san francisco giants vs. miami marlins - may 26, 2012 - marlins park - miami, fl

tricky marlins tried to confuse me and switched game time from the regular 7:10 start to an earlier 4:10 first pitch. i didn't mind, as i had a slam-filled holiday weekend (still managed to watch a few games, though). unfortunately, this is my first trip to marlins park that elicited complaints (to be detailed later).

we wanted to get down to the ballpark with enough time to grab a bracelet at the clevelander, but stupid me forgot the tickets at home and we had to make a stop to print those puppies out. so we got there regular time. filled the cargo pockets up with their precious, alcoholic cargo, and got a good laugh when the security girl made me take my hat (2009 stars and stripes edition to celebrate the weekend) off to check under it for... i actually don't know what they were checking for. i mean, i had nearly a 12-pack of beer in my pockets, and they're looking under my hat? i showed off my prowess to other fans on the escalator up, who got a good laugh and told me of their plans to try on their own when they next visited.

busted up to our seats and made ourselves comfortable, meeting pops there. things were mellow until around the third inning, when a large group of kids, probably middle-school aged, came into our section. i realized that they were the students who had led the star spangled banner earlier in the day. not the first time a gaggle of kids were sitting around me... but this incident started out crappy. no ushers were there to prevent the crowd from overwhelming our section. these kids and their parents and their siblings went back and forth up and down the rows for the entire game, blocking views, talking over us and generally distracting from my game experience. i was not pleased, and made a call to the team after-the-fact. they offered to move my sets, so if this type of situation arises again i will take them up on the offer.

gamewise, stanton continued killing balls, buehrle continued pitching well, and chishek's funky motion got him the save. the game was so long ago that the details are fuzzy, so yet again i promise to try and be more punctual...

 

visiting team (San Francisco Giants) scorecard - 5/26/12

 

home team (Miami Marlins) scorecard - 5/26/12

i'm not even going to get into my issues with the vending upstairs being closed until i get a response from management...

fiveball's pics of marlins park

marlins park (fiveball's photo)

 

fiveball is colorado rockies first baseman michael cuddyer's screen name on flickr, a photo-sharing site. last year soemone passed me along a link to some of his awesome ballpark photos. earlier this week, the rockies were in town (we took the series!) and cuddyer took some shots.

here is a link to his collection, some of my favorites follow.

warning track and centerfield grass (fiveball's photo)

side angle of the statue (fiveball's photo)

 

 the fish tank: remember when those were the cheap seats in the old stadium? (fiveball's photo)

 

 

the pool (fiveball's photo)

 

view from home plate (fiveball's photo)

 inside the visitor's bullpen (fiveball's photo)

 view from the visitor's bullpen (fiveball's photo)

check out the rest of this set, and his pics of other ballparks at flickr.

oh baby...

so i'm up-to-date on the games i've been to, and my next game is against the giants on saturday. really looking forward to it... seems like the month of may is good for the marlins, and for young giancarlo especially. anyone miss him punishing the scoreboard in right field the other night? here ya go:

 

i really hope he makes the all star team, because i'd love to see him in the home run derby.

pitching is picking up a bit... jj is getting his velocity back and the belLOL/bellocoaster is not looking like a $27 million joke. 15-5 in may, and still a bunch of homestand left to go before june.

if only we weren't in the toughest division in baseball...

weekend of walk-off wins pt. 2 - ny mets vs. miami marlins - may 11, 2012 - marlins park - miami, fl

saturday night's game was a disastrous affair that was co-opted in the first half by an early mother's day dinner and by intent beer drinking mid-way through. but sunday, well, sunday was a thing of beauty. it didn't start that way...

grabbed a nice tasty omelet with mom and dad before pops and i jumped in his car and headed southbound. we saw the ominous gray clouds over downtown miami and figured it was only a matter of time before they started shift westward. 2 minutes later the storms started, and damn was it coming down. pulled into the garage and the rain was still pounding. we occupied the garage's entrance way with a group of other fans anxious to avoid the wet, and made a run towards the box office once a little break in the rain came.

i needed to leave a ticket at will-call for a buddy who was coming to the game, but in case you were wondering, you are not allowed to leave tickets at will-call. so after a quick browse in the team store i sent pops in and filled out my scorecard while waiting for my buddy, who arrived not long after i finished getting ready.

we rocketed up the stadium ramps to our seats, and found pops already sitting there. our buddy brian arrived not too long after, and we settled in for a day of baseball. the first three innings were relatively uneventful, but the mets picked up two in the fourth as a result of three singles and a passed ball. it took the marlins a couple innings to get those runs back, but they did when john buck redeemed himself and put one out, bringing home emilio after his triple.

game tied up 2-2 going in to the ninth. heath bell on the mound. what do you think is gonna happen? daniel murphy doubles, and then ronny sedeno walks. they're both moved over on a fielder's choice, and after bell intentionally walks mike baxter the bases are loaded. oh shit. justin turner doubles, and two runs score. marlins are no down 2 going into the bottom of the ninth.

i'll tell you, i was feeling a bit down at this point. but having witnessed one walk-off win this weekend, i was not out. however, my buddy brian was, and he violated my golden rule of baseball games: never leave early.

bonifacio triples and buck draws a walk: marlins on first and third. pinch hitter extraordinary (wes helms who?) greg dobbs singles, bringing boni home. 4-3 mets. reyes hits a sac fly, which brings in brett hayes, who had pinch run for buck. all tied up at 4. omar pops up. 2 outs. hanley walks, men on first and second. austin kearns gets hit by a pitch, and the bags are loaded.

you could not make this kind of stuff up. for anyone who says baseball is a boring game... this inning proves you wrong. excitement, drama and suspense, all wrapped up in 12 minutes of america's pastime.

and then... giancarlo ne mike stanton, the young stud, the future of marlins baseball, the man of the hour with a whole lot of power comes to the plate. and again, you could not script this better. and i couldn't describe it... so please watch this epicness:

official, unembedable mlb video here.

the second the ball left the bat i knew. the stroke was so good, the crack of the bat so crisp that there was no way the walls of marlins park would contain it the ball. and the mother's day crowd went nuts... high fives all around, jumping up and down and celebration aplenty. until i see a game 7 overtime stanley cup playoff game winner for the panthers this is definitely the most exciting game ending i've witnessed, and it is hard to image it getting better.


games like this remind me how much i love baseball.

