Monday, May 02, 2005
Off Weekend
Sometimes you choose to watch a lot of baseball on the weekend and sometimes you decide you have better things to do. (Sometimes you have those better things thrust upon you like unwanted leftovers from an office potluck, but that really wasn't the case here.)
Let's see... spent a relaxing evening at home with the family Friday night after a long week; went to the zoo with my daughter Saturday, capped by a trip to Krispy Kreme; had dinner with some excellent sangria at the neighbors' Saturday night; accompanied my daughter to a birthday party at Enchanted Island and watched her ride The Dragon three times. (You have no idea how big of a deal that is.) Oh, yeah, my daughter is starting to swing a mini-baseball bat quite nicely, on the basis of absolutely no instruction on my part. Maybe by the end of the season, she'll get a crack at the D-Backs' 2-spot in the lineup.
So instead of watching a 15-inning loss Friday night, or searching for the missing offense Saturday night, I caught the 7th inning of Sunday's 5-2 Diamondbacks win over the Padres. That was enough for me.
It's hard to get too frustrated by Friday's 5-4 loss -- losing in 15 innings is always tough, but on the other hand, the relief staff pitched 8 eight scoreless innings before Brandon Lyon gave up the winning run in the 15th inning. Saturday's 2-0 loss is a little harder to take, as it's never fun to watch your offense get blanked, especially by somebody who's not considered an ace.
But having Vazquez pitch a complete game yesterday -- that's huge. 9 innings and 115 pitches, less than 13 per inning. Heading into a stretch of 14 more consecutive games (advance plug for Three Weeks later today), getting the bullpen a day off was crucial, and Vazquez delivered big-time. Scoring 5 runs in Petco was also nice.
In the end, the D-Backs scored 9, gave up 9, and, because tie games are relatively rare in baseball, went 1-2 rather than 1.5-1.5. They finished the road trip 4-2 instead of 3-3 had Vazquez lost, and come back home with a much different attitude.
It was a nicer weekend for me than for the Diamondbacks, but at least they didn't take the whole weekend off.
Let's see... spent a relaxing evening at home with the family Friday night after a long week; went to the zoo with my daughter Saturday, capped by a trip to Krispy Kreme; had dinner with some excellent sangria at the neighbors' Saturday night; accompanied my daughter to a birthday party at Enchanted Island and watched her ride The Dragon three times. (You have no idea how big of a deal that is.) Oh, yeah, my daughter is starting to swing a mini-baseball bat quite nicely, on the basis of absolutely no instruction on my part. Maybe by the end of the season, she'll get a crack at the D-Backs' 2-spot in the lineup.
So instead of watching a 15-inning loss Friday night, or searching for the missing offense Saturday night, I caught the 7th inning of Sunday's 5-2 Diamondbacks win over the Padres. That was enough for me.
It's hard to get too frustrated by Friday's 5-4 loss -- losing in 15 innings is always tough, but on the other hand, the relief staff pitched 8 eight scoreless innings before Brandon Lyon gave up the winning run in the 15th inning. Saturday's 2-0 loss is a little harder to take, as it's never fun to watch your offense get blanked, especially by somebody who's not considered an ace.
But having Vazquez pitch a complete game yesterday -- that's huge. 9 innings and 115 pitches, less than 13 per inning. Heading into a stretch of 14 more consecutive games (advance plug for Three Weeks later today), getting the bullpen a day off was crucial, and Vazquez delivered big-time. Scoring 5 runs in Petco was also nice.
In the end, the D-Backs scored 9, gave up 9, and, because tie games are relatively rare in baseball, went 1-2 rather than 1.5-1.5. They finished the road trip 4-2 instead of 3-3 had Vazquez lost, and come back home with a much different attitude.
It was a nicer weekend for me than for the Diamondbacks, but at least they didn't take the whole weekend off.
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