How is Ray-Ray All Clutch All of a Sudden?

That was the question I asked my dad last night when we were at the game. Let me say, that was a fun game to be at.

Game notes:

• Kevin Correia is making a strong case for a spot in the 2008 starting rotation. He wiggled out of a bases-loaded jam in the 2nd, getting Cantu and Arroyo to leave Reds fans wondering why they couldn't get a run with less than two outs. Correia was on cruise control for the rest of his 5 shutout innings, lowering his starting ERA to a stingy 2.41.
• Fielding fly balls looks much more difficult in person than on TV. Granted, with the way Correia was pitching, not many balls were hit hard to the outfield. The only two hard hit flies were a line drive that Nate Schierholtz caught by leaping into a padded section of the brick wall in right field, and a long fly that Dave Roberts caught in left-center
• Kevin Frandsen is starting to look more and more like a Major League player. After a career 5-hit night, he went a modest 1-3, but found a way to get on base a second time: getting hit by the pitcher. I don’t know how many times he’s gotten hit this season, but he’s starting to resemble Craig Biggio (in getting HBP). On the defensive side, Frandsen took away a base hit by fielding a tricky ground ball that rolled to the outer edge of the infield.
• Brad Hennessey is still handling his business. After accepting his switch from closer to setup man, he performed admirably in the eighth inning. He got two quick outs before Encarnacion doubled on a ground ball down the left field line. Hennessey wasn’t rattled, and proceeded to end the inning with comebacker. Hennessey pitches much better in no-pressure situations, so the 8^th inning job could be a perfect fit.
• I don’t know where Ray Durham got his clutch powers all of a sudden. This was the second night in a row where he sent home two runners in a pinch-hit situation.
• If Brian Wilson is not the closer next year, I will be very, very sad.

Experience notes:

• Left-center bleachers aren't too shabby. You're surrounded by the diehards who know every player's name, in addition to the names of the rest of the diehards in the section. We had two Reds fans sitting in the row in front of us, so you could expect that we heckled them a bit.
• I got an autograph from Tyler Walker. He’s a cool guy. He was signing for about 10 minutes already, and I was one of the last people to get an autograph and he still signed my baseball anyway.
• It was raining a bit, so batting practice was cancelled. So unfortunately Tyler was my first and last autograph of the day.
• I almost caught a ball that Dave Roberts tossed to our section. I was about two feet too far from it. A little boy ended up with it, so that makes up for my ineptitude with a glove.
• There were two little kids with awesome signs. “Dave Roberts is Awesome”, “God Bless the Giants”, and “I am President of the Tim Lincecum Fan Club”. A camera guy was walking around, and the kids wanted to get on TV. The sad part is that the Roberts sign had ESPN written on the corner, so the guy wouldn’t film them. Naturally, we told him to let the kids on TV, but he said he couldn’t and walked away.
• I saw the Dog. No explanation necessary.

I’ll get pictures up tomorrow.