ashbury

I feel like posting a little bit on my trip to Phoenix for the Arizona Fall League.
 
I arrived Thursday and was picked up at the airport by ashburydavid. Nice that he could take a day off from work to join his dad for a long weekend of baseball watching. Salt River, the team all the Twins prospects are on, had played earlier in the day, so we contented ourselves watching the evening game in Scottsdale. You can get good seats at the AFL:
 

 
The game itself between Scottsdale and Peoria was very crisply played. It was a 1-0 pitchers duel through 7 innings, before Peoria scored 3 more, and although the home team notched a couple on a ninth inning homer by first baseman Hall, this 4-2 outcome was completed in slightly more than two hours. Scorpions left fielder Trammell made a pair of very fine catches that might have kept the final score from being more lopsided. We had good luck in being seated near a few very talkative fans who kept us company during the game.
 
Friday we made our way over to Surprise Stadium for a Salt River Rafters game against the host Saguaros. By the luck of the draw I've been there for several AFL games over the years, and I think it's a nice one:
 

 
Travis Blankenhorn was the only Twins prospect who played today. He went 1 for 4 plus a walk, scoring two runs. Here he is, on deck - he sees his shadow, so six more weeks of AFL?
 

 
Blankenhorn made a nice defensive play in the sixth inning with an unassisted putout on a grounder before throwing to first to complete a DP. And here is his home run trot - coming around to score after his third-inning walk, when Sam Hilliard hit a homer, but it's still a trot. He also scored in the top of the sixth on a sac fly, after singling and then moving up a base at a time. He caught the pop fly that ended the 8-3 victory in 7 innings (scheduled as such, to avoid tiring the pitching staffs in advance of the Fall Stars Game coming up on Saturday.)
 

 
This is Salt River manager Tommy Watkins after making a pitching change.
 

 
After the game, Tommy caught us unawares, by noticing my son and me with Twins or Twins Cities related gear (me with my St Paul Saints shirt, ashburydavid with his Rochester Red Wings shirt and his TC Twins hat), seated down low as we were. He made a point of asking where we were from. Just a 30 second interaction, but it's clear why Tommy gets such favorable reviews from all who meet him - he is an outgoing guy, plain and simple.
 
Tomorrow we go back to Surprise for the aforementioned Fall Stars Game.

I feel like posting a little bit on my trip to Phoenix for the Arizona Fall League.
 
I arrived Thursday and was picked up at the airport by ashburydavid. Nice that he could take a day off from work to join his dad for a long weekend of baseball watching. Salt River, the team all the Twins prospects are on, had played earlier in the day, so we contented ourselves watching the evening game in Scottsdale. You can get good seats at the AFL:
 

 
The game itself between Scottsdale and Peoria was very crisply played. It was a 1-0 pitchers duel through 7 innings, before Peoria scored 3 more, and although the home team notched a couple on a ninth inning homer by first baseman Hall, this 4-2 outcome was completed in slightly more than two hours. Scorpions left fielder Trammell made a pair of very fine catches that might have kept the final score from being more lopsided. We had good luck in being seated near a few very talkative fans who kept us company during the game.
 
Friday we made our way over to Surprise Stadium for a Salt River Rafters game against the host Saguaros. By the luck of the draw I've been there for several AFL games over the years, and I think it's a nice one:
 

 
Travis Blankenhorn was the only Twins prospect who played today. He went 1 for 4 plus a walk, scoring two runs. Here he is, on deck - he sees his shadow, so six more weeks of AFL?
 

 
Blankenhorn made a nice defensive play in the sixth inning with an unassisted putout on a grounder before throwing to first to complete a DP. And here is his home run trot - coming around to score after his third-inning walk, when Sam Hilliard hit a homer, but it's still a trot. He also scored in the top of the sixth on a sac fly, after singling and then moving up a base at a time. He caught the pop fly that ended the 8-3 victory in 7 innings (scheduled as such, to avoid tiring the pitching staffs in advance of the Fall Stars Game coming up on Saturday.)
 

 
This is Salt River manager Tommy Watkins after making a pitching change.
 

 
After the game, Tommy caught us unawares, by noticing my son and me with Twins or Twins Cities related gear (me with my St Paul Saints shirt, ashburydavid with his Rochester Red Wings shirt and his TC Twins hat), seated down low as we were. He made a point of asking where we were from. Just a 30 second interaction, but it's clear why Tommy gets such favorable reviews from all who meet him - he is an outgoing guy, plain and simple.
 
Tomorrow we go back to Surprise for the aforementioned Fall Stars Game.

I feel like posting a little bit on my trip to Phoenix for the Arizona Fall League.
 
I arrived Thursday and was picked up at the airport by ashburydavid. Nice that he could take a day off from work to join his dad for a long weekend of baseball watching. Salt River, the team all the Twins prospects are on, had played earlier in the day, so we contented ourselves watching the evening game in Scottsdale. You can get good seats at the AFL:
 

 
The game itself between Scottsdale and Peoria was very crisply played. It was a 1-0 pitchers duel through 7 innings, before Peoria scored 3 more, and although the home team notched a couple on a ninth inning homer by first baseman Hall, this 4-2 outcome was completed in slightly more than two hours. Scorpions left fielder Trammell made a pair of very fine catches that might have kept the final score from being more lopsided. We had good luck in being seated near a few very talkative fans who kept us company during the game.
 
Friday we made our way over to Surprise Stadium for a Salt River Rafters game against the host Saguaros. By the luck of the draw I've been there for several AFL games over the years, and I think it's a nice one:
 

 
Travis Blankenhorn was the only Twins prospect who played today. He went 1 for 4 plus a walk, scoring two runs. Here he is, on deck - he sees his shadow, so six more weeks of AFL?
 

 
Blankenhorn made a nice defensive play in the sixth inning with an unassisted putout on a grounder before throwing to first to complete a DP. And here is his home run trot - coming around to score after his third-inning walk, when Sam Hilliard hit a homer, but it's still a trot. He also scored in the top of the sixth on a sac fly, after singling and then moving up a base at a time. He caught the pop fly that ended the 8-3 victory in 7 innings (scheduled as such, to avoid tiring the pitching staffs in advance of the Fall Stars Game coming up on Saturday.)
 

 
This is Salt River manager Tommy Watkins after making a pitching change.
 

 
After the game, Tommy caught us unawares, by noticing my son and me with Twins or Twins Cities related gear (me with my St Paul Saints shirt, ashburydavid with his Rochester Red Wings shirt and his TC Twins hat), seated down low as we were. He made a point of asking where we were from. Just a 30 second interaction, but it's clear why Tommy gets such favorable reviews from all who meet him - he is an outgoing guy, plain and simple.
 
Tomorrow we go back to Surprise for the aforementioned Fall Stars Game.

The Red Sox won the World Series on the road, so my tentative plan to be a Cheapskate and lurk the Fenway environs in anticipation of a fourth win proved impractical. Next best thing was to pencil in Wednesday the 31st, when a parade in the team's honor was scheduled.
 
Large crowds were anticipated for the 11:00 start, so again I relied on public transportation. And again I was concerned that the commuter train might already be full before it pulled into my station, but again it was easy-peasy. A rare unscheduled train for the event, and plenty of room. (Not so, on the ride home. Wisely, I boarded at Back Bay, one stop before Yawkey/Fenway, where tons of people got on and filled the train up.)
 
I'm not good at guessing crowd sizes, but I'll go with 200,000. If someone in authority tells me it was 50,000, I'll think that was low but go with it. If they tell me it's 1 million, I'll think, wow, I had no idea. Bottom line, though, there was just a huge crowd lining the entire parade route. I figured I'd go all the way into South Station (most everyone on my train skipped Fenway and got off at Back Bay) and then work my way back toward Fenway, and pick a reasonably uncrowded spot to wait for the parade. That didn't work - wall to wall people at the Common and beyond, so I circled back by side streets and met up with the parade at Back Bay, near the train stop I wanted anyway. I bailed out perhaps a few minutes early, to catch the noon train.
 
I can't say I'm thrilled with any of the photos I took, but here are a couple. This is on Tremont Street, near the end of the parade route, probably an hour before the Duck Boat vehicles would arrive:
 

 
It was kind of luck-of-the-draw which side of the vehicle each given player was waving from, and even with names on the sides I'm still not sure who was who. Is Eduardo Nunez wearing glasses?
 

 
This one is pretty definitely David Price, unless someone tells me it isn't.
 

 
I have a picture of confetti but it is wimpy. To get an awesome photo, I guess you had to be up high, so I am stealing this photo from the Boston Globe:
 

 
Season over. I am ready for the Arizona Fall League.

The Red Sox won the World Series on the road, so my tentative plan to be a Cheapskate and lurk the Fenway environs in anticipation of a fourth win proved impractical. Next best thing was to pencil in Wednesday the 31st, when a parade in the team's honor was scheduled.
 
Large crowds were anticipated for the 11:00 start, so again I relied on public transportation. And again I was concerned that the commuter train might already be full before it pulled into my station, but again it was easy-peasy. A rare unscheduled train for the event, and plenty of room. (Not so, on the ride home. Wisely, I boarded at Back Bay, one stop before Yawkey/Fenway, where tons of people got on and filled the train up.)
 
I'm not good at guessing crowd sizes, but I'll go with 200,000. If someone in authority tells me it was 50,000, I'll think that was low but go with it. If they tell me it's 1 million, I'll think, wow, I had no idea. Bottom line, though, there was just a huge crowd lining the entire parade route. I figured I'd go all the way into South Station (most everyone on my train skipped Fenway and got off at Back Bay) and then work my way back toward Fenway, and pick a reasonably uncrowded spot to wait for the parade. That didn't work - wall to wall people at the Common and beyond, so I circled back by side streets and met up with the parade at Back Bay, near the train stop I wanted anyway. I bailed out perhaps a few minutes early, to catch the noon train.
 
I can't say I'm thrilled with any of the photos I took, but here are a couple. This is on Tremont Street, near the end of the parade route, probably an hour before the Duck Boat vehicles would arrive:
 

 
It was kind of luck-of-the-draw which side of the vehicle each given player was waving from, and even with names on the sides I'm still not sure who was who. Is Eduardo Nunez wearing glasses?
 

 
This one is pretty definitely David Price, unless someone tells me it isn't.
 

 
I have a picture of confetti but it is wimpy. To get an awesome photo, I guess you had to be up high, so I am stealing this photo from the Boston Globe:
 

 
Season over. I am ready for the Arizona Fall League.

The Red Sox won the World Series on the road, so my tentative plan to be a Cheapskate and lurk the Fenway environs in anticipation of a fourth win proved impractical. Next best thing was to pencil in Wednesday the 31st, when a parade in the team's honor was scheduled.
 
Large crowds were anticipated for the 11:00 start, so again I relied on public transportation. And again I was concerned that the commuter train might already be full before it pulled into my station, but again it was easy-peasy. A rare unscheduled train for the event, and plenty of room. (Not so, on the ride home. Wisely, I boarded at Back Bay, one stop before Yawkey/Fenway, where tons of people got on and filled the train up.)
 
