[Sal, The Barber]

20 August 2011
On the road

We have a day off as we travel from Oakland to Topeka. I wanted to go back a few decades and take the train, but I don’t think we would have made it in time for tomorrow’s game. There’s not as much romance in flying.

Our two game lead on Oakland has grown. We’ve played well lately (we won 9 in a row to end July, then won another to start August), mostly on the strength of our starting pitching, and opened up a 7.5 game lead in the division. We just split a 2-game series with the Oaks.

We lost the first game after going up 2-0. In the fifth inning, Curt Clark gave up a run and had a couple of runners on when he got what should have been an inning ending grounder to Kelham at second. But Kelham booted the ball, allowing another run to score and Luis Manuel Garcia to bat. Garcia knocked one over the fence, adding 3 more runs. Clark had given up 5, but 4 were unearned. We never recovered and lost the game 7-5. Oakland has vastly improved their bullpen the last couple of seasons, so it’s difficult to catch up and pass them when chasing.

The second game was our game. Jose Gomez shut out the Oaks for 6 innings. The bullpen chipped in 3 more scoreless, and our offense blew them out. We won 11-0, scoring 6 in the ninth. We beat their best pitcher, Jorge Garcia, who we often seem to beat. This game felt like what happens when we play well. When we don’t, we usually still have a chance, but against good teams that chance becomes very small.

And we’ll look ahead to good teams. Maybe not in the LCS. Kansas City currently leads the Cornhusker Division, and they’re 10 games behind us. But Halifax has the same record as us in the East, and Youngstown is the best team in baseball, 6 games better than us. The Eastern League playoffs should be great, and we’ll have to be playing well to bring home another WS ring.