The first record set was by Corey Kluber, who struck out 7 batters in a row. Do you know who has not done that? "Bob Feller has not done that?" you're surely thinking. No, as a matter of fact - he never did. His record was 6, and it was tied by Bartolo Colon and I think Mitch Talbot. Corey Kluber just went out and pitched 8 innings on a Sunday in May and he just broke a Bob Feller record. Huh.
Aside from striking out 7 in a row, he threw 17 strikeouts. He struck out each Sox at least once. He also had two fielding outs, and gave up just 2 walks. Oh, there was a home run but our guys were actually able to overcome that deficit today, no problemo.
Kluber was just badass, but unfortunately the White Sox were a bit patient and he had 110 pitches after the 8th so we were all pretty sure he wouldn't come out for the 9th. But yaaay! Standing ovation for the KLUBE!!!
Next was John Axford who doesn't just come out to his crowd-sourced song "Working Man." His ego is so big he needs two songs! So first was the theme from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly with some piercing eyeballs on the scoreboard, then came Rush. Wow, with an entrance like that you must be hot stuff!
Or not. So the game was lost. Funny thing...did you know that Chris Perez blew a save last night for Los Angeles, too? It's catching!
I love me some good closer action, don't get me wrong. But I think the real deal is that most closers are all talk and very little show. Eastbound and Down is a documentary.
But hey! Speaking of entrance music, Nyjer Morgan had some crazy marching music or something for his plate music. And I was intrigued by it AND I had this spiffy new app from the MLB called "At The Ballpark" which was supposed to tell me plate music. It didn't have Morgan's. It also said that ice cream was at section 115. It wasn't. Good thing this app is free!
Even though we love Bourn because 1) He's the second highest-paid player on the team and 2) He hits like Nyjer Morgan, we are happy to have ol' Nyjer! For some reason he fell over when running to first after bunting in his second at-bat. Tom Hamilton said "He got hit by a sniper!" Hammy was cracking up, Sandy Alomar was cracking up. We all had a good crack-up. Michael Bourn is good but when is the last time he cracked you up??
Morgan also ended up with 2 hits today, including a double. A speed double!
All right...Nick Swisher. In the 8th inning, there were 2 men on (1st and 3rd) and Nick Swisher hit a sharp liner to second base. The second baseman (or shortstop?) seemed to catch the ball but he dropped it. He then threw Nick Swisher out at first because Nick Swisher had not run through the bag. Nick Swisher slowed up and possibly stopped when he thought the ball was caught. I saw it, my best friend saw it, everyone in our section (oddly, near Bro-hio) saw it. We all booed. Tom Hamilton didn't see it and I guess nobody from the media saw it because I have not heard ANYONE mention it. If Nick Swisher would have run, as you are taught in day 3 of tee-ball, then he would have been safe and Kottaras would have scored and it would have been 4-1 and the game would have been tied at the end of 9.
That dickhead should totally be fined for that sort of thing and the media should be all up in his stuff, but no. Nobody saw it but us, I guess.
Michael Brantley (.268) went 1 for 5. Seemed like he got more than that but nope, just that 1. And Carlos Santana is back to not hitting again. But the hope was alive and well at Progressive Field! We all thought they could do it! But no.
Lonnie Chisenhall, on the other hand - He can TOTALLY do it. He can do everything! Well maybe not play the field, I don't know. How many times have we seen him out there anyway? (Actually he's had as many AB from 3B as he has from DH. My bad.) I guess maybe he can't hit against lefties but according to his splits he's batting 1.000 against them this year. Maybe that'll be his next hurdle? Today his deal was getting singles and stealing bases. Three of the former and 2 of the latter, and one handsome RBI!
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David Murphy did all right, going 1 for 3 with a walk. No one to bat him in, though.
Jose Ramirez hit the ball high and far today. Unfortunately he is not a power hitter and it was just shaggin' flys out there for the White Sox. He made contact 4 times but none of them were good for getting on base.
So enters George Kottaras. I'd heard this morning that Kottaras was called up to play for Gomes' paternity leave but I didn't know why. I know we've got Luke Carlin and Tony Wolters rolling around in our Can 'O Catchers but I didn't remember any Kottaras. He got up in the 3rd inning and when no one was looking, he hit a home run! Woohoo!!!
My friend and I were like "his family must be proud! In his first Major-League at-bat!" And then he came up again in the 4th and he hit ANOTHER homer to the same spot! Woohoo!!! Who is this guy? Is this a record for a guy's first Major League appearance?
Well yes and no. Yes it's a record but it's not his first MLB appearance. I finally looked it up and remembered when I knew him from. Kottaras is "the other Greek" from Kansas City. For some reason I was outlining Greek players last year for my friend who is Very Greek and she was extremely disinterested but I was like "There are two Greeks on the Royals! Opa!" I also was joking about how they sucked against us, which they happened to do last time we saw them.
The record was an Indians record for getting 2 homers in one's first time in an Indians uniform. Never happened before. The last guy to do it for any team was Giambi's brother for the Phillies some years ago (2002?)
They didn't even have a picture of Kottaras to put up on the scoreboard. My friend and I think that the graphics & technology people are off on weekends. They also had Jose Ramirez's number wrong, and no one reported Nyjer Morgan's plate music. But looking at Kottaras's page on the MLB site...they have him in a Cubs uniform but don't even have him listed on the Cubs for one minute!
Is George Kottaras just a dream?
Anyway, he caught a good game if Kluber's performance means anything. And he got those 2 home runs, and a walk, and would have scored if Nick Swisher didn't have his head so far up his own butt. Kottaras did give up a stolen base but it was a close one, and he didn't throw it in to center field or anything.
The Kottaras experiment has been fun! I wonder if we'll ever see him again?
Oh hey....the Tribe threw a total of 15 strikeouts today. Are you familiar with the Circle K strikeout board at Progressive Field? There are only 14 slots for strikeouts. In case you were wondering, they put up a "14" in place of the first K and start over again. Now you know!
I don't have too much else to share about my trip to the field this time. Not much has changed. Well...they seemed to have more hand-dipped flavors at Pierre's and they also have this "flavor blast" thing where you can have them add a line of flavor to your soft serve. That's pretty nice - I got peanut butter with my vanilla. It's like those super new Coke machines they have at Five Guys and any fancy burger place like the Twinsburg Burger King. Mike mine a "blue goo," please!
Also I asked for an all-beef hot dog but ended up with sausage instead. I don't know if I got away with something good or if I got ripped off. Those all-beefs are expensive but I assume sausages are too! Good thing I like mustard and ketchup on mine.
The weather was so perfect today. Warm in the sun. Good thing our seats were in the sun! Getting good weather in the spring for a baseball game is like winning a little lottery, isn't it?
That's all for the White Sox series, which we at least won. Up next are the Twins, who are doing far too well in the division for the Twins and need to be knocked down a peg or three. It'll be our hero ZMac against RHP 4.34. If the Tribe scores 4.34 runs, we'll be good!
No Radio Chatter today - I was at the game! Tomorrow is 7:05 - see you there!
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