I'm not good at guessing crowd sizes, but I'll go with 200,000. If someone in authority tells me it was 50,000, I'll think that was low but go with it. If they tell me it's 1 million, I'll think, wow, I had no idea. Bottom line, though, there was just a huge crowd lining the entire parade route. I figured I'd go all the way into South Station (most everyone on my train skipped Fenway and got off at Back Bay) and then work my way back toward Fenway, and pick a reasonably uncrowded spot to wait for the parade. That didn't work - wall to wall people at the Common and beyond, so I circled back by side streets and met up with the parade at Back Bay, near the train stop I wanted anyway. I bailed out perhaps a few minutes early, to catch the noon train.
 
I can't say I'm thrilled with any of the photos I took, but here are a couple. This is on Tremont Street, near the end of the parade route, probably an hour before the Duck Boat vehicles would arrive:
 

 
It was kind of luck-of-the-draw which side of the vehicle each given player was waving from, and even with names on the sides I'm still not sure who was who. Is Eduardo Nunez wearing glasses?
 

 
This one is pretty definitely David Price, unless someone tells me it isn't.
 

 
I have a picture of confetti but it is wimpy. To get an awesome photo, I guess you had to be up high, so I am stealing this photo from the Boston Globe:
 

 
Season over. I am ready for the Arizona Fall League.

I'm a five-minute walk away from the east-west commuter train that also stops at Fenway Park. So with Game 1 of the World Series being held at Fenway, Tuesday night, despite not being a diehard Red Sox fan and despite the forecast of iffy weather I felt like I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the logistics.
 
The title for this blog entry is deceptive because I didn't actually "attend" the game. I didn't have tickets, and of course no way was I going to pay scalper prices. But I thought I'd enjoy the atmosphere outside the ballpark. It's like Wrigley, and maybe a few others, with thriving neighborhoods that are worth enjoying even when the home team isn't playing.
 
I decided to arrive early, in part because I wasn't sure whether the train might already be packed with fans from further out, if I left nearer to game time. My train wasn't too bad, but they only come once an hour, and who knows what the next one was like. So, at 5:15 I arrived at Yawkey station (still so-named even though nearby Yawkey Way has been renamed back to Jersey Street).
 

 
David Ortiz Drive is a short block leading to Brookline Avenue which is one of the bordering streets for the ballpark. It has uniform-number monuments to some of their greats. Here you see the ones for Boggs and Ortiz, and to the left you can see the obscured number for Pedro (45).
 

 
My general plan was to wander around, until game time (8:10 or so), and then take the next train back home assuming things had quieted down outside the park. I was prepared to stay later, if some kind of awesomeness broke out. The area was already busy with people milling around. Cars were double-parked in several places, apparently with official blessing, and the parking lots were advertising a pretty consistent $60 fee. The commuter rail station had a sign stating that the last train of the night would be held until 1:00 am, more than an hour later than its normal schedule; since the game lasted until about midnight, that wasn't really overkill.
 
I took a long way around, heading south on Brookline and then heading back up on Van Ness.
 

 
Boston isn't really laid out on a grid and you can get disoriented pretty easily, but I've learned my way around Fenway by now. I reached the intersection with Jersey Street where several street vendors are set up and some of the entry gates to the ballpark are. That part of Jersey Street is actually part of the team's venue - the metal detectors and turnstiles are outdoors and the street is just a ballpark concourse on game day - which is why I couldn't use Jersey as part of my circuit.
 

 

 
I kept walking, to Ipswich Street and then Landsdowne Street. It all was pretty busy - here is Landsdowne at its junction with Brookline, basically the end of my circuit. All the bars or restaurants I would have considered trying had huge lines of people waiting to get in, to little surprise.
 

 
Security was everywhere you looked. Dogs sniffed the trunks of cars entering the parking lot within Fenway Park itself, SWAT team humvees were stationed in various places, heavy city trucks were eventually parked to block key intersections, and of course you were never out of sight of police officers (uniformed and I'm sure plainclothes).
 

 

 

 
There also was the expected swarm of media vehicles.
 

 
I mentioned not being willing to pay scalper's prices, but actually I don't think I had an opportunity. There were plenty of scalpers, but they were always asking if I had tickets to sell, not if I wanted to buy. I think I had seen $400 for standing room tickets, on StubHub. Whatever few tickets changed hands on the street at game time were apparently already spoken for. I saw a couple of people who seemed more normal and less scuzzy than the typical scalper, with signs begging for cheap tickets because they were diehard Sox fans or whatever, but I have little doubt that they would have immediately forgotten their loyalty to the team and would have turned a quick profit had someone been suckered in by their pleas.
 
It wasn't raining when I arrived, but around sundown there started to be drizzle, and pretty soon it rained hard and there was significant lightning a mile or two away. I had brought an umbrella and was walking in light hiking boots, but those who had decided to rely on their hooded jackets decided to cram into the already crowded bars and restaurants, or else (if they had tickets) make their way into the ballpark, because the streets were suddenly pretty sparse of pedestrians. I walked the perimeter of the ballpark again. For some reason I never get tired of photographing the Citgo sign.
 

 
Somewhere along the perimeter, I spotted a window into which you could see a makeshift Media Room.
 

 
Even aside from the rain, I have to say that the atmosphere somewhat disappointed me. I guess I was expecting something like a big block party. There was one guy playing makeshift drums on the bridge over I-90, and a couple of times I heard a "Let's Go Red Sox" chant or similar commotion from people lined up to get inside the park, but that's just like a normal game day. A couple of locations on my circuit had a very strong odor of weed, I think maybe from the broadcast media enclave behind a chain link fence within the Fenway Park premises. I believe the Mayor and the Police Commisioner had let it be known that no nonsense was going to be brooked, and maybe that accounts for what I saw on the streets. Certainly, I wasn't hoping for hooliganism, especially with the presence of a smattering of Dodger Blue jerseys and hats, and I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping for, but this was altogether too normal. So buttoned-down. I opted to cut my evening slightly short and take a train that departed shortly before first pitch.
 
Still, I'm glad I went. After sundown, the Prudential Building had their lights on to urge on the Sox to victory, and I think any baseball fan would have felt some excitement, Sox fan or not. Game 1 of the World Series, baby!
 

 

 

I'm a five-minute walk away from the east-west commuter train that also stops at Fenway Park. So with Game 1 of the World Series being held at Fenway, Tuesday night, despite not being a diehard Red Sox fan and despite the forecast of iffy weather I felt like I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the logistics.
 
The title for this blog entry is deceptive because I didn't actually "attend" the game. I didn't have tickets, and of course no way was I going to pay scalper prices. But I thought I'd enjoy the atmosphere outside the ballpark. It's like Wrigley, and maybe a few others, with thriving neighborhoods that are worth enjoying even when the home team isn't playing.
 
I decided to arrive early, in part because I wasn't sure whether the train might already be packed with fans from further out, if I left nearer to game time. My train wasn't too bad, but they only come once an hour, and who knows what the next one was like. So, at 5:15 I arrived at Yawkey station (still so-named even though nearby Yawkey Way has been renamed back to Jersey Street).
 

 
David Ortiz Drive is a short block leading to Brookline Avenue which is one of the bordering streets for the ballpark. It has uniform-number monuments to some of their greats. Here you see the ones for Boggs and Ortiz, and to the left you can see the obscured number for Pedro (45).
 

 
My general plan was to wander around, until game time (8:10 or so), and then take the next train back home assuming things had quieted down outside the park. I was prepared to stay later, if some kind of awesomeness broke out. The area was already busy with people milling around. Cars were double-parked in several places, apparently with official blessing, and the parking lots were advertising a pretty consistent $60 fee. The commuter rail station had a sign stating that the last train of the night would be held until 1:00 am, more than an hour later than its normal schedule; since the game lasted until about midnight, that wasn't really overkill.
 
I took a long way around, heading south on Brookline and then heading back up on Van Ness.
 

 
Boston isn't really laid out on a grid and you can get disoriented pretty easily, but I've learned my way around Fenway by now. I reached the intersection with Jersey Street where several street vendors are set up and some of the entry gates to the ballpark are. That part of Jersey Street is actually part of the team's venue - the metal detectors and turnstiles are outdoors and the street is just a ballpark concourse on game day - which is why I couldn't use Jersey as part of my circuit.
 

 

 
I kept walking, to Ipswich Street and then Landsdowne Street. It all was pretty busy - here is Landsdowne at its junction with Brookline, basically the end of my circuit. All the bars or restaurants I would have considered trying had huge lines of people waiting to get in, to little surprise.
 

 
Security was everywhere you looked. Dogs sniffed the trunks of cars entering the parking lot within Fenway Park itself, SWAT team humvees were stationed in various places, heavy city trucks were eventually parked to block key intersections, and of course you were never out of sight of police officers (uniformed and I'm sure plainclothes).
 

 

 

 
There also was the expected swarm of media vehicles.
 

 
I mentioned not being willing to pay scalper's prices, but actually I don't think I had an opportunity. There were plenty of scalpers, but they were always asking if I had tickets to sell, not if I wanted to buy. I think I had seen $400 for standing room tickets, on StubHub. Whatever few tickets changed hands on the street at game time were apparently already spoken for. I saw a couple of people who seemed more normal and less scuzzy than the typical scalper, with signs begging for cheap tickets because they were diehard Sox fans or whatever, but I have little doubt that they would have immediately forgotten their loyalty to the team and would have turned a quick profit had someone been suckered in by their pleas.
 
It wasn't raining when I arrived, but around sundown there started to be drizzle, and pretty soon it rained hard and there was significant lightning a mile or two away. I had brought an umbrella and was walking in light hiking boots, but those who had decided to rely on their hooded jackets decided to cram into the already crowded bars and restaurants, or else (if they had tickets) make their way into the ballpark, because the streets were suddenly pretty sparse of pedestrians. I walked the perimeter of the ballpark again. For some reason I never get tired of photographing the Citgo sign.
 

 
Somewhere along the perimeter, I spotted a window into which you could see a makeshift Media Room.
 

 
Even aside from the rain, I have to say that the atmosphere somewhat disappointed me. I guess I was expecting something like a big block party. There was one guy playing makeshift drums on the bridge over I-90, and a couple of times I heard a "Let's Go Red Sox" chant or similar commotion from people lined up to get inside the park, but that's just like a normal game day. A couple of locations on my circuit had a very strong odor of weed, I think maybe from the broadcast media enclave behind a chain link fence within the Fenway Park premises. I believe the Mayor and the Police Commisioner had let it be known that no nonsense was going to be brooked, and maybe that accounts for what I saw on the streets. Certainly, I wasn't hoping for hooliganism, especially with the presence of a smattering of Dodger Blue jerseys and hats, and I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping for, but this was altogether too normal. So buttoned-down. I opted to cut my evening slightly short and take a train that departed shortly before first pitch.
 
Still, I'm glad I went. After sundown, the Prudential Building had their lights on to urge on the Sox to victory, and I think any baseball fan would have felt some excitement, Sox fan or not. Game 1 of the World Series, baby!
 

 

 

I'm a five-minute walk away from the east-west commuter train that also stops at Fenway Park. So with Game 1 of the World Series being held at Fenway, Tuesday night, despite not being a diehard Red Sox fan and despite the forecast of iffy weather I felt like I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the logistics.
 
The title for this blog entry is deceptive because I didn't actually "attend" the game. I didn't have tickets, and of course no way was I going to pay scalper prices. But I thought I'd enjoy the atmosphere outside the ballpark. It's like Wrigley, and maybe a few others, with thriving neighborhoods that are worth enjoying even when the home team isn't playing.
 
