven't been posting my scorecards, because I haven't been able to get to a scanner. I tried taking pictures of the one that's in my car, and it worked quite well-- I'll upload those pictures and others of scorecards when I get home. in the meantime, check out her scorecards-- or just check out her blog for proof that I have friendly feelings for at least some Yanks fans.

Update: the pictures of my scorecard from Opening Day at Shea are up! Thanks for the tip, F21Y!

beer stained scorecard

as I've recently learned, I do not need a scanner to show you my scorecard from opening day.

silly me.



the Phillie's side was rather straightforward.




the Mets, not so much. But we won, so who cares how messy the scorecard turns out?

if you click on the pictures, you can see even the smallest of my scribblings. you'll also notice that there's handwriting there that isn't my own-- many thanks to BJC for scoring the plays I missed while waiting for the bathroom or for beer.

Homemade scorecard

I decided to score Saturday's game, but didn't feel like running to the firehouse to print out a scorecard. So I made one on some loose leaf.

this was the Mets' performance.


and here's the Braves, with some notes of my own.

I never miss a play when I score a game at the park (when I leave my seat, I leave my scorecard in the hands of someone who can pick me up), but I missed some plays in this game. I used a friend's suggested notation for those at-bats I missed in the scorecards above.

You can see them better if you click on the images to enlarge them.