I have a while between flights here in Vegas so I’ll put up an early weekend thread. It figures I’d be the one who gets a flight with a soccer team: “Reno 1868 FC” on the Reno to Vegas leg. I think that’s some AAA-equivalent league below MLS; they play in the Reno Aces ballpark.
Nothing says AAA like a 6:30 a.m. commercial flight; that’s life in the Pacific Coast League as well. At the major league level, your Oakland Athletics travel on charters at much more civilized hours. Their flight from Southern California to Texas arrived in Dallas at 5:02 a.m.
Weather for the Arlington series looks about as expected. I was hoping to catch a last gasp of spring and it’s not that but not quite the intolerable heat of summer either. Forecast highs are 85°F today and 91°F tomorrow with no chance of rain. Sunday it’s up to 94°F and with a slight chance of afternoon thunderstorms comes some humidity as well.
Ken is apparently burning all his vacation days early this year. It’s Vince and “Uncle Townie” on radio for this series and the following one in St. Petersburg.
Tonight at 5:05: Anderson vs. Lance Lynn
Saturday Game 1 at 11:05: Blackburn vs. LHP Joe Palumbo. This is a battle of 26th-man callups; Palumbo will be making his MLB debut and in fact has never pitched in AAA, as they’re calling him across town from AA Frisco.
Saturday Game 2 at 6:05: Bassitt vs. Adrian Sampson. There’s a pregame ceremony for the retirement of Adrian Beltre’s #29. I’m looking forward to that ceremony but I hope it isn’t the highlight of the weekend.
Sunday at 12:05: Montas vs. Drew Smyly
Barbecue and mmm mmm mmm Chicken Fried Steak are highly likely to offset any weight-reducing effect of the heat. Let’s go Oakland!
Deep Ellum IPA 7.0 ABV $10.50 16 oz. :-/
Oh yeah, a few of those in the Texas heat and you’ll sleep well
tonightby the 5th inningIt’s hot but not oppressive. Don’t think I’ll do IPAs for the day games though.
I hope you don’t end up with the Deep Ellum blues.
Not much smoke, lots of mirrors though from Brett so far. He’s getting outs I guess.
Jurk store is over the line. Did not realize that.
townsend was not as bad ass I thought. not good. terrible voice, but he was ok with general action, not great with fast moving complicated things. peppered hot takes were not overly oppressive
I will say this in his favor: He makes me appreciate Vince.
Vince/Fosse/Townie together are really hard to stomach.
fortunately I missed most of it, although I was listening in 8th before I took a phone call after ramon worked the count to 2-2
Yes, vince is light years ahead of him.
My wish is Vince to TV, hire anyone else.
As a TV watcher I am not in favor of this. Though I could get behind it if the Fire TV I had gave me the option of TV video but radio audio-which seems like it should be the easiest slam dunk ever.
happy to see brett come back for the bottom of the order
now is the time for a double play
you are fucking kidding me, brett. that was Jeff Mathis you just walked
Wow was that a high wire act
there is more hire wireness to come!
No shit!!
Semien liking 5 a.m. arrivals, Khris and Chapman not so much.
Have a night Marcus!
This Hunter Pence over the knee look is garbage.
No Ray, Treinen does not pitch better the more work he gets.
THROW A FCKIN STRIKE!
Never a doubt.
can we trade the washington nations version of this guy for doolittle?
If that was the last Warriors game in Oakland….it was kind of like a lot of their games in Oakland.
Semien is at 2.6 WAR with 99 games to go, third best among AL shortstops.
Extend that man.
I fortified for the doubleheader by checking CFS off the list. I don’t take pictures of food but man you should have seen this thing. A true guilty pleasure; a lot of kids in the Sudan and Somalia don’t get this many calories in a month.
I’ll work off a little of it by walking back and forth to the ballpark for both games, about a mile each way. Arlington has had a major league ballpark either on that site or adjacent for nearly 50 years so a few clusters of hotels have popped up to serve that and Six Flags, and now Jerry World. But somehow the sidewalks only extend from the ballpark as far as the Rangers’ outer parking lots. To walk all the way back to the hotel involves trudging through grass adjacent to the street. There’s not even a bike lane, just the traffic lane, immediate curb and gutter and then grass. Some of us Yanks who bring our money here do think one mile can be walked and not driven.
