Hochevar is going to win the console race for Sony!

I think Hochevar has the potential to be a no 3 type, above-average SP, but I don't want to take away from the assertion that MBBF is still an idiot. :D

Potential being the operative word.

Wow. Nobody can say there's not something wrong with Ortiz now. He needs to sit like...two weeks ago.

This just in from today's 12 inning game:

Boston slugger David Ortiz went 0 for 7 and stranded 12 runners. He struck out three times, once with the bases loaded in the fourth, and left the bases loaded again in the 12th with a dribbler in front of the plate as his average plummeted to .208.

I got a kick out of this. Mets/Giants game, Maine fouls a ball off Molina's leg, he's clearly in a great amount of pain, having trouble putting any weight on the leg. Maine has 2 strikes on him, and there are 2 outs. After a couple minutes, he decides to stay in the game and they say they are gonna give him a few warmup pitches and he's just like nah, lets just get to this, just throw it down the middle and get me out of this inning. Maine lines a base hit and now he walks Castillo. Kind of the thing you had to see, just funny watching Molina's reaction to the idea of a couple warmup pitches.

He's returned to David Arias form.

They brought this up tonight on Sportscenter, and pointed out that Ortiz had more LOB on his own than any team today (besides the Red Sox, of course). Cubs were tops with 11. Ouch.

Not a great performance from Santana today, but it was enough. He'll have to work his way back into midseason form, but I am not concerned.

Lackey is finally back on Saturday, and Escobar is in extended spring training, and probably due back within a month (although the way Palmer's pitching, I am almost wondering if they'll try Escobar in the pen first to try to help the Angels out there). Vlad could be back DHing during the next homestand.

Angels have won 9 of 11, despite the injury issues, and now get a series with the first place Rangers. The Rangers are hot, so it's not going to be easy, but if the Angels can take two of three, they are tied for first, and a sweep puts them on top.

This should be an interesting night at the ballpark. Royals Stadium is sold out both Friday and Saturday along with a big crowd expected for Sunday afternoon. I'm headed out there tonight with my friends. Greinke on the hill tonight. If there was ever a 'must win' for the Royals, tonight is probably the night. They gave back the 6 game winning streak by losing the next 6. Greinke needs to right the ship tonight.

How come ticketing at Royals.com says I can still buy 2 tickets Dugout Plaza Aisle 221, Row SS, Seats 22 & 23 for tonight's game?
And 2 tickets Dugout Plaza Aisle 217, Row EE, Seats 10 & 11 for Saturday's game?


I don't think these words mean what you think they mean.

The way Arroyo has pitched so far this year, he won't fetch much. But we have a bunch of mid-range to high-level prospects who have decent market value. Not all of them are going to end up with the big club, so the time is NOW to cash in. Todd Frazier, Chris Valaika, Drew Stubbs, Adam Rosales, Juan Francisco, the list goes on... the only untouchable is probably Yonder Alonso... but he plays 1B only from what I understand so there is a bit of a logjam if he gets ready for the majors in a couple years and if Votto maintains form and develops into a star as it appears he will.

Where's Todd Frazier's value in that spectrum? Just curious, since he's a Rutgers guy and also famous throughout my area for carrying Toms River to the Little League World Series.

On last night's telecast, they said tonight's game is sold out. I know that they do hold some lower-level seats on the visiting side. They may have released those last night. They also said that Saturday has very few tickets and they expect it to sell out as well. So it may not be for Saturday right now, but they said it will be by game time. I'm going to trust the local announcers on this one. I've heard 'still seats available' many times in past years. They wouldn't say it's sold out unless they truly expect it. Otherwise, they're turning away customers and the Royals are in no position to do that.

Frazier is consistently listed as one of the top 3 prospects in the Reds system... he and Valaika are usually the top 2, though Alonso shot up the charts after his 1st round selection last year.

Frazier is playing for AA Carolina this year and hitting .273 so far, with 1 homer and 15 doubles out of 36 hits. He is playing outfield for them right now... the Reds have a glut of middle infielders, so they are probably trying a new position out on him down there.

I think we should all chip in for a round trip ticket between Middle GA and Kansas City, plus one of those dugout plaza tickets still available, so Jon can go and count the number of empty seats in the stadium.

