A Tale of Two Texans

It was the best of us, it was the worst of us.

Finally we had some home runs. We had our fistful of walks (12 of the last 13 years' walk leaders have made it to the playoffs, yo). We beat the guy (from Tyler, Texas) who had the 21st perfect game ever in baseball. And we're in first place!

But we left the bases loaded twice with 10 LOB. We had 6 strikeouts. Johnny Damon, no joke, is already hurt.

Sidebar: Have you heard the Tom Hamilton Domino's Pizza commercial? He seems utterly bored. Like he has some sort of personal grudge against Domino's and he refused to do anything but read the copy. I've never heard that man so un-interested! If they had Domino's in my area I'd probably avoid it.

Anyway, regardless of the "worst of us" and Tom Hamilton's sad pizza, it was a pretty fun game tonight. At least in the later innings. Johnny Damon leading off with a strikeout was sort of an "urp!" moment and there was not much to say about the first 4 innings, but after that I was pretty pumped!

John Tomlin (of Tyler, Texas) did better than usual, only giving up 3 runs instead of 4. He had a solid 6 innings and struck out 4.

All of our top-quality relievers came out (Smith, Pestano, Sipp, Chris Perez) came in and did well, except Tony Sipp who uh...well he didn't. Joe Smith's striking out the side more than made up for it, tho. Dude is pitching 1.59 and he got the win! Perez, of course, got his 8th save and is now the league leader in saves. MEMORY ERASED.

As I said above, Damon started today in the lead-off spot where he struck out but also walked. At some point he got hurt (pulled muscle I think?) and they replaced him with Shelley and then Cunningham and neither of them did anything at the plate.

Kipnis stayed second and got his hit, giving him a 6-game streak and 16 hits in his last 10 games.

Asdrubal had an awesome night going 1 for 2 (a double) with 3 walks. Holy smokes! He's "only" hitting .290 and not bashing the homers but I think maybe he'll only get better from here.

Hafner had a big night too! He went 2 for 4, 2 runs, 2 RBI and...A HOMER! WOOHOO!

Know who else went 2 for 4 with a homer? Santana! WOOHOO!!

Remember when I was all excited that we were leading the league in homers? That was less than a month ago. Maybe we're about to climb back up! Climb back up from second-to-last...

Michael Brantley was relegated to batting 7th today. Ok. If Johnny Damon's thing is being first and Brantley is not ripping my face off like I thought he would, then he can stay at 7th. He could do some good down there just like...

SUPERMANAHAN! He did it again today, getting a clutch hit in the 8th when we were tied, with 2 outs and 2 on. Double for Hannahan, ho hum. HO HUM! So once again Jack plays the hero and I'll totally take it. He hasn't been hitting worth shit for the last few games so it was an awesome surprise for him to do his thing like that, while it can still be considered a "thing."

How excited were you when Santana hit that homer in the 5th? It was nearly almost as exciting as last season's walk-off grand slam. I'm serious! Why? Because we were so bad last night. And we haven't hit homers in forever. And Humber could have shut us down completely. But instead, Carlos Santana hit one OUT OF HERE! Did you cheer? You know I did!

And Hafner's, too! Just a couple of insurance runs but lord knows we need those these days. And a Hafner home run? I will take that ANY day! I "woo-hooed" for sure that time too.

Don't forget to check out Tom Hamilton Has The Best Home Run Call In All Of Baseball tomorrow for a visual-audio slice of pie!

Tomorrow is the final game of the series, once again at 8:10. Justin's our man versus John Danks. Both of them have sucky ERAs, maybe we'll get us some more runs. Can't wait!

See you there!

Radio Chatter:
"I'll guarantee you that Johnny Damon has never had a white shirt that looks like yours does tonight."
"Oh come on..."
"There was a serious moment in this booth when we thought Rosie could be injured. Then we realized it was just that his ketchup packet had exploded."
"You thought I'd taken a stray bullet, huh?"
"We thought you took one for the team but turns out your just took one for the burger."
"This is radio, I coulda gotten away with it all night."
"Wait til you show that to [your wife] Carol. 'Good luck, honey!'"
"It never happens when you're wearing a red shirt."
- Tom Hamilton and Jim Rosenhaus

"Philip Humber continues a line that you normally see in a Little League game. Six walks and six strikeouts."
- Tom Hamilton

"Just umpire the game. Don't stand there staring in the dugout looking for trouble. [...] Either that or he's looking for a ham sandwich in there."
- Tom Hamilton on the umpire's drawn-out confrontation with Asdrubal Cabrera