There’s some kind of anti-sidewalk ethos in the South and West that I’ve never understood.
to be fair, for 99.8% of the day, sidewalks at left fallow in places like orange county
No one wants to walk in such oppressive heat so why bother building the ability to do that.
if my kids scrimmage gets cancelled, it might be a good road trip
Our draftee Tyler Baum is pitching for the Tar Heels now on espn2, faced minimum through two innings, Heels lead Auburn 3-0.
digital camouflage hats in the tournament? uhg
You jinxed him.
that sound, tho. its ugly
Gabe Gross sighting.
Six innings, two earned runs allowed on one bad pitch to a guy who had just fouled off a bunch of two strike pitches to stay alive.
Maybe they should’ve let Baum throw 200 pitches instead of that bullpen implosion.
Well, the good news is that Baum won’t be at risk of arm injury from overuse in the CWS, as Carolina allowed 13 innings in the top of the 1st in their elimination game this morning.
They really skimped on the writer and host budget the women’s world cup. they are dreadful in the studio.
wait, the only white woman on the south african team is the captain?
Plenty of Lucroy 25 Rangers jerseys at the clearance tent on the concourse, available in red, white or blue.
What a waste to tear this whole building down. I’d say get rid of everything in the outfield, chop it up and ship it to Oakland and build some outfield bleachers. But they had a lot of space to work with and even without the outfield structures I think the footprint would be too big for Howard Terminal.
As I’ve said before the Ballpark at Arlington has always looked like it was made from spare pieces from a half-dozen classic ballpark model kits, so your idea could work!
The main building from the RF foul pole clockwise to left-center is excellent. Huge concourses including a very large shaded one behind the third base line, sort of a covered picnic area, for relief from the sun. Also the steep pitch of the lower level stands eliminates heads problems and puts more seats closer to home plate. Although tonight I was in the upper deck and it was a blimp view.
One big problem for day games is that the orientation is wrong with home plate in the northwest corner. That puts the entire third base side in the sun with no relief whatsoever. At the Coliseum the plate is in the southwest corner so both third and first base sides get some shade as the day progresses. There are fewer seats in the outfield so that’s what should be fully exposed. I peeked through the wire fence into the new place and the plate is correctly in the southwest over there but the roof structure will create most of the shadows anyway.
I think they wanted to fully enclose the current park in an attempt to reduce the wind issues they had at the low-slung expanded minor league park they used to play in. It’s Texas, there’s no avoiding wind at an open-air stadium, and the architecture in those parts of the park is just silly-looking. Good riddance to that, but a wrecking ball could have dealt with that years ago.
Texas Live! looks better than I expected. Some decent-looking bar and grill type restaurants along with fast food (“Guy Fieri’s Taco Joint” anyone?) and alcohol options all over the place with sports on Jumbotron-size screens in the center hangout area. Just like the Coliseum, nothing has ever happened organically in the ballpark “neighborhood” which is pretty much all office/industrial park and parking lots, so that development looks like a smart way to bring people to spend money early or keep them late. It’s attached to the new ballpark and AT&T Stadium is a short walk from there.
It’s an interesting placemaking experiment, seemingly counter to the current wisdom (for MLB at least) that you need to be downtown adjacent.
So far the Belmont main track seems to be favoring early speed and horses near the pace, nobody coming up fast from back of the pack.
Paul Blackburn has not magically developed an out pitch.
Soaker may need to find some shade a take a siesta at some point during this game.
Long enough day without this crap Blackburn.
And Aaron Brooks gets up in the 1st inning…
It’s always been obvious that Blackburn isn’t good enough. Why are we still doing this.
We have Blackburn, Brooks. They have AA starter and awful bullpen. 5 hours, 15-14.
Expecting 5 visits to water fountain to refill water bottle, 0 trips to urinal.
3 full games, lots of water consumed plus a couple beers and I have yet to see the inside of a Globe Life Park men’s room.
Piss clear. my friend, piss clear.
Mason jar forced me in. Eye level advertising is owned by LowTCenter.com.
Today looks particularly delightful. The last couple days the humidity hasn’t been very noticeable.