I decided to arrive early, in part because I wasn't sure whether the train might already be packed with fans from further out, if I left nearer to game time. My train wasn't too bad, but they only come once an hour, and who knows what the next one was like. So, at 5:15 I arrived at Yawkey station (still so-named even though nearby Yawkey Way has been renamed back to Jersey Street).
 

 
David Ortiz Drive is a short block leading to Brookline Avenue which is one of the bordering streets for the ballpark. It has uniform-number monuments to some of their greats. Here you see the ones for Boggs and Ortiz, and to the left you can see the obscured number for Pedro (45).
 

 
My general plan was to wander around, until game time (8:10 or so), and then take the next train back home assuming things had quieted down outside the park. I was prepared to stay later, if some kind of awesomeness broke out. The area was already busy with people milling around. Cars were double-parked in several places, apparently with official blessing, and the parking lots were advertising a pretty consistent $60 fee. The commuter rail station had a sign stating that the last train of the night would be held until 1:00 am, more than an hour later than its normal schedule; since the game lasted until about midnight, that wasn't really overkill.
 
I took a long way around, heading south on Brookline and then heading back up on Van Ness.
 

 
Boston isn't really laid out on a grid and you can get disoriented pretty easily, but I've learned my way around Fenway by now. I reached the intersection with Jersey Street where several street vendors are set up and some of the entry gates to the ballpark are. That part of Jersey Street is actually part of the team's venue - the metal detectors and turnstiles are outdoors and the street is just a ballpark concourse on game day - which is why I couldn't use Jersey as part of my circuit.
 

 

 
I kept walking, to Ipswich Street and then Landsdowne Street. It all was pretty busy - here is Landsdowne at its junction with Brookline, basically the end of my circuit. All the bars or restaurants I would have considered trying had huge lines of people waiting to get in, to little surprise.
 

 
Security was everywhere you looked. Dogs sniffed the trunks of cars entering the parking lot within Fenway Park itself, SWAT team humvees were stationed in various places, heavy city trucks were eventually parked to block key intersections, and of course you were never out of sight of police officers (uniformed and I'm sure plainclothes).
 

 

 

 
There also was the expected swarm of media vehicles.
 

 
I mentioned not being willing to pay scalper's prices, but actually I don't think I had an opportunity. There were plenty of scalpers, but they were always asking if I had tickets to sell, not if I wanted to buy. I think I had seen $400 for standing room tickets, on StubHub. Whatever few tickets changed hands on the street at game time were apparently already spoken for. I saw a couple of people who seemed more normal and less scuzzy than the typical scalper, with signs begging for cheap tickets because they were diehard Sox fans or whatever, but I have little doubt that they would have immediately forgotten their loyalty to the team and would have turned a quick profit had someone been suckered in by their pleas.
 
It wasn't raining when I arrived, but around sundown there started to be drizzle, and pretty soon it rained hard and there was significant lightning a mile or two away. I had brought an umbrella and was walking in light hiking boots, but those who had decided to rely on their hooded jackets decided to cram into the already crowded bars and restaurants, or else (if they had tickets) make their way into the ballpark, because the streets were suddenly pretty sparse of pedestrians. I walked the perimeter of the ballpark again. For some reason I never get tired of photographing the Citgo sign.
 

 
Somewhere along the perimeter, I spotted a window into which you could see a makeshift Media Room.
 

 
Even aside from the rain, I have to say that the atmosphere somewhat disappointed me. I guess I was expecting something like a big block party. There was one guy playing makeshift drums on the bridge over I-90, and a couple of times I heard a "Let's Go Red Sox" chant or similar commotion from people lined up to get inside the park, but that's just like a normal game day. A couple of locations on my circuit had a very strong odor of weed, I think maybe from the broadcast media enclave behind a chain link fence within the Fenway Park premises. I believe the Mayor and the Police Commisioner had let it be known that no nonsense was going to be brooked, and maybe that accounts for what I saw on the streets. Certainly, I wasn't hoping for hooliganism, especially with the presence of a smattering of Dodger Blue jerseys and hats, and I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping for, but this was altogether too normal. So buttoned-down. I opted to cut my evening slightly short and take a train that departed shortly before first pitch.
 
Still, I'm glad I went. After sundown, the Prudential Building had their lights on to urge on the Sox to victory, and I think any baseball fan would have felt some excitement, Sox fan or not. Game 1 of the World Series, baby!
 

 

 

I'm a five-minute walk away from the east-west commuter train that also stops at Fenway Park. So with Game 1 of the World Series being held at Fenway, Tuesday night, despite not being a diehard Red Sox fan and despite the forecast of iffy weather I felt like I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the logistics.
 
The title for this blog entry is deceptive because I didn't actually "attend" the game. I didn't have tickets, and of course no way was I going to pay scalper prices. But I thought I'd enjoy the atmosphere outside the ballpark. It's like Wrigley, and maybe a few others, with thriving neighborhoods that are worth enjoying even when the home team isn't playing.
 
I decided to arrive early, in part because I wasn't sure whether the train might already be packed with fans from further out, if I left nearer to game time. My train wasn't too bad, but they only come once an hour, and who knows what the next one was like. So, at 5:15 I arrived at Yawkey station (still so-named even though nearby Yawkey Way has been renamed back to Jersey Street).
 

 
David Ortiz Drive is a short block leading to Brookline Avenue which is one of the bordering streets for the ballpark. It has uniform-number monuments to some of their greats. Here you see the ones for Boggs and Ortiz, and to the left you can see the obscured number for Pedro (45).
 

 
My general plan was to wander around, until game time (8:10 or so), and then take the next train back home assuming things had quieted down outside the park. I was prepared to stay later, if some kind of awesomeness broke out. The area was already busy with people milling around. Cars were double-parked in several places, apparently with official blessing, and the parking lots were advertising a pretty consistent $60 fee. The commuter rail station had a sign stating that the last train of the night would be held until 1:00 am, more than an hour later than its normal schedule; since the game lasted until about midnight, that wasn't really overkill.
 
I took a long way around, heading south on Brookline and then heading back up on Van Ness.
 

 
Boston isn't really laid out on a grid and you can get disoriented pretty easily, but I've learned my way around Fenway by now. I reached the intersection with Jersey Street where several street vendors are set up and some of the entry gates to the ballpark are. That part of Jersey Street is actually part of the team's venue - the metal detectors and turnstiles are outdoors and the street is just a ballpark concourse on game day - which is why I couldn't use Jersey as part of my circuit.
 

 

 
I kept walking, to Ipswich Street and then Landsdowne Street. It all was pretty busy - here is Landsdowne at its junction with Brookline, basically the end of my circuit. All the bars or restaurants I would have considered trying had huge lines of people waiting to get in, to little surprise.
 

 
Security was everywhere you looked. Dogs sniffed the trunks of cars entering the parking lot within Fenway Park itself, SWAT team humvees were stationed in various places, heavy city trucks were eventually parked to block key intersections, and of course you were never out of sight of police officers (uniformed and I'm sure plainclothes).
 

 

 

 
There also was the expected swarm of media vehicles.
 

 
I mentioned not being willing to pay scalper's prices, but actually I don't think I had an opportunity. There were plenty of scalpers, but they were always asking if I had tickets to sell, not if I wanted to buy. I think I had seen $400 for standing room tickets, on StubHub. Whatever few tickets changed hands on the street at game time were apparently already spoken for. I saw a couple of people who seemed more normal and less scuzzy than the typical scalper, with signs begging for cheap tickets because they were diehard Sox fans or whatever, but I have little doubt that they would have immediately forgotten their loyalty to the team and would have turned a quick profit had someone been suckered in by their pleas.
 
It wasn't raining when I arrived, but around sundown there started to be drizzle, and pretty soon it rained hard and there was significant lightning a mile or two away. I had brought an umbrella and was walking in light hiking boots, but those who had decided to rely on their hooded jackets decided to cram into the already crowded bars and restaurants, or else (if they had tickets) make their way into the ballpark, because the streets were suddenly pretty sparse of pedestrians. I walked the perimeter of the ballpark again. For some reason I never get tired of photographing the Citgo sign.
 

 
Somewhere along the perimeter, I spotted a window into which you could see a makeshift Media Room.
 

 
Even aside from the rain, I have to say that the atmosphere somewhat disappointed me. I guess I was expecting something like a big block party. There was one guy playing makeshift drums on the bridge over I-90, and a couple of times I heard a "Let's Go Red Sox" chant or similar commotion from people lined up to get inside the park, but that's just like a normal game day. A couple of locations on my circuit had a very strong odor of weed, I think maybe from the broadcast media enclave behind a chain link fence within the Fenway Park premises. I believe the Mayor and the Police Commisioner had let it be known that no nonsense was going to be brooked, and maybe that accounts for what I saw on the streets. Certainly, I wasn't hoping for hooliganism, especially with the presence of a smattering of Dodger Blue jerseys and hats, and I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping for, but this was altogether too normal. So buttoned-down. I opted to cut my evening slightly short and take a train that departed shortly before first pitch.
 
Still, I'm glad I went. After sundown, the Prudential Building had their lights on to urge on the Sox to victory, and I think any baseball fan would have felt some excitement, Sox fan or not. Game 1 of the World Series, baby!
 

 

 

I'm a five-minute walk away from the east-west commuter train that also stops at Fenway Park. So with Game 1 of the World Series being held at Fenway, Tuesday night, despite not being a diehard Red Sox fan and despite the forecast of iffy weather I felt like I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the logistics.
 
The title for this blog entry is deceptive because I didn't actually "attend" the game. I didn't have tickets, and of course no way was I going to pay scalper prices. But I thought I'd enjoy the atmosphere outside the ballpark. It's like Wrigley, and maybe a few others, with thriving neighborhoods that are worth enjoying even when the home team isn't playing.
 
I decided to arrive early, in part because I wasn't sure whether the train might already be packed with fans from further out, if I left nearer to game time. My train wasn't too bad, but they only come once an hour, and who knows what the next one was like. So, at 5:15 I arrived at Yawkey station (still so-named even though nearby Yawkey Way has been renamed back to Jersey Street).
 

 
David Ortiz Drive is a short block leading to Brookline Avenue which is one of the bordering streets for the ballpark. It has uniform-number monuments to some of their greats. Here you see the ones for Boggs and Ortiz, and to the left you can see the obscured number for Pedro (45).
 

 
My general plan was to wander around, until game time (8:10 or so), and then take the next train back home assuming things had quieted down outside the park. I was prepared to stay later, if some kind of awesomeness broke out. The area was already busy with people milling around. Cars were double-parked in several places, apparently with official blessing, and the parking lots were advertising a pretty consistent $60 fee. The commuter rail station had a sign stating that the last train of the night would be held until 1:00 am, more than an hour later than its normal schedule; since the game lasted until about midnight, that wasn't really overkill.
 
I took a long way around, heading south on Brookline and then heading back up on Van Ness.
 

 
Boston isn't really laid out on a grid and you can get disoriented pretty easily, but I've learned my way around Fenway by now. I reached the intersection with Jersey Street where several street vendors are set up and some of the entry gates to the ballpark are. That part of Jersey Street is actually part of the team's venue - the metal detectors and turnstiles are outdoors and the street is just a ballpark concourse on game day - which is why I couldn't use Jersey as part of my circuit.
 

