Another Happy Trip To The Ballpark

Saturday was the Cardinals' annual inductions to their Hall of Fame, consisting this year of Pepper Martin, Tim McCarver, and Mark McGwire. Not any particular favorites of my father or I, but what the hell. As it is, we missed most of the pregame ceremony, though it was my fault this year. I should have double-checked how long the drive was instead of guessing at it. Then I made the mistake of thinking the seats were up where we usually sit, but we were much closer to the field. The Cardinals being a middling mess again this year paid off in the form of cheap tickets.

The team itself alternates between being very good and very lousy, opting for one or the other for a few weeks, then switching. It boils down to them running in place at .500. There haven't been many standout performances on the team this year, except for Tommy Pham.

Last year, we were spared having to watch Mike Leake pitch because he came down with shingles. No such luck this year. But Leake worked quickly, not wasting time between pitches, the Rays obliged by swinging early and often, so he didn't throw many pitches (only 65 through 6 innings). Unfortunately, the reason Tampa opted to swing so much was because Leake was leaving a lot of pitches hanging up in the strike zone. He gave up a 2-run homer in the first, and a solo HR in the fourth. By the time the Cardinals collected their first hit, they were down 3-0.

On the other side, Brian Snell was also working quickly, and the Cardinals were completely off-balance. Randal Grichuk did hit one down the line in the 4th, and wound up on third when the leftfielder misplayed the bounce off the wall, though he was stranded at third. I mention it because Corey Dickerson misplaying balls was a recurring theme.

In the 6th, Pham worked a walk, and then Paul DeJong sent one down the line to the same place Grichuk had hit it two innings earlier. Dickerson misplayed the ball again, allowing Pham to score and DeJong to reach third. Curiously, while the scorer gave Dickerson an error on Grichuk's hit, he didn't on DeJong's. Two batters later, Yadier Molina hit the ball a mile in the air to left, and Dickerson stood out there, hands held out to the side helplessly. He had lost the ball entirely. The Rays' centerfielder, Keven Keirmaier, almost came in and made a diving play on the ball, but it hit the ground just before he could get there, and Molina wound up at second, while DeJong scored. Remarkably, that wasn't ruled an error, either. The ball landed at least ten feet in front of Dickerson!

Here I thought that play when Piscotty crashed into the wall at Wrigley, only to have the ball bounce off the wall five feet to his left was the most inept display I'd see this season. You're off the hook, Stephen.

With the score 3-2, the Cardinals were back in it, so Leake promptly surrendered another solo home run to make it 4-2. Remarkably, it wasn't to Corey Dickerson, who had already hit one, was due for a redemptive play, and was leading off the inning. It was Adeiny Hechavarria, who batted right after Dickerson. Up to this point, the best thing you could say about the game was it was fast. They had taken barely two hours for 7 innings.

Watching the previous night's loss on TV, the announce team mentioned the Rays had allowed more runs in the 8th than any other inning this season. Their woes continued here. Brian Snell had been pulled after 7 innings. This weekend MLB is doing something where the players are wearing jerseys with their nicknames on the back. So instead of "Martinez", Carlos Martinez has "Tsunami". The Rays brought in large man reliever Tommy Hunter, whose jersey read "Two Towels". I leave it to you to picture why he has that nickname.

Pham worked another walk, advanced to second on a wild pitch. Grichuk and Dejong failed to do anything, then Molina drove him in with a single. 4 to 3. Jedd Gyorko and Piscotty followed with singles of their own. Unfortunately, Molina is slow enough his charity race from home plate to first base earlier this year against a glacier was ruled undecided because neither contestant reached first before the glacier melted. So two singles only managed to advance him to third. The Rays switched pitchers, but Kolten Wong got a single of his own, scoring Molina. Gyorko injured himself rounding third, so he was out and Tsunami pinch-ran. You might think the Cardinals would use a position player, but they have only four because Mike Matheny insists he needs 8 relief pitchers. Greg Garcia lined out to left to end the inning, but now it was tied.

Tyler Lyons, possibly the only reliable reliever the team has at the moment, breezed through the 9th. In the bottom of the inning, Carpenter managed an infield single, and then Tommy Pham won the game with a homer to centerfield. I botched the celebratory high five with my dad because I was trying to put my pencil down beforehand. Ruined the moment. They had the postgame interview with Pham almost immediately and the interviewer started by saying Tommy must not like free baseball, because he ended it in the 9th. Pham confirmed this saying, 'No free baseball, we don't get paid overtime.' Me neither, Tommie.

But Pham's been a delight in interviews all season, cracking jokes, being cantankerous, speaking frankly when the team is playing like shit (which is often). So that was a real nice ending to the game.

Other notes:

 - Stephen Piscotty's walk-up music is "Danger Zone". Which makes me think of a joke on 4thletter, some edit of Final Crisis, about how Hal Jordan would have his ring play that song, and nothing but that, when he was traveling through space.

 - I don't know what song Matt Carpenter has as his walk-up, or if he specifically picked it or not, but I hate it. And he's their leadoff hitter, so he comes to bat more than anyone on the team.

- Molina is no doubt the most popular player. The crowd breaks out into loud "YADI, YADI" chants every time he comes to bat, not something you can say about any of the other players. But he's almost certainly the best catcher in franchise history (depending on how heavily you weight his handling of pitchers compared to Ted Simmons, who is the only possible competition), and he's the longest tenured player on the current roster, since he's been here since mid-2004. Adam Wainwright, whose arm may be about to fall off, is the only guy on the roster within 5 years of Yadi for time with the team.

- The jerseys the teams are wearing for this event thing are ugly as hell.

- For these Hall of Fame weekends, the Cardinals get as many of the past inductees as they can to be there as well. So Red Schoendienst, even at 94 years old was there, and the man's in pretty good condition for his age. He needed a little help from Adam Wainwright getting up out of the dugout, but he's moving under his own power. I'll be lucky to do that well at 74, if I make it that far.

- I find most of the between inning entertainment/distractions annoying. Except the bit where they show clips from big moments in Cardinals' history. I can watch Ozzie Smith hit that home run off Niedenfuer in the '85 NLCS all day.

- When trying to get out of St. Louis, we were held up when a group of at least 8-10 teens on 4-wheelers tore through the intersection as the light was changing. I'm used to seeing people drive those on the road out in the boonies, not so much in the city.

- The remainder of the drive home was uneventful, and we got back a little before midnight to a bunch of dogs eager to be let outside. Aren't they always?