(gets beer, sits down, listens to PA announcer read the Severe Thunderstorm Warning)
The huge concourses afford plenty of shelter which was likely a part of the plan.
I love the concourses at that stadium. All that space was wonderful.
I assume Bob is content to let Blackburn throw 200 pitches today if he can hold the Rangers under 6 runs.
5 runs allowed on 87 pitches so still going!
Belmont picks. I like #10 Tacitus, seems like the perfect horse for the long 1.5 mile Belmont grind, and he ran a sneaky good 4th (elevated to 3rd on the DQ) in the KYD. But at 9/5 the value is suspect. The only favorites who’ve won the Belmont in recent years have been the truly great American Pharoah and Justify; Tacitus ain’t that. 2nd fave War of Will looked great in the Preakness, but he had a perfect trip, and he’s the only horse to go all three legs of the Triple Crown in 6 weeks, so I’m looking elsewhere for risk/reward choices.
$5 to Win on #4 Tax.
$5 to Win on #6 Spinoff
$2 Exacta Box 4-6-10, = $12
$1 Trifecta 10/4,6/4,6,7 (Sir Winston), 8 (Intrepid Heart), = $6.
Total ticket $28.
Dang, Tax and Spinoff both looked strong until the final turn, two furlongs too long, oh well. Nurse Upgrade-in-law hit the $2 exacta for a nice $96 return.
Oof, gonna be a long day for Phegley now.
Oh wow. Can we get another catcher in time for Game 2?
Midland is at home, about 5 hours away, so just barely. Are you allowed to make a roster move in between games now, or is the 26th man instead of that?
Fosse is just upstairs.
The baseball equivalent of putting the goalie pads on the equipment manager.
Added benefit of getting him out of the booth.
Tools of ignorance indeed.
Apparently yes; Beau Taylor en route to park and expected to be in uniform before game is over.
You all enjoy your afternoon. Aaron Brooks and I will mop up here. See you tonight!
I would say that Robbie Grossman should be ready to take the mound, but he’s probably our emergency catcher also.
Chapman having a lousy 24 hours at the plate.
Even Tommy Lasorda, here and still alive (barely) gets cheers… quite a few boos for Jon Daniels though.
Bassitt’s pace could be a little perkier. Not ideal for a Game 2. At least that inning was 1-2-3. Runners on, boy is he slow.
Also slow: Canha’s home run trot.
It looked on the replay like Sampson was already yelling at him (or at least staring him down) for being slow getting out of the box, so he was probably in no hurry after that.
If Sampson doesn’t like guys admiring home runs, maybe he shouldn’t give up admirable home runs.
It’s kinda funny that square-seeming Canha is the A’s designated showboater/shit-stirrer.
Jeff Mathis? Again?
2 of his 4 RBI this year (100+ PA) against Oakland.
Odor’s delay tactics are surely annoying but it’s hard to take Glen’s whines about them seriously when Bassitt is working slower than a Teamster on overtime.
That was Bob trying to milk 6 innings out of Bassitt when he was clearly done.
Also Bassitt looks like he hasn’t drunk water or used sunscreen all day.
With all the Beltre recognition tonight… not a word from the local NFL team. They could have had a video from a player or something.
They had a lot of tribute videos, most during the ceremony but some in-game as well. I mentioned that because Dirk Nowitzki not only did one of the videos but was there in person. Somebody like Emmitt Smith or Troy Aikman doing 30 seconds would have been nice. Usually nobody here notices the Rangers once the Cowboys season starts so maybe the Rangers didn’t want it.
Grossman should take the hint after his ugly gray sneakers got hit.
All right guys, make my day.
Khris pretty much summed up the A’s day at the end.
And the bees made honey in the A’s heads.
I’m seeing Andrus as Delilah to Beltre’s Samson.
Maybe he can climb up this list.
The egghead pitched pretty well!
Tarp pulled, game will be delayed. With the state of the A’s pitching that’s much better than Montas pitching 2 innings and then getting a 2-hour delay.
As I typed that it got a LOT darker, and oh man here’s the wind
As of now it looks like the nasty stuff is just passing to the east and south of the ballpark:
https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/arlington-tx/76010/weather-radar/331134
I was thinking tornado for a few minutes there but we’re good to go now.