I feel confident he would perform this service for the board...especially if there are designated smoking areas inside Kaufman.

Lots of tickets available for tonight in many different sections. For tomorrow's game you can still get 14 contiguous seats in multiple sections.

First, there are designated smoking areas, though I never visit them personally.

Second, he'd be better off not getting a ticket. Then he would end up like the 4-5K people who got turned away from the last Friday game at home. Most were college kids, who likely just went out to their cars and drank beer. Probably saved a lot of money by drinking in the parking lot instead of the stadium. I'm floored every time I see someone plop down $7.50 for a bottle of beer. That's nuts.

This is great. KCRoyals.com will see site traffic increases of 200% thanks to FOFC members. :)

It may sell out, and if it does that's great ... but that's not what you claimed.
They could certainly use it given their attendance so far this year, which is less than 1% of capacity different than last season or even the 93 loss season of 2007.

And it's not as though I'm usually one to bust on anybody about their attendance, I'm in the Atlanta market for crying out loud, one of the worst pro sports towns ever. The apparent embellishment just really seemed unwarranted but I guess I'll assign the blame to announcers getting ahead of themselves.

Like I said, I'm heading to the game tonight. I'll be sure to provide the actual attendance. They have the Buck Night tonight, which always draws a huge walkup. Tomorrow night is a promotional night and the weather is supposed to be good, which should also draw a huge walkup. The revenue generated for games this year is way up, due to the increase in ticket prices after the renovation. So even if they sell the same number of tickets as in previous years, they're still making way more than they did before the renovation. In KC, you can sit behind the plate for $125 with seat-side service. Compare that to $2,000+ in Yankees Stadium. It's a great deal.

Also, it should be noted that although the number of seats was reduced slightly, they do have around 750 standing room only tickets that sell well that make up the difference. Those tickets let you into the ballpark where you can stand out on the 'Party Patio just above the right field wall. That patio is often packed while seats near home plate remain unsold during the weekday games. The drinkers just buy those tickets and hang out there.

Hm, so if Jon and I both went, and the traffic increased 200%...

At least you got the joke. Kudos.

If they turned 'em away, it wasn't because of a sell out.

Attendance was only 36,363, more than 2000 short of the new listed capacity of 38,177 (even less than the 40k + figure that most sources still cite). Hell, they drew 37,647 the next night, so unless they had 1300 seats closed on Friday that suddenly opened up on Saturday, that doesn't even make sense.

More likely, given the nature of the turnaways you cited, the problem was that they ran out of the $7 general admission seats & the kids chose not to buy a more expensive ticket. But running out of cheap seats is not the same thing as a turnaway crowd.

I will give you this though, even the KC Star is claiming that "If you don’t have a ticket for tonight’s game, chances are you aren’t getting one. You can stand in line for the 400-or-so seats that sell only on game days or you can pay a scalper."

Of course we've sat here & proven that's bullshit with less than 5 minutes effort but apparently that doesn't prevent it.

Heck, maybe it's fun, let me try. Let's see here, hmm, wait, I've got it.
"There are no tickets available for tonight's Atlanta Thrashers playoff game. Every available ticket for the game has been sold."

I'm having a bear of a time getting tix to see the Gwinnett Braves. Hotter ticket than the real team.

Oh, and as I said earlier...Garrett Anderson sucks.

I haven't even bothered trying. I figure it'll be like the Rome Braves were, a real pain for at least the first year, more manageable after the new wears off a little bit.

It's been interesting for me to notice how hard they marketed them team to the college kids in Athens though. Nobody else has really done that, or at least not that I've noticed, but they've pushed pretty hard on local radio in the opening weeks of the season.

Reminds me of when I lived in Boston and the Revolution would rope off 3/4 of Foxboro, sell the remaining 1/4 and call it a sell-out .

Taking a look at the attendance numbers, I'm fairly surprised that Milwaukee is 9th in all the MLB with 35,953 per game.

Not bad for a team many felt should have been contracted when contraction was on the table.

Was Milwaukee actually a serious contender for contraction?

No, not at all. But it was more backlash against Selig because the Brewers were his team and in one of the worst (if not worst) major league markets.

