Home Again, Hot Again

Extra nice stuff tonight! The Orioles are the real thing and both our offense and pitching handled them like they were so many Red Sox.

Masterson was HOT HOT HOT, collecting his third win. Seven innings, one run, four hits. Twelve ground outs! Man, do we love good starting pitching or what? Dude's ERA is 1.33. Listening to Bob Frantz here, he tells us that Masterson didn't get his 3rd win until July 1st. SRSLY!

Masterson's mastery was hardly needed today as the offense cut through Zach Britton like butter. That guy had been all Masterson, with a 2-0 record and a .066 ERA. Some really nice situational hitting and running by us to shut all that nonsense down.

Brantley went 2 for 3 with a walk and has a very exciting .333 AVG. He is really making the case for himself to stick around when Grady comes back. All good - just more good bats to keep in the lineup!

Asdrubal went 2 for 4 with FOUR RBI and leads the team, by far, with 14. Probably has a lot to do with Brantley being on base before him! OMG what if Grady was in front of him too?! Let's do that!

Hey guess who got a hit tonight? CHOOOO!! Actually, twooooooo! And one was a big big double, almost a home run. Boy that's nice to see. I wonder how much he loves playing at home? People really came out tonight (er, in comparison. Dollar Dogs, dontchaknow) and there was a lot of "CHOOOO!" to rock the house. His AVG is creeping up there. It's getting there!

Hafner hit one out tonight, and while he's still got fewer than Asdrubal it's still more exciting to see our home run guy hit a home run. It was a friggin' big one too, almost in to the bullpen.

LaPorta and Everett (Everett!) were no slouches today either, with two hits apiece. Everett made a doozy of a play from third on a little infield dribbler to get the out. How do you like Lou Marson? Only 3 games (Santana finally took a breather) but he's hitting .400. Nice to have bats off the bench, huh?

With all these runs tonight it's a good time to bring up a little detail I've been thinking about. At Progressive Field, whenever we score they play a little Super Mario "coin sound" which I think is f'n cool. They also show a graphic of Mario collecting some coins. I don't know how many of you are "NES-aged" but this sort of thing just impresses me, even though it's a little thing. I tried to ask around (read: posted on the non-sports message board I belong to) to ask if any other stadium does this but I only got like 3 replies. So I'm going to claim this for our own. I wonder if anyone has any coin posters or anything, to hold up during the game? Do people even notice this happens? Hmm...maybe I need to have 2 signs. "OMG ASDRUBAL!" and a coin.

I'm going to the game Sunday (YAY!) and I'll be making that Asdrubal sign. I swear. I've been threatening to make one since 2007, when I actually made a little one using the free paper and markers given out at whatever that "fancast" thing was at the stadium when the team was out of town and they showed the game on the big board (man how fun was THAT?! Loved it!) Anyway, I might even go to the craft store and everything. I think I need something permanent like foam board. I also need to use a ruler. I'm the type to end up with a sign like this:

O M G  A S DRUBAL

Heh. Anyway, keep an eye out. They'll put "OMG" on TV right? It's less bad than "WTF?" Blasphemous maybe but ... ASDRUBAL!

Don't forget - 1:05 game tomorrow. We'll see ya!

Radio Chatter:
"Travis Hafner with a deep drive to right center. Can mother nature knock it down? No! Travis Hafner..into the teeth of the wind has his third home run! [...] And Pronk is back!"
- The Poetic Tom Hamilton