Great night at the ballpark. Finally, I'm sitting in my seat at a night game in short sleeves and no jacket. It took us this long to get good weather. The place is packed, too (34,719, second largest this season). The Draw? The Braves. It's cross-pollination time and this is their first visit to the South Side.
The new marketing director is slowly making his changes - the player introductions are getting longer and bigger, there's a group of people that come out between innings (OK, just one inning) and slingshot T-shirts into the crowd (Very Bulls-like - after all that's where the marketing guy is from).
Esteban Loaiza got roughed-up for 6 runs and 2 homeruns. Nobody could figure out the strike zone of home plate umpire Gerry Davis. Pitches directly over the center of the plate weren't getting called. Eventually, in the 6th, we see Davis yelling into the Sox dugout. Ozzie emerged and put his hand out as if to say, "hey, I'm coming out here to discuss, not argue." Well, that lasted about 30 seconds and Ozzie got tossed. That set him off and he started yelling for at least 3 minutes. We were all wondering if the umpire understood a single word Ozzie said in his tirade... Welcome to management, Ozzie - you just got your first ejection...
It was a battle, where the Sox scored in every inning except the 1st. Carlos Lee extended is hitting streak to 26 games, going 3-5. Frank Thomas, who actually played 1st base in anticipation of National League parks during interleague play, had two homeruns in the game, adding more fuel to the "statistically, he hits better when he actually plays a position during the game instead of DH" debate.
Speaking of debates, we were smack dab in the middle of another one - who was going to close? There was only a 2 run lead (which has proved to be not enough is some situations - thank you, Billy Koch). The answer was Shingo Takatsu, who threw 7 pitches, 6 for strikes to retire the side in the 9th, while the crowd the whole time was on their feet chanting "Shin-go! Shin-go! Shin-go!" He's got a 1.16 ERA now. Just let the guy close already, will ya? He's the Japanese all-time saves leader, don't you think he can do this?
(Boxscore)
2005- Broadcast
2003- Amazing Race 4 - Episode 3
2002- Hijacked
- All the same
- The difference between "thermos" and "Thermos™"
- Chinese lunch fortune?