 

 
I kept walking, to Ipswich Street and then Landsdowne Street. It all was pretty busy - here is Landsdowne at its junction with Brookline, basically the end of my circuit. All the bars or restaurants I would have considered trying had huge lines of people waiting to get in, to little surprise.
 

 
Security was everywhere you looked. Dogs sniffed the trunks of cars entering the parking lot within Fenway Park itself, SWAT team humvees were stationed in various places, heavy city trucks were eventually parked to block key intersections, and of course you were never out of sight of police officers (uniformed and I'm sure plainclothes).
 

 

 

 
There also was the expected swarm of media vehicles.
 

 
I mentioned not being willing to pay scalper's prices, but actually I don't think I had an opportunity. There were plenty of scalpers, but they were always asking if I had tickets to sell, not if I wanted to buy. I think I had seen $400 for standing room tickets, on StubHub. Whatever few tickets changed hands on the street at game time were apparently already spoken for. I saw a couple of people who seemed more normal and less scuzzy than the typical scalper, with signs begging for cheap tickets because they were diehard Sox fans or whatever, but I have little doubt that they would have immediately forgotten their loyalty to the team and would have turned a quick profit had someone been suckered in by their pleas.
 
It wasn't raining when I arrived, but around sundown there started to be drizzle, and pretty soon it rained hard and there was significant lightning a mile or two away. I had brought an umbrella and was walking in light hiking boots, but those who had decided to rely on their hooded jackets decided to cram into the already crowded bars and restaurants, or else (if they had tickets) make their way into the ballpark, because the streets were suddenly pretty sparse of pedestrians. I walked the perimeter of the ballpark again. For some reason I never get tired of photographing the Citgo sign.
 

 
Somewhere along the perimeter, I spotted a window into which you could see a makeshift Media Room.
 

 
Even aside from the rain, I have to say that the atmosphere somewhat disappointed me. I guess I was expecting something like a big block party. There was one guy playing makeshift drums on the bridge over I-90, and a couple of times I heard a "Let's Go Red Sox" chant or similar commotion from people lined up to get inside the park, but that's just like a normal game day. A couple of locations on my circuit had a very strong odor of weed, I think maybe from the broadcast media enclave behind a chain link fence within the Fenway Park premises. I believe the Mayor and the Police Commisioner had let it be known that no nonsense was going to be brooked, and maybe that accounts for what I saw on the streets. Certainly, I wasn't hoping for hooliganism, especially with the presence of a smattering of Dodger Blue jerseys and hats, and I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping for, but this was altogether too normal. So buttoned-down. I opted to cut my evening slightly short and take a train that departed shortly before first pitch.
 
Still, I'm glad I went. After sundown, the Prudential Building had their lights on to urge on the Sox to victory, and I think any baseball fan would have felt some excitement, Sox fan or not. Game 1 of the World Series, baby!
 

 

 

I'm a five-minute walk away from the east-west commuter train that also stops at Fenway Park. So with Game 1 of the World Series being held at Fenway, Tuesday night, despite not being a diehard Red Sox fan and despite the forecast of iffy weather I felt like I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the logistics.
 
The title for this blog entry is deceptive because I didn't actually "attend" the game. I didn't have tickets, and of course no way was I going to pay scalper prices. But I thought I'd enjoy the atmosphere outside the ballpark. It's like Wrigley, and maybe a few others, with thriving neighborhoods that are worth enjoying even when the home team isn't playing.
 
I decided to arrive early, in part because I wasn't sure whether the train might already be packed with fans from further out, if I left nearer to game time. My train wasn't too bad, but they only come once an hour, and who knows what the next one was like. So, at 5:15 I arrived at Yawkey station (still so-named even though nearby Yawkey Way has been renamed back to Jersey Street).
 

 
David Ortiz Drive is a short block leading to Brookline Avenue which is one of the bordering streets for the ballpark. It has uniform-number monuments to some of their greats. Here you see the ones for Boggs and Ortiz, and to the left you can see the obscured number for Pedro (45).
 

 
My general plan was to wander around, until game time (8:10 or so), and then take the next train back home assuming things had quieted down outside the park. I was prepared to stay later, if some kind of awesomeness broke out. The area was already busy with people milling around. Cars were double-parked in several places, apparently with official blessing, and the parking lots were advertising a pretty consistent $60 fee. The commuter rail station had a sign stating that the last train of the night would be held until 1:00 am, more than an hour later than its normal schedule; since the game lasted until about midnight, that wasn't really overkill.
 
I took a long way around, heading south on Brookline and then heading back up on Van Ness.
 

 
Boston isn't really laid out on a grid and you can get disoriented pretty easily, but I've learned my way around Fenway by now. I reached the intersection with Jersey Street where several street vendors are set up and some of the entry gates to the ballpark are. That part of Jersey Street is actually part of the team's venue - the metal detectors and turnstiles are outdoors and the street is just a ballpark concourse on game day - which is why I couldn't use Jersey as part of my circuit.
 

 

 
I kept walking, to Ipswich Street and then Landsdowne Street. It all was pretty busy - here is Landsdowne at its junction with Brookline, basically the end of my circuit. All the bars or restaurants I would have considered trying had huge lines of people waiting to get in, to little surprise.
 

 
Security was everywhere you looked. Dogs sniffed the trunks of cars entering the parking lot within Fenway Park itself, SWAT team humvees were stationed in various places, heavy city trucks were eventually parked to block key intersections, and of course you were never out of sight of police officers (uniformed and I'm sure plainclothes).
 

 

 

 
There also was the expected swarm of media vehicles.
 

 
I mentioned not being willing to pay scalper's prices, but actually I don't think I had an opportunity. There were plenty of scalpers, but they were always asking if I had tickets to sell, not if I wanted to buy. I think I had seen $400 for standing room tickets, on StubHub. Whatever few tickets changed hands on the street at game time were apparently already spoken for. I saw a couple of people who seemed more normal and less scuzzy than the typical scalper, with signs begging for cheap tickets because they were diehard Sox fans or whatever, but I have little doubt that they would have immediately forgotten their loyalty to the team and would have turned a quick profit had someone been suckered in by their pleas.
 
It wasn't raining when I arrived, but around sundown there started to be drizzle, and pretty soon it rained hard and there was significant lightning a mile or two away. I had brought an umbrella and was walking in light hiking boots, but those who had decided to rely on their hooded jackets decided to cram into the already crowded bars and restaurants, or else (if they had tickets) make their way into the ballpark, because the streets were suddenly pretty sparse of pedestrians. I walked the perimeter of the ballpark again. For some reason I never get tired of photographing the Citgo sign.
 

 
Somewhere along the perimeter, I spotted a window into which you could see a makeshift Media Room.
 

 
Even aside from the rain, I have to say that the atmosphere somewhat disappointed me. I guess I was expecting something like a big block party. There was one guy playing makeshift drums on the bridge over I-90, and a couple of times I heard a "Let's Go Red Sox" chant or similar commotion from people lined up to get inside the park, but that's just like a normal game day. A couple of locations on my circuit had a very strong odor of weed, I think maybe from the broadcast media enclave behind a chain link fence within the Fenway Park premises. I believe the Mayor and the Police Commisioner had let it be known that no nonsense was going to be brooked, and maybe that accounts for what I saw on the streets. Certainly, I wasn't hoping for hooliganism, especially with the presence of a smattering of Dodger Blue jerseys and hats, and I'm not sure exactly what I was hoping for, but this was altogether too normal. So buttoned-down. I opted to cut my evening slightly short and take a train that departed shortly before first pitch.
 
Still, I'm glad I went. After sundown, the Prudential Building had their lights on to urge on the Sox to victory, and I think any baseball fan would have felt some excitement, Sox fan or not. Game 1 of the World Series, baby!
 

 

 

[re-posted from the night's minor league summary thread...]
 
I was in attendance at Pawtucket last night, so let me offer some additional impressions and details.
 
First, a minor correction: the Red Wings' final run scored on a wild pitch. The bases were not loaded when Motter walked, but when ball-four skittered past Mike Ohlman, Edgar Corcino on third scored anyway. He was there because of another wild pitch on the previous batter.
 
I don't have a lot to say about Pawtucket's players in this game, as I really don't follow the Red Sox and definitely have no clue about their prospect pipeline, but I must mention starter Mike Shawaryn. He was much, much better than his line score indicates, pitching perfect innings his first time through the lineup, in his very first appearance at AAA at age 23. He probably had only that one really bad pitch, to Astudillo, and the additional run came in the seventh as described above after he was out of the game. Looks like the Red Sox have found a way to feed their farm system with 5th round draft picks. Maybe having a short-season single-A team for college draftees is their secret sauce, hint hint.
 
Anderson wasn't very effective for us in his stint as "opener", but the run scored in the bottom of the first was as much due to runners taking advantage of Jeremy Hazelbaker's arm as the base hits themselves. Tony Renda's "double" should have been a single but the word apparently is out and he challenged the center fielder and won. And then what seemed like a harmless single by Rusney Castillo plated Renda, with the throw from CF taking way too long to get there. I'm guessing there's a reason Hazelbaker was available for cash. Anyway, Anderson then permitted a single to Sam Travis, so the run probably would have scored anyway. So, not a good start to the game for either guy.
 
Nick Gordon also had a stinker of a game. No errors in the scoresheet, but his opportunities to impress, on a couple of plays that major league shortstops would likely make, went unclaimed. One was a grounder to his right that I thought he would get to but didn't. Another was one where he had to come in, but his throw was high and pulled Austin Tyler Tyler Austin off of first base. What's more, he looked feeble at the plate, striking out twice and making two easy outs in the air. Mrs Ash remarked that he might do better if he didn't have his pant legs pulled up so high - I think he should take Mrs Ash's scouting advice to heart as she is rarely wrong about anything. In any case, do NOT bring this guy up now, and probably don't bring him up for a September look-see either. Maybe he'll be ready someday, but he is not, today.
 
Speaking of Austin Tyler Tyler Austin, I thought he acquitted himself well. He didn't get any base hits, but one of his outs was a sharp liner to third base in the eighth, and he walked which resulted in a run when Astudillo hit a homer. The first baseman also got three chances to field popups, all in the final two innings - indeed he notched the last putout before the fatal home run.
 
Speaking of liners to third, Astudillo scorched an even tougher one to Tony Renda's right in the sixth inning. You simply can't play a liner better than Renda did, leaving his feet and stretching to full extension to barely snag that rocket. Beautiful play. Kudos to him.
 
Speaking of Willians Astudillo, that home run to left in the fourth inning was a rocket too - a no-doubter. It was one of the few bright spots in the game for my team. He was unremarkable in left field, making the easy fly outs and handling the base hits in his direction. However, what stood out to me was how very slowly he moved when going to his position, and slow coming back to the dugout. He exerted effort on balls in play, as I said, but I don't recall someone taking that much time to and from. It's like he's the anti-Charlie Hustle (which itself is not originally a compliment, so I'm not sure what bearing it has).
 