3:10 first pitch. They play classic stripper music as the grounds crew takes off the tarp.
The large Deep Ellum comes in a 24 oz (plastic) Mason jar…
It’s still warm but not drenchingly hot the way it was before that storm blew through. Nobody would appreciate that more than Phegley.
Apparently Bob offered him the day off and Phegs said nah, I’d rather hit more.
Some guys were doing the OVER-RATED chant at Khris which seemed dangerous based on history in this place. Anyway his teammates picked him up.
Ha!
LOL SHUT UP
Soaker, not too late to try the two-foot taco they showed on TV.
@GM Thanks for suggestion but might spoil dinner plan which is Fred’s Texas Cafe in Fort Worth.
Montas so far with an almost ace-like performance when they needed it. I still don’t like that quick pitch though.
Hm, I was hoping to get more than 1 inning from Petit and save some of the other relievers.
they should take chapman out. let him rest more
This Lou Im not fond of. Get the 2018 model back.
Sour Lou
I miss the occasional fake to 3rd throw to 1st.
Oh great, Buchter now.
How about just a look at third?
Yeah it’s too fucking hot today for another wild alcoholic nightmare.
Sucks that the A’s gave it up but I’m glad somebody finally took advantage of that.
Phegs with the wheels.
I miss having a bullpen that could protect a 5-run lead.
Nice of the New Team Dynamite to give Soaker a BP test.
Catch the phegging ball
Oh man that was hard to watch.
The Four-Game Arlington Series Merit Badge is the hardest of all to earn.
Fortunately Fort Worth is far enough to drive that I can’t get bombed.
Le Croix de Caliente? The Hardware de Hades?
There will be plenty of opportunities to return. The new park can’t possibly give us the alcoholic dreams this one has (can it?). Also Cal is here in September in both 2021 (TCU) and 2022 (U. of North Texas in Denton which is a fringe suburb) and with scheduling luck one of those might sync with the A’s. Hotel, food, gas (~$2.40/gal), it’s a cheap trip…”with good reason” you might say.
2/3 in Anaheim, and a split in Texas. Could have been worse, but seems like it should have been better.
Games against Tampa in the dome could be even uglier.
i hated those angel games
whats with the night game travelling east more than 500 miles then another game?
The Angels are assholes, that’s what.
Never understood that. If someone hits the absolute shit of the wall, you don’t have any right to complain that they watch it. You threw it, grow up.
Goddamnit St Louis you better fucking finish off Boston tonight.
“You’re gonna get some hop-ons…”
Soaker may yet be joining the Tampa leg of the trip.
Heh, no thanks, I did that one a couple years ago. Had I known this though I could have zipped over to the ballpark and offered rides to dinner in Fort Worth. Actually they’re probably drinking at Texas Live! right now.
Their alternate plane landed in St. Pete at 2:34 a.m., a huge improvement over the 5 a.m. here. And there’s no doubleheader tomorrow! What a crappy travel schedule on this trip though.
I’ve learned not to put myself in a position where the scheduling creates any issues. Flight out of Dallas isn’t until 11:40 a.m.
That storm didn’t drop tornadoes but there was a lot of damage. Several traffic signals still out on the way to Love Field. Somebody was killed when a construction crane blew over (what a way to die). Arlington just got the edge of the storm.
Maybe I’m the asshole, but I’m tired of hearing about David Ortiz already.
Thanks, and go As.
you are not. he was an asshole in his playing days, he is probably still an asshole.
its too bad he got shot. that’s terrible
Huh, I’m more inclined than most to assume Boston players are jerks but this seems unduly harsh.
Maybe.
I bristle at the reverence at the newly dead, or in this case wounded, but he seemed like a dick. every call that went against him was argued, every failure was met with disbelief.
He bought his “Big Papi”ness after teh red sox started winning and he turned out to be good.
I think the love of him by everyone gets to me, it seems fake given what I perceived as his payer persona.
I just never saw that from him, seemed genuinely happy on the field. The Boston reverence, sure, that can go down in a sinking duck boat.
