Gaming at Seans, and Baseball

Dennis and I arrived at the same time, so played the Federally Mandated game of Race while others arrived. Tiffany and Travis made their appearance, and we broke out Ra. As usual, a bizarre little game that saw me waste 2 gods, but my 3rd grabbed a critical civilization tile. Alas, that only tied me for Dennis, who was himself one point behind the leader.

By this point, Ben, Jon, Scott and Steve had commandeered the back table to use as the pacific ocean for their game of Pacific Typhoon. I wager that there were winners and losers. We ordered pizza, I narrowly edged out the title of "Galaga player of the afternoon." We set up Cash and Guns Yakuza, then had the caloric interlude. Charlie also had some cheese, but was generally disappointed by a lack of "the dropsies." Sorry, Charlie.

Both games of Yakuza were run aways. (I actually prefer vanilla CnG to Yakuza, but it's a mild preference, and with 7-9, what can you do?)

After that we thinned out to 5 and played Typo. Then we trimmed to three and tried out Dry Gulch Junction. I like it, but need to play again to see how much I like it. It's much faster than Dry Gulch, which is nice.

Finally Sean and I played our first series. You non-Baseball people can stop reading now.

In the opener at Camden Yards, I shellacked Matt Halladay for 7 runs in 6 innings (he started the seventh, but never got an out). Meanwhile, Jason Marquis was cruising to the win (and smacked Dustin Pedroia out of the series, for good measure), but I left him in way too long in the 8th and he gave up 6 runs. [Because I'm playing games out of order, I wanted to save my bullpen. Most of the damage was with 2 outs, and if I could have gotten that third out then I could use Wagner to close and be able to play in either the prior or next game]. But in the bottom of the 8th Orlando Hudson hit a double, and then Matt "Still bad, but improving" Holliday singled him in, which stood up. So I won 8-7.

The 2nd game had Ted Lilly (Sean) vs Lincecum (Me). Let's turn to the 2nd inning.

Lincecum gives up a walk. Then a wild pitch, then a walk (I think). Then a wild pitch. The next batter hits a bloop down the 1st base line, and Victor Martinez fields it, but then makes a throwing error to let the runners get an extra base (hit + error). Then a (you guessed it) wild pitch and a single. Three runs score on 2 hits. A few more runs score for each side, but the damage was done. Sean wins 4-2. Marmol pitched 4 scoreless innings, but chucked a sympathy wild pitch (after a walk).

The rubber game saw Weaver vs Matt Cain (for me). This time the RockOrioles got the big second inning, with 4 hits (+ a HBP and walk) to score three runs. Again, a few other random runs scored, but I win 4-2, and take the series. I'm at 6-7, Sean is 3-6.

Series notes -- Camden was totally on my side, until it went home early in the 8th inning of the last game. I missed perhaps one Infield Single split (those are 1-9R, 1-6L), and Sean made only one split the entire series, until the last two innings where he made 1 each. The HR splits didn't show up much, though. Chone Figgins (1e12 or 1e16 SS) gave up two errors during the series. Garrett Atkins (4e30 1B) had a check and rolled a 3d6 17 ... which is the only non error in the range 12-18, I think.

RockOriole Notes -- Matt Holiday had 4 hits (including 2 doubles and a HR) + a walk in 15 PA, which helped him out. He's still .180/.288/.340. The team did much better on Strikeouts, only whiffing 15 times in the series, which lowers their K rate to .172). After 13 games, Mariano Rivera has 1 Save. The rest of my team has none. My bullpen has as many wins as my starters.
Of course, this continues my massive disparity between my starters and bullpen.

Starters -- 82 IP, 5.73 ERA, 1.73 WHIP, .270 BAA, 1.12 K/BB, 6 HBP
Bullpen -- 31 IP, 1.44 ERA, 0.67 WHIP, .130 BAA, 4.75 K/BB, 0 HBP

Quite a bf the bullpen is just Carlos Marmol, who has 20 IP, with 6 hits and 1 walk, 21 Ks, and 3 earned runs.

If someone wants to trade me a great starter and mediocre reliever for a great reliever and mediocre starter, let me know. (I could trade Billy Wagner, Juan Cruz, Mariano Rivera or Pedro Feliciano).