Speaking of home runs, how about that Tyler Duffey? On that last batter, it was a 2-2 count, with curveballs missing twice. I don't often try to guess pitches, but I was sure it would be a fastball, and mentioned to Mrs Ash that they should come back with another curve instead. I'd go with another curve even on 3-2, too, and if it was a walk, so be it - there were two out. Nope, flat, 91-MPH, nothing fastball. Brandon Phillips was sitting on it, just like me. Ain't I smart? Ball game. There was of course also the dong by Josh Ockimey that tied it in the eighth. Duffey is another of the disappointments this franchise has suffered in the past few years. It won't surprise me if he's non-tendered this off-season - this guy never progressed beyond being a two-pitch pitcher, and now he's down to one. He's cooked. Or, if some other team signs him and gets something out of him, a hard look needs to be taken at the coaching and why they didn't help him find answers.
 
Speaking of fastballs, Stephen Gonsalves.... oops never mind. He may have reached 90 or 91 on the radar gun display, but generally sat at 88 or 89. I can't identify off-speed pitches, one from another, but he had a variety that would register at 79 or 74 or even 69 - a knuckler? Visibly slow, and entertaining, from our excellent first-base-side cheap-seats. That much differential from the fastball is said to become counter-productive, but he's getting AAA guys out. The homer in the third inning to the aforementioned Tony Renda was a cheapie to right, barely clearing the 325 foot mark, so I don't hold that against him. He weakened in the 7th, walking the first two batters, and was bailed out slightly by an ill-advised stolen base attempt by the PawSox' Mike Miller - down two runs, you need to be awfully sure you can take the base, and he was out by a mile thanks to an accurate throw by Juan Graterol. Gonsalves might have gotten out of it unscored-upon, had Gordon made the play previously mentioned. It's unclear to me that Gonsalves's stuff is going to play, in the majors, but if this is who he is, let's bring him up now, or in September, and start to find out. Unlike Gordon, he's mastered his game, such as it is. If he bombs, there will still be time to option him to the minors mid-2019 and try to retool his entire game in some manner.
 
Speaking of ill-advised baserunning, with the score tied 4-4 in the top of the ninth, Edgar Corcino got a clean single to left leading off, and was (wait for it) out by a mile trying to stretch it to a double. Left fielder Kyle Wren had come up with the ball practically by the time Corcino rounded first. There was time to go a third of the way and then change his mind. Nope. As events played out (which of course might not have), we would have had bases loaded with one out, with the top of the order coming up. And that lone out was thanks to a possibly game-saving snag by PawSox right fielder Aneury Tavarez near the foul line on a drive by Graterol. Of course the top of our order was third baseman Taylor Motter followed by Gordon, and Motter actually did strike out looking, which brings us to Gordon, so never mind.
 
Speaking of never mind, when we didn't score in the top of the ninth, and I saw Duffey coming out again, I said to Mrs Ash, this won't take long. It took longer than I expected, five batters. Good for him, I guess.
 
Speaking of good, despite the ragtag nature of our lineup, and the generally negative results, I enjoyed the evening a lot. McCoy Stadium gets a lot of criticism locally, but as far as I can see it's only because there are no luxury boxes to make the team more profitable. The park has been kept up, and I have yet to have a poor experience there. It's my east coast version of the Oakland Coliseum - a straight ahead old school place to watch a baseball game, in my book. The site-grilled Italian sausage with onions and green peppers never fails to satisfy, likewise the Foolproof Backyahd [sic] IPA available on draft which leaves me pleasantly sleepy.
 
 
Source: Article: Twins Minor League Report (8/3): Brusdar Cruises, Severino Soars

[re-posted from the night's minor league summary thread...]
 
I was in attendance at Pawtucket last night, so let me offer some additional impressions and details.
 
First, a minor correction: the Red Wings' final run scored on a wild pitch. The bases were not loaded when Motter walked, but when ball-four skittered past Mike Ohlman, Edgar Corcino on third scored anyway. He was there because of another wild pitch on the previous batter.
 
I don't have a lot to say about Pawtucket's players in this game, as I really don't follow the Red Sox and definitely have no clue about their prospect pipeline, but I must mention starter Mike Shawaryn. He was much, much better than his line score indicates, pitching perfect innings his first time through the lineup, in his very first appearance at AAA at age 23. He probably had only that one really bad pitch, to Astudillo, and the additional run came in the seventh as described above after he was out of the game. Looks like the Red Sox have found a way to feed their farm system with 5th round draft picks. Maybe having a short-season single-A team for college draftees is their secret sauce, hint hint.
 
Anderson wasn't very effective for us in his stint as "opener", but the run scored in the bottom of the first was as much due to runners taking advantage of Jeremy Hazelbaker's arm as the base hits themselves. Tony Renda's "double" should have been a single but the word apparently is out and he challenged the center fielder and won. And then what seemed like a harmless single by Rusney Castillo plated Renda, with the throw from CF taking way too long to get there. I'm guessing there's a reason Hazelbaker was available for cash. Anyway, Anderson then permitted a single to Sam Travis, so the run probably would have scored anyway. So, not a good start to the game for either guy.
 
Nick Gordon also had a stinker of a game. No errors in the scoresheet, but his opportunities to impress, on a couple of plays that major league shortstops would likely make, went unclaimed. One was a grounder to his right that I thought he would get to but didn't. Another was one where he had to come in, but his throw was high and pulled Austin Tyler Tyler Austin off of first base. What's more, he looked feeble at the plate, striking out twice and making two easy outs in the air. Mrs Ash remarked that he might do better if he didn't have his pant legs pulled up so high - I think he should take Mrs Ash's scouting advice to heart as she is rarely wrong about anything. In any case, do NOT bring this guy up now, and probably don't bring him up for a September look-see either. Maybe he'll be ready someday, but he is not, today.
 
Speaking of Austin Tyler Tyler Austin, I thought he acquitted himself well. He didn't get any base hits, but one of his outs was a sharp liner to third base in the eighth, and he walked which resulted in a run when Astudillo hit a homer. The first baseman also got three chances to field popups, all in the final two innings - indeed he notched the last putout before the fatal home run.
 
Speaking of liners to third, Astudillo scorched an even tougher one to Tony Renda's right in the sixth inning. You simply can't play a liner better than Renda did, leaving his feet and stretching to full extension to barely snag that rocket. Beautiful play. Kudos to him.
 
Speaking of Willians Astudillo, that home run to left in the fourth inning was a rocket too - a no-doubter. It was one of the few bright spots in the game for my team. He was unremarkable in left field, making the easy fly outs and handling the base hits in his direction. However, what stood out to me was how very slowly he moved when going to his position, and slow coming back to the dugout. He exerted effort on balls in play, as I said, but I don't recall someone taking that much time to and from. It's like he's the anti-Charlie Hustle (which itself is not originally a compliment, so I'm not sure what bearing it has).
 
Speaking of home runs, how about that Tyler Duffey? On that last batter, it was a 2-2 count, with curveballs missing twice. I don't often try to guess pitches, but I was sure it would be a fastball, and mentioned to Mrs Ash that they should come back with another curve instead. I'd go with another curve even on 3-2, too, and if it was a walk, so be it - there were two out. Nope, flat, 91-MPH, nothing fastball. Brandon Phillips was sitting on it, just like me. Ain't I smart? Ball game. There was of course also the dong by Josh Ockimey that tied it in the eighth. Duffey is another of the disappointments this franchise has suffered in the past few years. It won't surprise me if he's non-tendered this off-season - this guy never progressed beyond being a two-pitch pitcher, and now he's down to one. He's cooked. Or, if some other team signs him and gets something out of him, a hard look needs to be taken at the coaching and why they didn't help him find answers.
 
Speaking of fastballs, Stephen Gonsalves.... oops never mind. He may have reached 90 or 91 on the radar gun display, but generally sat at 88 or 89. I can't identify off-speed pitches, one from another, but he had a variety that would register at 79 or 74 or even 69 - a knuckler? Visibly slow, and entertaining, from our excellent first-base-side cheap-seats. That much differential from the fastball is said to become counter-productive, but he's getting AAA guys out. The homer in the third inning to the aforementioned Tony Renda was a cheapie to right, barely clearing the 325 foot mark, so I don't hold that against him. He weakened in the 7th, walking the first two batters, and was bailed out slightly by an ill-advised stolen base attempt by the PawSox' Mike Miller - down two runs, you need to be awfully sure you can take the base, and he was out by a mile thanks to an accurate throw by Juan Graterol. Gonsalves might have gotten out of it unscored-upon, had Gordon made the play previously mentioned. It's unclear to me that Gonsalves's stuff is going to play, in the majors, but if this is who he is, let's bring him up now, or in September, and start to find out. Unlike Gordon, he's mastered his game, such as it is. If he bombs, there will still be time to option him to the minors mid-2019 and try to retool his entire game in some manner.
 
Speaking of ill-advised baserunning, with the score tied 4-4 in the top of the ninth, Edgar Corcino got a clean single to left leading off, and was (wait for it) out by a mile trying to stretch it to a double. Left fielder Kyle Wren had come up with the ball practically by the time Corcino rounded first. There was time to go a third of the way and then change his mind. Nope. As events played out (which of course might not have), we would have had bases loaded with one out, with the top of the order coming up. And that lone out was thanks to a possibly game-saving snag by PawSox right fielder Aneury Tavarez near the foul line on a drive by Graterol. Of course the top of our order was third baseman Taylor Motter followed by Gordon, and Motter actually did strike out looking, which brings us to Gordon, so never mind.
 
Speaking of never mind, when we didn't score in the top of the ninth, and I saw Duffey coming out again, I said to Mrs Ash, this won't take long. It took longer than I expected, five batters. Good for him, I guess.
 
Speaking of good, despite the ragtag nature of our lineup, and the generally negative results, I enjoyed the evening a lot. McCoy Stadium gets a lot of criticism locally, but as far as I can see it's only because there are no luxury boxes to make the team more profitable. The park has been kept up, and I have yet to have a poor experience there. It's my east coast version of the Oakland Coliseum - a straight ahead old school place to watch a baseball game, in my book. The site-grilled Italian sausage with onions and green peppers never fails to satisfy, likewise the Foolproof Backyahd [sic] IPA available on draft which leaves me pleasantly sleepy.
 
 
Source: Article: Twins Minor League Report (8/3): Brusdar Cruises, Severino Soars

I happened upon this nice leaping stab by Polanco from a few days ago:
 
https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2018/07/03/2224124283/1530583378940/asset_2500K.mp4
 
Question: on a ball hit to the left side, does Brian Dozier have anything better to do than make a beeline for second base, on the small chance it's caught and they might try to double off the runner? The runner has to change direction, Dozier could have been close to full speed by that point. Seems like he was napping there.

I happened upon this nice leaping stab by Polanco from a few days ago:
 
https://mediadownloads.mlb.com/mlbam/mp4/2018/07/03/2224124283/1530583378940/asset_2500K.mp4
 
Question: on a ball hit to the left side, does Brian Dozier have anything better to do than make a beeline for second base, on the small chance it's caught and they might try to double off the runner? The runner has to change direction, Dozier could have been close to full speed by that point. Seems like he was napping there.

Red Sox relief prospect Ty Buttrey came up in one of the discussions about trade talks. As luck would have it, I could drop Mrs Ash at Logan Airport today and head down I-95 in time for the last game in Pawtucket before their All-Star Break. So I did. The pretext is scouting a trade candidate, but of course I am not a scout. I'll tell you what I saw, and offer some opinions, and hopefully keep the two straight, one from another.
 