The internet seems like it’s been scrubbed of any detail, but I vividly remember stories about Ortiz in the DR having people beaten to within inches of their life and hospitalized at clubs, etc.
Thanks, and go As.
uptown updates.
sadly the mooch is off the moxy project. though the moxy project has broken ground.
uptown station (formerly sears, formerly über target) is going to be taken over by square inc. and the joke’s on them because that building isn’t even a parallelogram.
people are already moving in where i very clearly remember the parking lot next door. $2.6K/mo. for 400sq/ft anyone? available now!
no sense pointing out all the individual new buildings. amazing how quickly they go up. street view on 26th and valdez (from february) is no reflection of what it actually looks like now.
except maybe it does show a glimpse of the largest grown (past tense) new community. the hard hat bros in millin’ around stance. we’ll miss them, as they’re already slowly being replaced by very young people in polos embroidered with the logos of mixt and dosa (by dosa).
mixt is my personal most hated. they took over la rondalla, If it was a just a salad place ok, but they went with that stupid name
The name makes me almost as mad as the prices do.
further details on the pure kleptocracy of opportunity zones, like what that hotel is taking advantage of, and how javanka are becoming parking lot barons in baltimore.
If the Warriors somehow pull out Game 6, KD bat day followed by an Oracle watch-party sendoff for Game 7 wouldn’t be a terrible way to spend Father’s Day.
I’m happy the fans get one more game at Oracle. And I enjoyed last night’s game a lot. But based on Games 1-4 sans Durant, the W’s are still in big trouble. I think Toronto wins comfortably on Thursday.
I agree with this take. The Raptors have clearly been the better team throughout the series, and they are just extremely well built both physically and intellectually to stop the no-Durant Warriors from going on their patented runs. Also, the Warriors have been a fairly bad home team this season. Also, most of the Warriors are hobbling at this point.
However, as last night showed yet again, the Curry-Thompson-Green monster is insanely hard to kill, so I won’t assume anything.
hashtag hot take or whatever, but if Looney is out they’re really screwed.
Thanks, and go As.
Seems like whatever they shoot him up with before each game lets him play for a half and then it wears off and he can’t raise his arms anymore.
i don’t know about unwritten rules, but the celebration after goal 9 was unseemly
They scored two more goals in the four minutes since you posted this.
they score two goals in the 4 minutes after your comment
the goals didn’t baother me, just rapino’s celebration after her goal
I didn’t see her celebration, so I don’t have a Take on it.
I am kind of irritated by the Takes I am seeing that people wouldn’t be criticizing a men’s team for celebrating wildly when winning by a baker’s dozen. They absolutely would be.
Pugh’s celebration was for her first WC goal. that aint no big deal, Morgan counted her goals on her fingers but otherwise ran back, Rapinoe scored the 9th or 10th goal and slid towards the technical area and kicked he leg up and back from the knee a few times.
She scored her first WC goal in 2011. That is the only thing that really bothered me. Rapinoe was a little over the top on the other goals, but not too bad, the other women didn’t do so badly.
But yes, trying to shut down the complaints straw MANning the argument that the boys wouldn’t be unwritten ruled is dumb.
It’s the FKing world cup. I don’t care if Thaliand is ranked #8,601 or whatever. They’re in the World Cup.
heaven forbid something happens and any one of those ladies doesn’t get to play ever again. Damn right I’m gonna be celebrating EVERY SINGLE TIME I score a goal in the biggest competition in the sport.
Thanks, and go As.
If you have been on the top national team for a decade and are currently their captain, and you did that dance you go for it.
I’ll say its unseemly on a blog somewhere, though. And I would sleep like a baby and forget it tomorrow.
Honestly the controversy is just as bad as the celebration, and unfortunately its being conflated with the “running up the score” which makes the whole conversation tiresome.
Like I said, most of the rest of the celebrations were mostly fine. I love the celebrations usually. But as you will notice in my contemporaneous comment, it was specifically that Rapinoe slide and leg kick that I thought was out of place enough to comment on.
I mean since we are here on the random blog I will say that she was basically in front of her own bench by the time she did that… whatever the celebration was.
I would not be surprised at all to find that it was some weird ass inside joke with one of the subs that she eats lunch with or whatever.
Thanks, and go As.
i agree with this