They toil not, neither do they Spinners

[kiya]

brooksmoses and I went up to Lowell yesterday to watch the Spinners play Williamsport. We got frightfully lost on the way there, but got in in time for the game and all.


There were a lot of people from the recent draft on the team.

The lineup was:

Scooter Jordan (CF) (33rd round)
Borowiak (SS) (14th round)
Murton (LF) (Sandwich 1/2)
West (DH) (7th round)
Arias (3B)
Moss (RF)
Buckley (C)
Bonvechio (1B)
Suarez (2B) (24th round)

They used four pitchers.

Penny (28th round)
Farley
Ool (16th round)
Marshall (5th round)

Looking over my scorecard, one thing strikes me: The Spinners struck out a lot more than the other team. (For most of the pitchers it was a noteworthy thing when the first pitch to the batter was a strike, which is about what I expect of A-ball.) In the first eight innings, Lowell pitchers got 4 Ks (Penny got 2 in his five, Farley one in his two, and Ool one in his one); the Williamsport pitchers got seven. I don't know if this is a staff thing (if Williamsport has a decent K staff). On the other hand, the Spinners staff only gave up one walk (and hit one batter) and their batters drew four, so not too bad.

I didn't keep track of number of pitches, unfortunately -- at some point I'll refine my scorekeeping system to do that, preferably sometime I have a better pen -- so I can't judge how deep into the count each side was going. (Hmmm. There's an idea. *files design thought away for future tinkering with*)

Players who struck me well on the Spinners side: Suarez at second made several nice tricky plays, the ones where the ball hits right in front of the 2B and takes a sharp hop. Both of them he handled cleanly and without overmuch awkwardness. Jordan (in CF) made a very nice running catch -- the guy has wheels -- but I didn't see whether or not it would have been a smoother play if he'd had a better jump. He also managed to get himself snagged in a rundown between third and home that led to a run (the game-winner) when they threw the ball away; after the game he said that he was just trying to prolong the run-down as best he could but hey, if they're going to throw the ball into left field, that's gravy. Brian Marshall can actually hit the strike zone consistently. He looked like he was throwing heat; he struck out the side in order in the ninth to close the game; I don't think he threw much more than a dozen pitches. (I only remember one ball, but I don't remember if there were foul-offs.) I have Borowiak noted down for having a nice defensive play, too, but I don't remember what it was; I'm pretty sure that's not the one where he did the across-the-body Nomar impression, since that would have been an assist, not a putout.

Other thoughts: several bad baserunning plays (stealing third when out by a mile) and some plain bad luck (slipping off the bag for an instant after getting in safely and being tagged in that bare instant; trying to take two bases on a wild pitch and nearly making it, too) probably cost some large innings.

For the game itself: it's been ages since I've been to a minor league game. Less scoreboard wackiness than I remember from Keys Stadium, but a lot more between-innings wackiness. (Children in giant hamster balls, racing! A bright blue hatchback puttering around the warning track to the tune of the 'Knight Rider' theme, finally emitting the kids who were throwing out the first pitches! And so on. . .) The fellow who sang the national anthem has a lovely voice; if you hear about a tenor named John Castillo with sweet voice and great range in a couple of years, you heard it here first.

A lot of extra-base hits which would almost certainly have been outs with slightly more practiced outfielders. A lot of thumping in the stands. A small boy in the seats in front of us (we had box seats behind first) wandered off at one point and returned, triumphant, with a foul ball. Williamsport's DH kept trying to murder the stands just right of us with line-drive fouls until he struck out, I think in the eighth.

Spinners won, 5-3.


After that we went to dinner at Bertucci's, where I haven't been since I had lunch with healwlove. And thus I no longer have a strange, plaintive feta craving, and I repel vampires at twenty paces.

Comments

[brooksmoses]

I think Borowiak's defensive play that merited a "nice" on the scorecard was a rather nice diving -- or, more accurately, sliding -- catch he made.

There was also a nice catch when Suarez (I think) jumped up to snag a line drive from several feet over his head.

I remember two Marshall balls, I think, and I seem to remember that the last batter fouled a couple off. Nonetheless, he certainly wasn't letting the count run up very high.