8/19/08 A Double-header

Game time: 20:00-24:00
Last night's double-header against the Brewers was a study in contrasts. The Milwaukee bats were silent during the first game so you didn't need to bring your best stuff. A great night at the yard when you can kick back at Pac Bell, have a dog and some beer, and relax as the ballpark shines. In our case, winds are blowing 10-15 with a gentle swell following Compromise. The blood-red moon turns orange then white and rises directly on our bow at 050 degrees magnetic with a moonbeam lighting the Pacific like a runway. Not too hard to stay on course when nature is so kind. We trade off going up to the bow pulpit with feet over the rail staring at the magnificence of this game. Thank you Mr. McGowan for putting a partnership together and saving the Giants.

Game time: 04:00-08:00
Game two was a thing apart. Sandy is our Matt Morris, a leader in the bullpen whom the Giants should have never traded. She gives us the pre-game warm-up: winds now blowing 15-20 kts with gusts up to 28 AND FOLLOWING SEAS. Oh , and I forgot to mention we are flying wing-and-wing. Matt Mauer is indisputably our Timmy Lindsecum, an ace pitcher who is golden and will be worth a lot of money when he becomes a free agent. Hopefully he won't sell out for a big contract and pitch for the hated Yankees. Lorraine Palmer has all five pitches and can be depended on for a win. And then there's me, a rookie from the farm with one solid pitch (driving upwind); 5th man in the rotation on a 4-man crew (give me a little creative license). Good enough to stay in the rotation but you wouldn't lay down good money to see me pitch.

The Brewer's manager changed things up in game two stacking the line-up with all following seas hitting over 300. This time the bats weren't silent. Compromise, a boat that is wide at the beam, is rocking and rolling in the following seas. A good driver compensates for this motion keeping the boat under the mast. A driver with a bad downwind pitch tends to accentuate this motion. I got rocked by the seas crapping out my ERA. For non-baseball folks, a high ERA (earned run average) is a bad thing for a pitcher and will get you sent back down to the farm squad in Stockton. Fortunately the following seas diminished in the bottom of the 6th inning as my pitches finally hit their mark. Winds blowing 20 and fun is had by all. Matt estimates we did 40 nm during game two. Not a pretty game but you take a win anyway you can get one.