 

 visiting team (NY Mets) scorecard - 5/13/12

 home team (Miami Marlins) scorecard - 5/13/12

weekend of walk-off wins pt. 1 - ny mets vs. miami marlins - may 11, 2012 - marlins park - miami, fl

--game off--

first of all, let me just say that keeping this thing up-to-date is not as easy as you may think, especially with the other couple of big projects (j working my current job and looking for a new one, researching an upcoming auto purchase, making it to yoga class on the regular, etc) that i am also in the midst of. pretty sure that no one reads this but me, which is perfectly ok. but if you are reading and don't like the pace of posting, i apologize.

--game on--

2 out of 3. they happened to be the 2 games that i attended, which makes them a bit more front-and-center in my mind. especially since we got out asses handed to us on saturday night, the one i missed.

on to the games.

friday night was my first adventure to the ballpark on a work day. i knew that it would be hectic, but really had no idea long it would take me to get there. i was hoping for the best, and expecting the worst, so i arranged for some dog walkers to take care of my girls and had serina meet me at the office at 5 on the dot so that we could head south.

damn, traffic on 95 started as soon as we got on the highway and continued until past the golden glades interchange. i was still in broward county (the county line is 13 miles away from my office) at 6 pm; i didn't pull into my spot in the garage until 6:43. an hour and forty-three minutes to get to the ball park on a weekday is the reason why i'm glad i got the weekend only ticket package.

we busted a quick move up to taste of miami for a pork sandwich a piece and a shared order of the delicious friend pork skin described in a previous post. mmmm, chicharrones.

missed actually seeing most of the first inning as we traversed the outfield and headed up to our seats. unfortuantely, that means i missed buehrle's sweet ass pickoff move that nabbed daniel murphy at first. marlins got a couple of first inning runs with an rbi single from infante (aka #omartheallstar) and a dinger from austin kearns that brought him home.

(as an aside, is everything okay with logan morrison? it seems like the odd little platoon in left field is favoring kearns a bit, and i know that lomo has had knee issues. just hoping he's alright...)

the middle inning running drought set in early, and nearly nothing happens until ike davis hits on over the right field wall in the top of the fifth. the mets bring another home in the seventh and three in the eighth (courtesy of two doubles: one off mujica and another off ryan webb).

the marlins close to within one in their half on the eighth when #omartheallstar doubled in reyes.

and yet again we head into the ninth down. heath bell made quick work of the middle of the mets order, three up three down. and here we go...

call it stupid optimism or statistically unrealistic hope or whatever you want, but it is hard to not have a part of you that believes your team is gonna pull it off in situations like this. maybe it is success against the odds that make walk off wins the most exciting wins in regular season sports. i told serina so as we sat there, and mentioned that i had seen a couple winners that way so far this season. expectations, we watched the young-stud-formerly-known-as-mike bang a no-out double into left field. nice way to start. cold-as-ice-sanchez moved him over with a sac fly, and emilio singled into left. winning run on first... wait a minute, boni stole second, so we got the winning run in scoring position.

when webb was pulled in the bottom of the eighth consumate pinch hitter greb dobbs was brought in. though he lined out on that at-bat, he was kept in as part of the double switch that brough heath bell into the game, and dobbs stepped into the box with the opportunity to be the hero of the evening. not one to disappoint, dobbs kinda looped it into right field and boni sped around the bases to score. water coolers were spilled, and no one was injured flinging shaving cream pies, so it was a happy celebration. nothing like a swift kick of adrenaline towards the end of the evening...

 

 visiting team (NY Mets) scorecard - 5/11/12

 

  visiting team (Miami Marlins) scorecard - 5/11/12

here's my complaint about the night: the post-game concert was d.j. z trip and l.l. cool j. at least that is what we were told. it could have been a robot strutting around on stage, because even from our newly acquired lower bowl seats we couldn't heat a damn thing. serina and i left midway through. waste of time...

part 2--sunday's epic walk off--to come shortly...

and the sweep streak continues

california is sure playing good host to the marlins. two series, two sweeps. buehrle went the distance for his team on saturday, and the bullpen (minus benched former closer heath bell) stuck together to give ricky nolasco the win he earned yesterday. nice to see the team playing well. stanton looks real good, the top of the order have a standing green light to steal, and if you take heath bell and j.j. out the equation or pitching looks good.

who would have thought that omar infante and emilio bonafacio are more likely all stars then those two pitchers?

west coast swings...

... so the marlins leave town and start winning. maybe its the fact that the games are too damn late to watch, though i did catch the end of yesterday's afternoon-er when i got home from work.

some thoughts:

anibal looks more like an ace then j.j.

stanton's bat woke up and just in time for the kentucky derby he is a stud again.

heath bell better be good at counting money, because he ain't much of a closer these days. looking forward to an encore performance of "how heathy got his groove back". i like cishek and mujica, so i don't mind them getting the chance to close some games out, but for $27 million bell should do his job. maybe against his old team starting this evening?

hope to catch some of tonite's game, and sunday is in the afternoon so that's a given.

glad nbc is showing some stanley cup action, not having cable prevented me from catching the rangers v. caps marathon the other night.