Hit the road around 8:45am on Wednesday morning and had a quiet ride to Kansas City w/one stop in scenic Lamoni, IA. (Lamoni means "blink and you'll miss it" in some Native American language I imagine) Rolled into KC just before noon, hit some construction on the bridge over the Missouri River. Found my way over to the ballpark and bought a ticket and a few things for the kid at the souvenir shop.
Went to the hotel across the street and got a room. Hooked up the computer to the WiFi to check email....three minutes later the screen lights up like a Christmas Tree with virus warnings...everything is shutting down and the only thing is a link to pay for a "Security Upgrade"...yeah right. Luckily I saw a joint called "KC Help Desk" a couple of blocks away. They have been seeing this virus a lot...so the computer was spending the night w/them and spending some of my money to get it fixed. Oh well....
Met Tom Gage at Subway near the stadium. Had a very nice conversation for about a half-hour talking about the Tigers, travel, and whatever else. Great guy. He had to get to the stadium just after 3pm for a 7:10pm ballgame...
Took a ride downtown to check out The Power&Light District. Looked like a fun place w/lots of shops, bars, and eateries. Had a latte' and walked briefly. All afternoon the weather was great...breezy but sunny. Things were due to change.
Walked from the hotel to the ballpark at around 5:30pm. Saw plenty of Tigers fans...good representation. Jerseys spotted: Inge, Sheff, Monroe, Gibby, Cabrera, Verlander, Lolich...maybe a couple of others.
Strong wind blowing in from LF and the temps were dropping fast. I watched a lot of BP and nobody hit one out to LF. Also watched Valverde in the bullpen popping the mitt.
At 6:30pm I met up with a fellow poster at the Detroit News Tigers Forum that goes by the name "Kevets" near the George Brett statue on the RF plaza. Had a beer and talked about the club...ended up watching the game together. Kevets is a great guy to watch a game with. Hope to do it again sometime.
The rain started just before the first pitch. We went up to the seats under the upper deck to avoid the rain. Most folks did in the modest crowd of Royals fans as well.
I really enjoyed watching Max Scherzer. He had nice velocity and was "effectively wild"....I had no problems with him plunking a couple of batters to keep them on their toes. (of course if he'd allowed a few runs he'd have just been "wild" and not effectively so) Scherzer is lankier in person than I've thought he's looked on TV. The Mad Max highlight of the night was when he struck out DeJesus w/the bases juiced. DeJesus was ticked and Max was PUMPED UP walking off the mound....great emotion, very cool to see.
Luke Hochevar was on his game. It was a perfect night for a guy w/a sinker like him. Nothing airborne was going anywhere in the wet and cold wind. The Tigers hit a couple of hard liners by Inge but they were right at outfielders. (I thought Inge was swinging the bat very well both days)
Joakim Soria came in to protect the lead and fanned the first three batters he faced before locking horns with Miguel Cabrera. He had two strikes and Miguel fouled off several pitches (we had moved down to seats by the dugout several innings prior to this when the rain stopped btw, so we were right near the action). Then Cabrera finally launched that fly down the line...it was tough to see it hit the foul pole and the fans were in disbelief for their Royals after having victory in hand and Soria blowing folks away. When Cabrera hit the ball it went so high it didn't look at first like it would go the distance...(looking on ESPN later it doesn't appear on camera to go even close to the high trajectory it was on...TV distorts that)
Coke pitched pretty well and then the Tigers got the lead off of Farnsworth. I didn't care for starting the runners at all and Farnsworth smelled it out to quell the rally. Farnsworth is so hit-able I just didn't see the need to play games and start runners. Maybe the Tigers wouldn't have scored anyhow...but we'll never know.
Then Valverde came in....and it was over fast. Three batters...three hard hit balls...two runs....ballgame. Sizemore had the error but it didn't matter...it would have been 2nd/3rd w/0-out...with Valverde getting pelted mercilessly the game was circling the drain, Valverde wasn't going to pitch out of that.
So that was that....shook hand w/Kevets as he went off to find the person who was picking him up and I walked back to the hotel. Day one done.
Day Two. Got up around 7:20am. Took a walk around Arrowhead Stadium and The K. Went to Denny's for pancakes. Checked out of the hotel. Picked up the computer from the help desk shop. Running fast now. (Good work KC Help Desk!) Headed over to the ballpark. Had some ribs at the BBQ joint in the stadium. Solid but unremarkable...I didn't get to head to Arthur Bryant's BBQ on this trip...its KC's legendary Rib-joint. Had it last year...it was awesome.
I watched Dontrelle Willis warm up and chatted with a Tigers' fan from Grand Rapids, MI. He was in town for the whole series visiting his daughter. Dontrelle was missing low a lot in the bullpen but looked okay. He wears Air Jordans. Watching Dontrelle pitch today was fun. He wasn't great and he only cracked 90/91 a few times. But he competed and he stayed alive. The DP's were HUGE and I don't know how often you can rely on those to bail you out. However only a few of the hits off of him were really squared up by the Royals and he only walked a couple (which amazed me after he opened the festivities with a 4-pitch walk). Austin Jackson made a nice running catch in CF against Billy Butler to help out D-Train as well. It will be fun to see if Dontrelle can walk the tightrope against a better lineup than the Royals'. But, hey, he got it done today. I watched him from right behind homeplate in about the 9th row.
Magglio's homer was hit well and the guy is swinging a nice bat right now. Impressive. Inge as well. Jackson has an athletic presence...his swing might be a tad long but he has some bat speed. Damon didn't look great but he drew a nice walk to lead off the first three run inning today.
By the 8th inning I had moved down into rightfield because I was parked near that exit. It was fortuitous because I was only about 40 feet from where Cabrera hit his homer into the Royals' bullpen. It looked like it may have skipped off the top of the fence but if it didn't it could not have cleared the fence by any more than an inch. The wind helped that drive a good bit. Great moment. Royals fans were yelling at DeJesus for not making a better effort to leap for that ball.
Ryan Perry didn't look good at the start but he limited the damage to a run, so give him a mulligan. The next three run rally sewed up the game....and I was out of there....I figured Valverde could wrap things up. This did give me a chance to listen to HOF announcer Denny Matthews on KC radio. He's their Ernie in KC. He's good...not as good as Ernie, but very listenable.
I also listened to Trey Hillman after the game. I will be stunned if he's still on the job managing KC by Memorial Day. He sounded defensive and frustrated. He blamed their weak bullpen on the payroll league wide (never mind there are plenty of decent bullpens built on the cheap elsewhere) and he said he expected media nit-picking to start. He's toast....
The funniest thing was listening to a radio guy who follows the club talk about not even knowing who Luis Mendoza was as he was blowing the lead for KC today. The guy hadn't heard the Royals picked him up from the Rangers for cash last Friday. Too funny...he was lamenting about how weak the bullpen was when some long-haired dude you'd never heard of was trying to get them thru the 8th inning with a lead.
So.....a good trip to KC. Almost saw two wins...froze on Wednesday, enjoyed the sun on Thursday. A couple of homers, a couple of good starts by the rotation, a couple of 101-mph heaters from Zumaya, some good work by Austin Jackson, a ninth-inning game-saving homer followed by another late-inning rally the next day. Yes, a blown save...but you can't have everything. A good start to the season...but the Royals are pretty bad outside a couple of players like Greinke, Hochevar, Soria, and Butler...bigger tests will be coming soon.
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