Even better luck: the Yankees AAA affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre was the opponent, and their #2 prospect, Justus Sheffield, was the starting pitcher. And a ranked prospect also closed the game for them. So there's more to tell.
 
The PawSox starter, Fernando Rodriguez, doesn't show up in MLB.com's top-30 for the Red Sox. The righthander's fastball touches 92, but his out-pitch seems to be offspeed. My seat was not located anywhere I can even pretend to tell you whether any of the pitchers use a curve, slider, straight change, or something exotic. From my angle down the first-base line, I could pretty easily tell when something off-speed was being delivered by Rodriguez (with the radar display to confirm or disprove my guess), but of course the batter has a tougher challenge. It was my impression he was getting away with deception, which possibly stops working so well at the major league level. If someone were to tell me we were thinking of using one of our trade chips to acquire him, I'd be disappointed. Then again, perhaps I wasn't seeing him at his best: he seemed to be working annoyingly slowly, and then had to come out of the game barely into the third inning. I haven't looked for an announced reason, but a blister would be my guess. Anyway he gave up a run in the second inning on a homer. He struck out 5 in just 2.1 innings, which sounds nice, but as I said, I'm skeptical.
 
Sheffield, by contrast, was solidly in command for the first four innings or so. His fastball sat consistently at 94 and it was his out pitch, something good to see. If this lefty's rapid pace was any indication, he pitched with confidence. I was less able to guess his pitches quickly as they came out of his hand. The first hit he gave up, in the fourth, was just a squibber toward the third baseman who didn't even bother to attempt a throw. However, Sheffield weakened in the fifth, but managed to wriggle out of two-baserunner trouble with some apparently nasty stuff to get the last two batters out. But it got worse for him in the sixth - I noticed his fastball was around 91 - and a visit to the mound didn't seem to do any wonders, although the fastball ticked back up to 93. He was gone after another batter or two reached base and a run scored. His pitch count by that point had ballooned to 89, whereas it had stood at only 42 after 3 full innings. His pitching line was a fairly pedestrian 5.1 innings with 5 hits plus two walks and one run, earned. But he struck out 7 in that time, and I'm here to tell you, he looks like the real deal to me. Those first 4 or 5 innings indicate to me that there's something to work with if he's called up. He's high ranked, and there's no way I would expect to pry him loose from the Yankees with any conceivable deadline deal, which someone on the forums here floated recently.
 
Back to the PawSox. 26th ranked Williams Jerez came on in relief of Rodriguez. He's a multi-innings left-handed reliever this season and served in that long-relief capacity of necessity today. He finished that third inning and went two more, surrendering a two-run blast in the top of the fifth. His fastball sits at 96 and he struck out five, so he's got a live arm and overall I was impressed enough to believe the ranking (which is a matter of taste, when it comes to relievers). He's 26 years old so his time is now, if ever.
 
Righty Kyle Martin pitched the next two innings for Pawtucket. His 94-MPH fastball helped account for 4 Ks to surround a hit and a walk. He's not ranked, where I looked, although I thought he had good swing-and-miss stuff. But he's 27 and got his cup of coffee last July - apparently he's organizational depth at this point.
 
Robby Scott, 28 years old, pitched the eighth. He was with the big club all last year, but I don't know his story in 2018 and he is at AAA. With only a 90 MPH heater, he's a sidearming lefty junkballer in today's world. He did more than OK today, striking out all three of the batters he faced, twice swinging, once looking, but my impression today before looking him up was smoke and mirrors in that inning.
 
Ty Buttrey took over in the ninth, to keep the deficit to only 1 run, and I thought he lived up to his billing. His fastball clocked 97. The right-hander's got a somewhat high leg kick, which worried me that it might indicate control trouble, but he likewise retired all three batters faced - although only one was a strikeout, neither ball put in play was much trouble - requiring merely an efficient 8 pitches.
 
OK, I'm out of chronological order now, because the Yankees RailRiders were offering up relievers too, today. 28-year old righty Tommy Kahnle took over from Sheffield in the sixth, and retired the two batters he faced to escape further damage. I didn't think to mark down his fastball speed - he's Tommy Kahnle.
 
They brought in another portsider in Stephen Tarpley to pitch the seventh and eighth. He had a 93 MPH fastball and his off-speed stuff seemed to be effective. He did give up a run, which he might be kicking himself over - after a leadoff double, followed by a sac bunt (questionable strategy to me, behind by 2 runs, but it worked out), Tarpley seemingly foiled the strategy by striking out the next batter. But then while working toward the eventual third out, he uncorked a wild pitch, and then failed to hustle to the plate to receive any throw that the catcher, who had retrieved the ball, might have wanted to make. Don't they go over this in spring training (said, every fan ever )?
 
The ninth inning was handled by 15th-ranked Cody Carroll. Like his Sox counterpart, I felt he lived up to his billing, with a fastball in the 96-97 range. The righty started off the inning with a bit of chin-music to PawSox catcher Dan Butler, and as a consequence or not, the home team went down meekly, 1-2-3.
 
As an aside, they play baseball differently in the minors. No pinch hitter by Pawtucket, for any of their number 7-8-9 batters coming up with a 3-2 deficit to overcome in the ninth. I have seen this annoying strategic non-feature and others, over the years. Minor league ball is strictly about developing prospects, not about winning individual games.
 
So, you haven't heard me say much yet about the position players. Frankly, not much jumped out at me, for good or for ill. Ivan DeJesus Jr at second base for Pawtucket made a poor attempt at a grounder up the middle. It was scored a hit, and rightly so because even if he had come up with it, it would have required a stellar throw to nip the runner, if possible. But he flubbed it so that the question never came up. For Scranton/WB, right fielder Billy McKinney made a nice diving catch.
 
The Yankees farmhands had only 5 hits in total, with Tyler Austin accounting for 2 of them. Six Sox batters shared the hit total evenly. As previously alluded to, homers accounted for all three Yankee runs, the two-run shot being by Austin and the solo job by Bruce Caldwell. Both of these guys are 26 and neither of them shows up in the MLB rankings for the Yanks.
 
One last note. Lots of people criticize McCoy Stadium, but I like the place. It's an older park, and I suppose would be uncomfortable in the rare cases they sell out, but today's attendance of 5639 was hardly bursting at the seams and concession stands were convenient and spacious and well-staffed, and I enjoyed a craft brew and a good sausage-and-peppers-and-onions on a roll, and it was a beautiful sunny 84-degree day and the grandstand roof offered shade if you wanted it, so what's not to like? Well, too many Yankee fans, but that was just for this series. Oh, and I want to tell you, instead of the usual mascot race between innings, they had an eyeball race. It's sponsored by a local vision clinic, and you get to watch a green, blue, and brown eye race from first base to third. A wonderfully weird spin on a classic.
 
So that was my afternoon. Was yours as good?

Red Sox relief prospect Ty Buttrey came up in one of the discussions about trade talks. As luck would have it, I could drop Mrs Ash at Logan Airport today and head down I-95 in time for the last game in Pawtucket before their All-Star Break. So I did. The pretext is scouting a trade candidate, but of course I am not a scout. I'll tell you what I saw, and offer some opinions, and hopefully keep the two straight, one from another.
 
Even better luck: the Yankees AAA affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre was the opponent, and their #2 prospect, Justus Sheffield, was the starting pitcher. And a ranked prospect also closed the game for them. So there's more to tell.
 
The PawSox starter, Fernando Rodriguez, doesn't show up in MLB.com's top-30 for the Red Sox. The righthander's fastball touches 92, but his out-pitch seems to be offspeed. My seat was not located anywhere I can even pretend to tell you whether any of the pitchers use a curve, slider, straight change, or something exotic. From my angle down the first-base line, I could pretty easily tell when something off-speed was being delivered by Rodriguez (with the radar display to confirm or disprove my guess), but of course the batter has a tougher challenge. It was my impression he was getting away with deception, which possibly stops working so well at the major league level. If someone were to tell me we were thinking of using one of our trade chips to acquire him, I'd be disappointed. Then again, perhaps I wasn't seeing him at his best: he seemed to be working annoyingly slowly, and then had to come out of the game barely into the third inning. I haven't looked for an announced reason, but a blister would be my guess. Anyway he gave up a run in the second inning on a homer. He struck out 5 in just 2.1 innings, which sounds nice, but as I said, I'm skeptical.
 
Sheffield, by contrast, was solidly in command for the first four innings or so. His fastball sat consistently at 94 and it was his out pitch, something good to see. If this lefty's rapid pace was any indication, he pitched with confidence. I was less able to guess his pitches quickly as they came out of his hand. The first hit he gave up, in the fourth, was just a squibber toward the third baseman who didn't even bother to attempt a throw. However, Sheffield weakened in the fifth, but managed to wriggle out of two-baserunner trouble with some apparently nasty stuff to get the last two batters out. But it got worse for him in the sixth - I noticed his fastball was around 91 - and a visit to the mound didn't seem to do any wonders, although the fastball ticked back up to 93. He was gone after another batter or two reached base and a run scored. His pitch count by that point had ballooned to 89, whereas it had stood at only 42 after 3 full innings. His pitching line was a fairly pedestrian 5.1 innings with 5 hits plus two walks and one run, earned. But he struck out 7 in that time, and I'm here to tell you, he looks like the real deal to me. Those first 4 or 5 innings indicate to me that there's something to work with if he's called up. He's high ranked, and there's no way I would expect to pry him loose from the Yankees with any conceivable deadline deal, which someone on the forums here floated recently.
 
Back to the PawSox. 26th ranked Williams Jerez came on in relief of Rodriguez. He's a multi-innings left-handed reliever this season and served in that long-relief capacity of necessity today. He finished that third inning and went two more, surrendering a two-run blast in the top of the fifth. His fastball sits at 96 and he struck out five, so he's got a live arm and overall I was impressed enough to believe the ranking (which is a matter of taste, when it comes to relievers). He's 26 years old so his time is now, if ever.
 
Righty Kyle Martin pitched the next two innings for Pawtucket. His 94-MPH fastball helped account for 4 Ks to surround a hit and a walk. He's not ranked, where I looked, although I thought he had good swing-and-miss stuff. But he's 27 and got his cup of coffee last July - apparently he's organizational depth at this point.
 
Robby Scott, 28 years old, pitched the eighth. He was with the big club all last year, but I don't know his story in 2018 and he is at AAA. With only a 90 MPH heater, he's a sidearming lefty junkballer in today's world. He did more than OK today, striking out all three of the batters he faced, twice swinging, once looking, but my impression today before looking him up was smoke and mirrors in that inning.
 
Ty Buttrey took over in the ninth, to keep the deficit to only 1 run, and I thought he lived up to his billing. His fastball clocked 97. The right-hander's got a somewhat high leg kick, which worried me that it might indicate control trouble, but he likewise retired all three batters faced - although only one was a strikeout, neither ball put in play was much trouble - requiring merely an efficient 8 pitches.
 
OK, I'm out of chronological order now, because the Yankees RailRiders were offering up relievers too, today. 28-year old righty Tommy Kahnle took over from Sheffield in the sixth, and retired the two batters he faced to escape further damage. I didn't think to mark down his fastball speed - he's Tommy Kahnle.
 