Wow. Gardenhire and Girardi almost got into it in the Twins-Yanks game

SI

Milwaukee isn't a terrible major league market. If you read "Forever Blue," one of the things it mentions is that the success of the Braves in that town is really what opened up the West for the move of the Giants and Dodgers to California.

It's something O'Malley might not have considered if the Braves hadn't previously proven it could be done.

But it was home to a pretty terrible franchise that didn't seem to be making serious effort to compete for a while. It's one thing to support the hometown nine when they're down. It's another thing to support them when they don't bother trying to get up.

Royals-O's just got underway with a 2 hour rain delay. Greinke on the mound.

SI

I went to that Tigs/Yanks game a while back when they started at like midnight. Unreal. They let people leave the stadium, so a lot of people went to the bar and got shitfaced. My buddies and I went there just to see if we could get into the game and a guy gave us tickets because he had to catch an early flight.

Most fun MLB game ever. Fights everywhere. Just a great day that ended around 3 AM.

Dola, Tigs hit 2 grand slams tonight. Inge and Raburn. First time for Detroit since 1968.

Luis Vizcaino gives up a walk-off HR in his Indians debut. Welcome to Cleveland, kid, you'll fit right in.

Rangers hang on to win again. If they split the weekend with the Angels, they'll be in good shape.

Zack has some control issues in the first couple of innings but then settles down. He's gone 7 IP, 1 R, 6 H, 2 BB, 6 K and his ERA creeps up to 0.60 (from 0.54) thru 8 games

SI

38K and change the announced attendance in Kansas City. Not nearly that many there now after the 2 1/2 hour rain delay

SI

And the Mets once again win a close one in late innings. Man, what a difference from last year!

Yeah, I seem to remember the Jaguars having mysterious Teal covered areas that weren't counted towards avoiding a blackout.

Pirates offense and bullpen looking good in early season.

[rant]
FUCK....HOW MANY MORE GODDAMN QUALITY STARTS IS THIS TEAM GOING TO BLOW WITH 1-2 RUNS. OR BULLPEN TARDEDNESS.

[/end rant]

Royals finally break the streak at 6. Zack goes 7, Royals bats wake up and they win 8-1. Now that's out of the way and it's time to start a new good streak :)

SI

All of them?

I don't expect the team to be that great, but snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is getting to be too much. Like if you get 6 innings and 3 runs allowed out of the #5 starter, you should probably win that game. Or if your #1 pitches 7 scoreless, you should win that one too.

I haven't been a Pirates fan/interested viewer for long, I don't know how much more emotional investment I can make into this.

sigh.

If you guys haven't seen the Rangers play this year, they just seem different. I haven't seen a shortstop like Elvis Andrus in a really long time. He makes some plays you just can't believe!

Hang on is right. Damn, for a while there, I thought the Angels were going to do it.

For anyone not following along, the Angels were down 10-3 with two outs in the ninth--and then scored five runs, with the tying runs on at first and second at the end, when Kinsler made a terrific play to Andrus to barely get that third out.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 2 guys who were integral to their teams' post-season runs last year are going to end up on the DL within the next few weeks - Scott Kazmir and Brad Lidge. Something ain't right with either of them.

Agree on Lidge. I think his leg is really affecting his delivery. He needs to go on the DL and have Madsen close for a while.

And the Nationals bullpen (and bullpen management) loses another one.

Speaking from experience, as a long suffering Brewers fan, I'd tell you to hang on.

But don't get too emotionally invested in Pirate games at this point. It's not worth it. When your team stinks, it just does not pay to get too uptight about the actual games themselves. Don't necessarily get too attached to any of the players unless they are rookies or otherwise young players. Get acclimated with some of the young prospects in the system.

I do believe the Pirates' management is on the right path but they haven't been on the job long enough to make a meaningful impact. But everything I've heard about the Pirates GM and what he has said makes me believe that he is philosophically on the right path. The management at least isn't delusional that they are going to be winning with this group and trading off young players for marginal help.

It'll take time, but sitting through these years will make eventual winning more sweet. Just don't get too worked up about things early in the process.

They have no projectable major league pitchers in the system. And probably 3 position players that rate as every day players. It could be 5 years or more.