Pronknasty

Man oh man, what a night. It was one of those nights that things kept going from bad to worse. Later getting out of work than I wanted. Later getting on the road than I wanted. Got nervous about standing in line to redeem my stupid "Perfect 10" vouchers at the ticket office so I thought "I'll stop at the Beachwood Place Indians Team Shop to get my tickets." Except that doesn't exist. I didn't realize until I sat in traffic trying to get off on Cedar. Then it took forever to get to my friend's place on Coventry. Then our other friend was 15 minutes late. Then I kept getting stuck in traffic and couldn't park in my good garage and had to go to another garage for more money, further away. Then we got to the park and stood in line for a half hour and missed the first 4 innings. Then the lines for food were unbelievably crazy, so I went hungry until I paid $10 for a stupid bottle of pop and peanuts. Then a bird pooped on my shirt, my hat, my sign. Then the kids next to us were obnoxious and threw a hot dog at someone.

But by the end of the 6th inning I was fine. A beautiful Pronk homer. Then three innings of amazing pitching and fan supporting, then cap it off with another warm welcome for Perez and by the time I got to the car I could care less that I was starving, had to pee and had a half hour wait to get out of that expensive garage.

It was kind of like going to church, you know? That's the point of both - to uplift. I think even if we'd lost I'd have come out the other end OK.

Also, those obnoxious kids next to us didn't fuck with me. I dunno if they respected someone with a sign, or someone with a swell hat, or someone that looks like they could have pounded them into oblivion. But they had a nice time sort of heckling other folks around us and the usher, but not me. Word.

I'll admit I was pretty worried about facing Doug Fister, and wasn't sure what to expect from McAllister. I was blown away by him in his first start but his second and third starts yielded more runs. We all knew that we couldn't be giving up runs against Fister.

But McAllister didn't disappoint! He matched Fister on innings (6), strikeouts (3) and earned runs (2). He gave up more hits (8 to Fister's 5) but didn't walk ANYONE. He was going in there and pitching at everyone, man.

Nick Hagadone came in to finish the 7th for McAllister, and he got the bases loaded with the game tied and Miguel Cabrera up next. Eep! Not what we expect from New Nick but before he could give up a (rare) run, Joe Smith came in and took care of Miggy with a groundout. Crowd = wild.

Next inning was started by Sipp versus Fielder and Fielder got on with an error. Sipp was pulled right away - Acta was in full-on chess mode. In came VinneP52 who gave up two singles to load the bases. Game still tied. Crowd going bananas. Strikes out Peralta. Now coconuts. Infield dribbler, throw home for an out - best defensive play of the year. Pooping pineapples. Strikes out All-Star catcher pinch hitter Alex Avila on a 3-2 fastball. We were full-on piña colada by then.

Chris Perez came in for the 9th. Someone had a "HEY CP WE ARE HERE" bedsheet banner in the upper deck. Wild crazy applause for 21 pitches, which fueled Pure Rage to strike out two and cap it off with a pop-out to big Miggy.

Awesome, awesome, awesome!

And that was just the pitching!

Choo ended his streak at 9. Oh well, he'll be back tomorrow. I'm sure no one is more disappointed than Choo himself! No chance to steal or anything.

Finally awake tonight was good ol' Jason Kipnis. The JK Kid leads the team in runs, home runs (tied) and RBI. Where you been, bro? We are back to being Kipnisses! Tonight he went 3 for 4 and scored 2 runs. One of those runs was on Hafner's homer, the other was him basically stealing home on a dribbler to the right of the mound, and getting in safely thanks to a craptacular throw by Prince Fielder. Someone called Fielder "Fatty McButterpants" on Twitter or something. I'm a fatty myself and not a fan of the fat-hate but damn...LULZ!

I dragged my OMG ASDRUBAL!!! sign around all over the place tonight and was rewarded with two chances to use it. One for defense and one for an amazing double in the 9th that got Kipnis to 3rd from where he eventually scored. I also rocked the sign when Asdrubal came down to score next on a sac fly from Santana. And I rocked it so my friends could keep me in their sight on the way out.

It may be time for a new sign, tho - this one is bird pooped. Grr...

Did you know that "Pronknasty" is a word? I was alerted to this by the scoreboard. I guess it shows that I've either been ignoring Twitter or not going to games because I'd not heard it. But the scoreboard applied it to Hafner's RBI dribbler. They did not apply it to his homer in the 6th, however. They called that a Tribe Tater. Seriously...it was brought to you by Mr. Potato Head.

I can run with Pronknasty tho. It's "all over" Twitter if you Google it. You should Google it more, and come here.

Brantley got a nice double, and ODDLY nothing came of it. I say ODDLY because we only had 4 LOB today. I'm going to make the call and say that's the lowest LOB ratio we've had all season. Giving Cousin Michael a smiley for that double, by the way.  :)

Jose Lopez (LOPEZ!) is still tearin' it up, extending his hitting streak to 9. He's batting .283 now. I guess Hannahan was ok to play but not to start. I wonder how long we'll have the Lopez? He proved to be fallible today on the bases - getting caught sleeping at first and making a critical out. We'll blame it on over-excitement, and request that he never do that again.

Shelley Duncan came in for Pronk in the 8th. I guess he sort of hurt his leg on his first at-bat. Shelley got caught stealing and I don't know why. Perhaps he thought that since he was brought in to pinch run that suddenly that meant he was a good runner. Considering they didn't bring Donald in I'm guessing they had other plans for Shelley. Plans that didn't include stealing a base.

I am going to take a second to bitch about the Perfect 10 Voucher Pack. I bought 20 of them for the bleachers, for $198. Swell idea and possibly might maybe save me some money if I get sat in some $12 bleacher seats or go to a game where bleacher seats cost more than $10. I'm not pissed that we got bumped from the bleachers and put in the upper deck, because I like the upper deck and we got very nice seats. The thing that sucks about these vouchers is that they're vouchers. I know - duh. That's what they're called. But the sales people get you so psyched up about them that you forget that in exchange for not paying the $5 "printing fee" for tickets online, you have to stand in line to redeem your vouchers. Yes you can redeem them any time before the game at a Team Shop but who the fuck lives near a Team Shop? There ain't one between here and East 9th.

So if you have these vouchers you need to get there early, don't go on a Dollar Dog Night, and don't go when we're playing the Tigers, Yankees or Red Sox. Also go down to the 12 ticket windows past Gate A, that's the quickest line.

Ok end of rant. I've got 16 tickets left. Who wants to go?!

Tomorrow is [scary music]Verlander[/scary music] versus Masterson. What do you think? Is momentum real? Will they let Damon "rest his legs" so Shelley "Two Homers Off Verlander" Duncan can play? The stats say we don't do too well in day games but that includes all those miserable Sundays. Here's a stat: 16 homers in night games, 19 in day games. I just looked up the 2011 Indians stats vs. Verlander...

Noon game tomorrow! Need to CHEER CHEER CHEER! See you there!

Radio Chatter:
"If you're Fielder and you're getting paid 30 million dollars a year, you'd better get that runner to third base somehow."
- Mike Hegan

"In Santana's defence, you can't be pitched to any better than that."
- Mike Hegan on Santana's strikeout

"We drove all the way from Hilton Head just to get a dollar dog. With gas prices today that's about a $120 hot dog."
- Mike Hegan

"Remember when we were talking about that 20-second radio delay? I think we would have needed it to play some of McClendon's conversation."
- Jim Rosenhaus on the ejection of the Tigers' batting coach

"Come on, this might be your only game this year. Get on that soapbox!"
- Jim Rosenhaus urges Mike Hegan to go off about bunting, for old time's sake