They brought in another portsider in Stephen Tarpley to pitch the seventh and eighth. He had a 93 MPH fastball and his off-speed stuff seemed to be effective. He did give up a run, which he might be kicking himself over - after a leadoff double, followed by a sac bunt (questionable strategy to me, behind by 2 runs, but it worked out), Tarpley seemingly foiled the strategy by striking out the next batter. But then while working toward the eventual third out, he uncorked a wild pitch, and then failed to hustle to the plate to receive any throw that the catcher, who had retrieved the ball, might have wanted to make. Don't they go over this in spring training (said, every fan ever )?
 
The ninth inning was handled by 15th-ranked Cody Carroll. Like his Sox counterpart, I felt he lived up to his billing, with a fastball in the 96-97 range. The righty started off the inning with a bit of chin-music to PawSox catcher Dan Butler, and as a consequence or not, the home team went down meekly, 1-2-3.
 
As an aside, they play baseball differently in the minors. No pinch hitter by Pawtucket, for any of their number 7-8-9 batters coming up with a 3-2 deficit to overcome in the ninth. I have seen this annoying strategic non-feature and others, over the years. Minor league ball is strictly about developing prospects, not about winning individual games.
 
So, you haven't heard me say much yet about the position players. Frankly, not much jumped out at me, for good or for ill. Ivan DeJesus Jr at second base for Pawtucket made a poor attempt at a grounder up the middle. It was scored a hit, and rightly so because even if he had come up with it, it would have required a stellar throw to nip the runner, if possible. But he flubbed it so that the question never came up. For Scranton/WB, right fielder Billy McKinney made a nice diving catch.
 
The Yankees farmhands had only 5 hits in total, with Tyler Austin accounting for 2 of them. Six Sox batters shared the hit total evenly. As previously alluded to, homers accounted for all three Yankee runs, the two-run shot being by Austin and the solo job by Bruce Caldwell. Both of these guys are 26 and neither of them shows up in the MLB rankings for the Yanks.
 
One last note. Lots of people criticize McCoy Stadium, but I like the place. It's an older park, and I suppose would be uncomfortable in the rare cases they sell out, but today's attendance of 5639 was hardly bursting at the seams and concession stands were convenient and spacious and well-staffed, and I enjoyed a craft brew and a good sausage-and-peppers-and-onions on a roll, and it was a beautiful sunny 84-degree day and the grandstand roof offered shade if you wanted it, so what's not to like? Well, too many Yankee fans, but that was just for this series. Oh, and I want to tell you, instead of the usual mascot race between innings, they had an eyeball race. It's sponsored by a local vision clinic, and you get to watch a green, blue, and brown eye race from first base to third. A wonderfully weird spin on a classic.
 
So that was my afternoon. Was yours as good?

Red Sox relief prospect Ty Buttrey came up in one of the discussions about trade talks. As luck would have it, I could drop Mrs Ash at Logan Airport today and head down I-95 in time for the last game in Pawtucket before their All-Star Break. So I did. The pretext is scouting a trade candidate, but of course I am not a scout. I'll tell you what I saw, and offer some opinions, and hopefully keep the two straight, one from another.
 
Even better luck: the Yankees AAA affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre was the opponent, and their #2 prospect, Justus Sheffield, was the starting pitcher. And a ranked prospect also closed the game for them. So there's more to tell.
 
The PawSox starter, Fernando Rodriguez, doesn't show up in MLB.com's top-30 for the Red Sox. The righthander's fastball touches 92, but his out-pitch seems to be offspeed. My seat was not located anywhere I can even pretend to tell you whether any of the pitchers use a curve, slider, straight change, or something exotic. From my angle down the first-base line, I could pretty easily tell when something off-speed was being delivered by Rodriguez (with the radar display to confirm or disprove my guess), but of course the batter has a tougher challenge. It was my impression he was getting away with deception, which possibly stops working so well at the major league level. If someone were to tell me we were thinking of using one of our trade chips to acquire him, I'd be disappointed. Then again, perhaps I wasn't seeing him at his best: he seemed to be working annoyingly slowly, and then had to come out of the game barely into the third inning. I haven't looked for an announced reason, but a blister would be my guess. Anyway he gave up a run in the second inning on a homer. He struck out 5 in just 2.1 innings, which sounds nice, but as I said, I'm skeptical.
 
Sheffield, by contrast, was solidly in command for the first four innings or so. His fastball sat consistently at 94 and it was his out pitch, something good to see. If this lefty's rapid pace was any indication, he pitched with confidence. I was less able to guess his pitches quickly as they came out of his hand. The first hit he gave up, in the fourth, was just a squibber toward the third baseman who didn't even bother to attempt a throw. However, Sheffield weakened in the fifth, but managed to wriggle out of two-baserunner trouble with some apparently nasty stuff to get the last two batters out. But it got worse for him in the sixth - I noticed his fastball was around 91 - and a visit to the mound didn't seem to do any wonders, although the fastball ticked back up to 93. He was gone after another batter or two reached base and a run scored. His pitch count by that point had ballooned to 89, whereas it had stood at only 42 after 3 full innings. His pitching line was a fairly pedestrian 5.1 innings with 5 hits plus two walks and one run, earned. But he struck out 7 in that time, and I'm here to tell you, he looks like the real deal to me. Those first 4 or 5 innings indicate to me that there's something to work with if he's called up. He's high ranked, and there's no way I would expect to pry him loose from the Yankees with any conceivable deadline deal, which someone on the forums here floated recently.
 
Back to the PawSox. 26th ranked Williams Jerez came on in relief of Rodriguez. He's a multi-innings left-handed reliever this season and served in that long-relief capacity of necessity today. He finished that third inning and went two more, surrendering a two-run blast in the top of the fifth. His fastball sits at 96 and he struck out five, so he's got a live arm and overall I was impressed enough to believe the ranking (which is a matter of taste, when it comes to relievers). He's 26 years old so his time is now, if ever.
 
Righty Kyle Martin pitched the next two innings for Pawtucket. His 94-MPH fastball helped account for 4 Ks to surround a hit and a walk. He's not ranked, where I looked, although I thought he had good swing-and-miss stuff. But he's 27 and got his cup of coffee last July - apparently he's organizational depth at this point.
 
Robby Scott, 28 years old, pitched the eighth. He was with the big club all last year, but I don't know his story in 2018 and he is at AAA. With only a 90 MPH heater, he's a sidearming lefty junkballer in today's world. He did more than OK today, striking out all three of the batters he faced, twice swinging, once looking, but my impression today before looking him up was smoke and mirrors in that inning.
 
Ty Buttrey took over in the ninth, to keep the deficit to only 1 run, and I thought he lived up to his billing. His fastball clocked 97. The right-hander's got a somewhat high leg kick, which worried me that it might indicate control trouble, but he likewise retired all three batters faced - although only one was a strikeout, neither ball put in play was much trouble - requiring merely an efficient 8 pitches.
 
OK, I'm out of chronological order now, because the Yankees RailRiders were offering up relievers too, today. 28-year old righty Tommy Kahnle took over from Sheffield in the sixth, and retired the two batters he faced to escape further damage. I didn't think to mark down his fastball speed - he's Tommy Kahnle.
 
They brought in another portsider in Stephen Tarpley to pitch the seventh and eighth. He had a 93 MPH fastball and his off-speed stuff seemed to be effective. He did give up a run, which he might be kicking himself over - after a leadoff double, followed by a sac bunt (questionable strategy to me, behind by 2 runs, but it worked out), Tarpley seemingly foiled the strategy by striking out the next batter. But then while working toward the eventual third out, he uncorked a wild pitch, and then failed to hustle to the plate to receive any throw that the catcher, who had retrieved the ball, might have wanted to make. Don't they go over this in spring training (said, every fan ever )?
 
The ninth inning was handled by 15th-ranked Cody Carroll. Like his Sox counterpart, I felt he lived up to his billing, with a fastball in the 96-97 range. The righty started off the inning with a bit of chin-music to PawSox catcher Dan Butler, and as a consequence or not, the home team went down meekly, 1-2-3.
 
As an aside, they play baseball differently in the minors. No pinch hitter by Pawtucket, for any of their number 7-8-9 batters coming up with a 3-2 deficit to overcome in the ninth. I have seen this annoying strategic non-feature and others, over the years. Minor league ball is strictly about developing prospects, not about winning individual games.
 
So, you haven't heard me say much yet about the position players. Frankly, not much jumped out at me, for good or for ill. Ivan DeJesus Jr at second base for Pawtucket made a poor attempt at a grounder up the middle. It was scored a hit, and rightly so because even if he had come up with it, it would have required a stellar throw to nip the runner, if possible. But he flubbed it so that the question never came up. For Scranton/WB, right fielder Billy McKinney made a nice diving catch.
 
The Yankees farmhands had only 5 hits in total, with Tyler Austin accounting for 2 of them. Six Sox batters shared the hit total evenly. As previously alluded to, homers accounted for all three Yankee runs, the two-run shot being by Austin and the solo job by Bruce Caldwell. Both of these guys are 26 and neither of them shows up in the MLB rankings for the Yanks.
 
One last note. Lots of people criticize McCoy Stadium, but I like the place. It's an older park, and I suppose would be uncomfortable in the rare cases they sell out, but today's attendance of 5639 was hardly bursting at the seams and concession stands were convenient and spacious and well-staffed, and I enjoyed a craft brew and a good sausage-and-peppers-and-onions on a roll, and it was a beautiful sunny 84-degree day and the grandstand roof offered shade if you wanted it, so what's not to like? Well, too many Yankee fans, but that was just for this series. Oh, and I want to tell you, instead of the usual mascot race between innings, they had an eyeball race. It's sponsored by a local vision clinic, and you get to watch a green, blue, and brown eye race from first base to third. A wonderfully weird spin on a classic.
 
So that was my afternoon. Was yours as good?

Looking to kill a few minutes? Have a look at this peculiar project a ten-year old some knucklehead enterprising person took the time to construct via a series of posts in 2011-12.
 
http://burncardburn.com
 
Follow it through to the end, and in total there's about five pages of images and videos of captioned baseball cards, defaced baseball cards, intentionally damaged baseball cards, burnt baseball cards, and, ..., well, more captioned and defaced and damaged and burnt baseball cards. PS: hope you like mustaches.
 
Contact the owner of that site, not me, if you want your ten minutes back. Personally, it spoke to my inner ten-year old youthful knucklehead soul.
 
http://burncardburn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/87-topps-jay-howell.jpg

Looking to kill a few minutes? Have a look at this peculiar project a ten-year old some knucklehead enterprising person took the time to construct via a series of posts in 2011-12.
 
http://burncardburn.com
 
Follow it through to the end, and in total there's about five pages of images and videos of captioned baseball cards, defaced baseball cards, intentionally damaged baseball cards, burnt baseball cards, and, ..., well, more captioned and defaced and damaged and burnt baseball cards. PS: hope you like mustaches.
 
Contact the owner of that site, not me, if you want your ten minutes back. Personally, it spoke to my inner ten-year old youthful knucklehead soul.
 
http://burncardburn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/87-topps-jay-howell.jpg

Attending a nice panel discussion at SABR this morning, including 1979 Pirates champions John Candelaria and Grant Jackson. They reminded the audience that the team started out 12-18, and were in fourth place at the all star break. Their recollection was that there was still a long way to go, and they just continued to play the games one at a time. While the odds are against our 2018 Twins, it wouldn't be unprecedented to go all the way. The panel reminds me that the players have to just shut out all the noise that we fans listen to.

In the midst of all the talk about Sano and his weight, I got to thinking about the judgments that people make about other people – baseball players and their size – think Altuve or Randy Johnson, their weight, their various physical attributes – like my essay on Pete Gray who over came the fact that he lacked an arm or Jim Abbot and others judged to be handicapped. Perhaps it is the fact that my daughter is deaf that made me think about Dummy Hoy.
“Dummy” Hoy – William Ellsworth Hoy – was known as Dummy because he contracted meningitis at age three and was deaf the rest of his life. And deafness denies the ability to mimic speech so he was also “dumb” or unable to speak. Born in 1862 – during the civil war, he grew up in the same era that baseball grew up.
 
Sent to a school for the deaf in Ohio, he was trained as a cobbler and he had the initiative to go from working in the back of a shop to owning his own shoe shop. The school, like many others felt that a deaf and dumb person was not capable of doing much more than fixing shoes and even then, some people refused to have such a handicapped person fix their shoes. But he persevered, and he also took advantage of the fact that many people went shoeless in the summer and he followed his passion to play baseball. By age of 24, his love of baseball and his constant work on baseball skills attracted a scout and led him to professional baseball, first with a minor league team in Oshkosh, WI under HOF manager Frank Selee and then in 1888 with the Washington Senators. ! As a rookie he stole 82 bases and that record stood until the Ricky Henderson, Maury Will, Vince Coleman era. In his second-year major league season he had OBP of 376m scored 98 runs and stole 33 bases.
 
His career was not a gimmick like the midget of Bill Veeck’s carnival promotions with the St Louis Browns. Dummy Hoy played major league baseball until 1902 and accumulated 32.5 WAR.
 
He also demanded respect and turned down an offer from the Milwaukee Brewers (1880’s team) because the manager laughed at the idea of a deaf/mute thinking he could play baseball. In his career (14 years) he had 2048 hits, a .288 batting average, 596 stolen bases, and a .386 OBPAs a fielder he threw out three men at home in one game and had 45 assists for the White Stockings in 1901.
 
In addition to being deaf and never hearing the roar of the crowd, the call of the umpire, or the sound of his teammates, he was also at a disadvantage as a player who was 5’ 4” and 150 pounds! Jose Altuve would love him.
 
Lacking all the electronics of todays’ ballpark, Hoy was at a disadvantage, not being able to hear the umpire call balls and strikes. He asked his 3B coach to signal the ball and strike call to him and eventually got various signals to coordinate with teammates. Asking the umpires to use hand signals began the current system umpires use for outs, strikes, balls, fouls. But the HOF credits umpire Bill Klem for this even though Klem came after Dummy Hoy retired.
 
The fans, appreciating his skill and determination did not yell and scream when he did something outstanding, instead they stood and waved their arms and hats in salute. He later replied, “It is not enough that the deaf candidate for baseball honors has the necessary ability, he assuredly must have the nerve and courage to even apply for a trial.”
 
He finished his career with the minor league Los Angeles LooLoos of the Pacific Coast League with 156 runs, 46 stolen bses and 419 put outs. But in many ways his final play in his career was the most amazing of all professional players. A ball was hit deeply to the outfield and in those days, fans were allowed to stand in the outfield – often there was no fence. He was determined and charged into the fans in very deep centerfield and when he encountered a horse, he jumped on the horses back, and then he used the horse as a springboard to leap and catch the ball!
 
With a deaf wife, they raised to very successful hearing children and he took on the raising of his nephew when he was orphaned at three. That nephew went on to establish the Helm’s bakery and become a millionaire who supported the Olympics. Hoy was put in the Cincinnati Reds HOF – in 1896 while playing for the Reds he led the league in homeruns with FOUR. He was also named in the Deaf Athletes HOF and should be in the MLB HOF. Former teammates – Honus Wagner, Connie Mack, Clark Griffith, and Sam Crawford – all in the HOF – tried unsuccessfully to get him in. In 1961 he tossed out the first pitch in the third game of the World Series and died in December of that year.
 
The number of deaf players is very small but perseverance will mean that there will be more. http://www.infobarrel.com/Deaf_Baseball_Players_Who_Made_the_Major_Leagues

This Twins have had a bit of a tortured history with analytics. In 2010 Rob Antony did an interview with TwinsDaily’s own Parker Hageman and revealed some interesting facts about the Twins and Sabermetrics. Antony stated this about their analytics department, “we're probably one of the last, if not the last, team to address it with a person dedicated solely to that.”. He went on further to fail to understand some fairly basic concepts about Sabermetrics. He thought FIP was “first strike in inning pitched” and was unable to guess about BABIP. He then revealed they had just hired their analytics guy and stated he would be “Gathering information and creating databases. This will be his first year. The guy that we brought in will start creating systems to build a foundation of our own that we can look at.” This is what I primarily want to get into as I have a background in IT.
 
In corporate America one of the techniques we use to understand what our competition is doing is to analyze their job postings. Have they posted an unusually large amount of Sales positions? Are they looking at specific geographic locations that have a concentration of talent? Are they asking for specific or unusual technical skills? These are all things we can look at to try to get an idea of intent and structure. I applied this technique to the Twins and their development job postings and found some interesting things.
 
2014 Posting
 
2015 Posting
 
One of the common details in both job postings is the fact that the Twins were looking for a developer who had experience doing front-end work (HTML, JavaScript), middle tier (.NET Framework, ASP.MVC), and the data layer (SQL Server). This implies a couple of things. The first is that the Twins are employing a standard three-tier architecture for their analytics.


It also implies that they only have “full stack” developers, which means they are required to know and to be able to develop in all 3 of their architecture tiers. This is problematic because is you are required to be able to code in everything that usually means you are unable to specialize or gain really in-depth knowledge on any single tier. For the Twins to take the next step in analytics I think they need to be hiring specialists in each of these areas.
 
Another thing I noticed is that the only data store they referred to is SQL Server. The reason that this is important is that the industry still values relational datamarts like SQL Server but they are also moving in the direction of unstructured Big Data repositories as well. Applications like Hadoop, HBASE, MongoDB, and many others allow unstructured data to be quickly stored and analyzed which allows for more experimentation by analysts when compared to a structured DB. I think the PITCH f/x and Trackman data has likely been analyzed enough but I think the next frontier is going into some less structured data. Putting medical records into a big data store and analyzing test results and notes to find patterns in identifying healthier players. Putting free text scouting reports into it and running natural language analytics on them using IBM Watson or some other AI service to identify key language or sentiments that indicate a player that is more likely to succeed. The addition of weather data and the analysis of its impact on specific players. I think there is a lot of room to grow here.
 
In short, I think it is likely this lack of specialization and not embracing the newer Big Data technologies led Thad Levine and Derek Falvey to go in a new direction this last fall with the analytics department. I wouldn’t be surprised if the hiring surge described in a recent article by Pat Reusse did not include hires to address these concerns. I am interested in your thoughts and feedback.

The Twins made an unexpected addition to their burgeoning bullpen over the weekend, adding former Mets and Red Sox reliever Addison Reed on a two-year pact worth $16.75 million. The deal profiles well for the Twins on a number of fronts. At 29, Reed is at the younger end of a relief pitching market deep in high quality back end bullpen arms. Reed represents the first multi-year deal the Twins have ever signed with an outside reliever in free agency. In spite of this, the Twins locked Reed up on a short contract, at a price which they undoubtedly would have had to surpass had they signed him earlier in free agency.
 
Reed joins a Twins bullpen shaping up to be vastly different, and potentially much improved over its 2017 iteration. In addition to returning standout Trevor Hildenberger, the Twins have added Fernando Rodney, presumably filling the vacant ninth inning role, and Zach Duke, returning from an injury-plagued 2017 season. In the former trio, the Twins seemed to have established a penchant for the traits they are pursuing in improving their bullpen; inducing ground balls and a lot of strikeouts, hardly a pioneering recipe for success. In Reed however, they have added a pitcher who generates more fly balls, so what about Reed has made him such a consistent a reliable late inning reliever?
 
There’s no real intricacy in Reed’s pitch mix. He throws a four seem fastball around 66% of the time, a slider 33% of the time, and a changeup about as often as Byron Buxton gets caught stealing a base. Reed has excellent control, posting a walk rate of 1.51 BB/9 in 2016 and 1.78 BB/9 in 2017. Reed’s 2017 BB/9 was good for 11th among relievers who pitched at least 50 innings. This level of control was not always a staple of Reed’s pitching. In his first 3 seasons in MLB his BB/9 oscillated between 2.90 and 3.05. While this may seem like a trivial difference, this is a difference of around 10-11 walks over a 75 inning sample, a big deal when you’re constantly pitching in high leverage situations. So what is at the root of Reed’s improved control since the beginning of the 2016 season?
 
In 2016, Reed produced a dramatic improvement in his overall numbers. In addition to refining his control, Reed stranded around 5% more baserunners, increased his K/9 from 8.2 to 10.55 and dropped his xFIP from 4.04 to 2.09. Reed has never had elite velocity. While some have commented on a dip in velocity throughout the past two seasons, his average four seam fastball velocity has remained fairly consistent, dropping from 93.66 mph in April of 2015 to 92.72 mph in October of 2017. So if Reed isn’t blowing hitters away, how did his K/9 improve and stick above 9.0 in his last two seasons?
 
The number that jumps out in Reed’s improvement from 2015 to 2016 is his F-Strike% (percentage of the time Reed is throwing a first pitch strike). In 2015 Reed’s F-Strike% was around 56%. In 2016, it jumped to 70%. For the sake of comparison, old friend Pat Neshek had an F-Strike% of 71.1% in 2017 and had an incredible BB/9 of 0.87. This is a dramatic improvement from Reed which is even more impressive when visualized.
 
Here’s a look at Reed’s heat map from 2015. This charts the percentage a pitch falls within a sub-location of the strike zone. For all three of these searches I looked at heat maps representing the first pitch of a plate appearance, exclusively when Reed threw his four seem fastball. You’ll immediately notice a stark contrast between 2015 and 2016. Reed improved in two notable areas, pounding the strike zone with a greater level of consistency, and using a greater portion of the strike zone when throwing first pitch strikes. We see a similar performance in 2017 (although not quite as impressive). Interestingly, Reed’s obvious trend in locating his first pitch strikes higher in the zone in resulted in opposing batters OPS increasing from .587 in 2016, to .862 in 2017.
 






 
So where does Reed fit in the back end of a Twins bullpen which has been dramatically upgraded from a year ago? Initially, there was contention that adding Reed might create a closer controversy in Minnesota. The Twins had recently added Fernando Rodney to the pen on a one year deal. It seems as if the Twins will stick with Rodney as their primary ninth inning option. Since taking on his role with the Twins, Paul Molitor has been criticized in his bullpen management for traditionalism, a tendency to use each of his relievers in a pre-determined role. Intractably funneling Rodney into save situations may allow Molitor the luxury of using both Reed and Trevor Hildenberger as more flexible relievers, whose appearances are dictated by the leverage of a given situation, rather than the inning they are pitching in. In addition to providing Molitor with another quality arm, Reed may provide the impetus for Molitor to get more creative in facilitating the evolution of the Twins bullpen, maximizing the potential of a vastly upgraded group.