The Dayton Dragons – Class A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds – have some things going for them. “Dragons” is a very cool name. We love the Dragon logo. We aren't a huge fan of the green and black color scheme, but we can tolerate the white home uniform.
So what the hell are they doing here? Look, we understand that the very nature of mascots mean that whatever cool or even slightly threatening image has to be denatured into the blandest, most “family-friendly” thing they can come up with.
Having said that, we must point out that “Heater” the boy dragon is quite simply the wimpiest-looking dragon ever. And “Gem” the girl dragon is so creepy it makes us nauseous.
Photo Courtesy of DaytonDragons.com
It would be difficult to come up with a better game to start the second half with than this one. Perfect weather for baseball, a tight, taut game throughout, a brilliant inning of work by rehabbing Mariner Mark Lowe and Our Favorite Rainier hitting his 22nd homer for the win. Throw in Kam Mickolio's first Triple-A save, and you have the Rainiers' fifth win in a row.
Lots more of these fellas. That's all we need.
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The All-Star Break: International League 7, Pacific Coast League 5
0 comments Posted by frinklin at 12:10 AMA loss for the PCL and a split decision for the Rainiers. Tacoma's Justin Lehr got the start for the PCL and unfortunately picked up the loss as the International League jumped on him for four runs in his only inning of work. Lehr hit a batter, and then gave up a double and consecutive homers to Toledo third baseman Mike Hessman and Pawtucket outfielder Brandon Moss. The PCL was unable to recover from the early deficit. Our Favorite Rainier acquitted himself well, scoring the PCL's first run after his double in the first.
The season starts for real again tomorrow. Grizzlies at Rainiers, 7:05,, Cheney Stadium. And apparently Adam Jones will remain a Rainier for the time being, so don't miss him.
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Today we take a look at what's gone right for the Tacoma Rainiers. As you might expect, with a team 11 games under the .500 mark, there ain't much.
Player of the Half: Adam Jones There is no surprise here whatsoever. Our Favorite Rainier was the hands-down best player on this team before the season started and nothing has changed. Adam Jones has hit .309/.377/.585 for the season, with 21 homers and 72 RBI, all while playing stellar defense in both centerfield and right. The downside for Rainier fans? His time in Tacoma at this point is measured in days, not months, and if the Mariner blogosphere is to be believed, Jones might not be seen in a Rainier uniform again after the Triple-A All-Star game on Wednesday. Rainier fans should count themselves lucky he's been with the team this long; Adam Jones is ready for the show.
Also Receiving Votes: Wladimir Balentien, Justin Lehr
Pitcher of the Half: Justin Lehr Even more of a no-brainer than Jones is this 29-year old who rescued the team. Initially signed to come out of the bullpen, forced into starting when Jake Woods was called up to the big club, Lehr won his first six decisions en route to starting the Triple-A All-Star game. The Rainiers have seen 14 starters (including three rehab starts) so far this year, and none of them have come close to being as steady and productive as Justin Lehr.
Also Receiving Votes: Jorge Campillo, Julio Mateo
Most Welcome Development: Prior to this season Wlad Balentien was considered a talented but risky prospect, an all-or-nothing player prone to big power numbers (90 HR in 400 minor league games) and huge strikeout totals (140 in 2006 alone). As a Rainier though, Balentien has solidified his status as a real prospect, and forced himself into the Mariners' future plans. His numbers (.328/.397/.993) are actually slightly superior to Jones, and his flair for the game have made him a fan favorite in Tacoma. Due to the outfield logjam in Seattle, Balentien might be prime trade bait.
Most Intriguing: Not many Rainier fans heard of Kameron Mickolio before his Tacoma debut on June 13 against the Beavers. He was roughed up that day, to the tune of 1 2/3 innings and four earned runs. Since then, the 6-9, 250 pound behemoth has been dominant, giving up only two earned runs over his next five appearances, and posting an eye-popping 15 Ks in 14 innings pitched.
The Triple-A All-Star game is tomorrow night in Albuquerque, available as either streaming video or audio from MilB.com. Tacoma's own Justin Lehr gets the start for the PCL squad.
If this game is half as good as the major league All-Star game, we'll be quite pleased.
The hometown Rainiers have reached the All-Star break. While not the actual midpoint of the season – that was about two weeks ago – this marks a good spot to take stock of the season.
Which, handily enough, is exactly what we'll be doing this week. Today, we look at the team as a whole. The Rainiers – thanks to four straight wins over Portland – have pulled out of last place. Tacoma stands at 40-51, 10 games behind division leader Salt Lake. They haven't seen .500 since the first week of the season. Tacoma ranks 12th in ERA, fourth in walks allowed, 13th in strikeouts. The Rainiers have notched no complete games and only two shutouts.
So, pitching may be an issue.
Sadly, the Rainiers don't hit all that well, either. They rank ninth in overall OPS, 12th in On-Base. The team K's a lot (645 times, fourth in the PCL) and never takes a walk. Tacoma is a pathetic 15th in walks. A team can't survive with a three-to-one K to walk ratio. And they haven't, ranking 10th in overall runs. This team has two incandescent bright spots in the line up (Our Favorite Rainier and Wlad Balentien) and some absolute dead zones.
But we'll cover that later in the week.
Photo Courtesy of milb.com
This is Robert Stratton. He won the Triple-A Home Run Derby tonight in Albuquerque. He isn't actually in baseball this year. The former Isotope is a real estate agent now.
Yeah, things are different in the minors.
We have to be honest: we had chosen this particular mascot before even knowing what it was. The reason? This team name. The Orem Owlz are the Single-A affilate of the Los Angles Angels. That would be Angels, not Angelz. Can you perhapz tell why we dezpize this team zo damned much?
Orem Owlz baseball : It'z X-Treme!
What truly shocks us though, is that this horrid late-90's spelling is actually brand freakin' new! The team was the Provo Angels until December of 2004. Owlz....
Anyway, we decided on this team before ever seeing Hootz (of course!), and Sweet Baby Jesus is this thing creepy.
Try to look away. Just try it.
The Fourth of July: Fireworks, flags, barbecue and baseball. Whether you go out and play catch with Dad or head to the bleachers for a hot dog and a chance at a fly ball, the national pastime is – and always will be – intertwined with this particular celebration of America.
So how is it that the Puget Sound – with three professional teams – has no baseball to be seen? The Mariners are in Kansas City, the hometown Rainiers begin a four-game series in Portland tonight, and the Everett AquaSox (admit it, you love the name too) are in Boise. The Rainiers held Independence Day festivities yesterday, with a fireworks show and some sweet alternate jerseys.
The Fourth for this household though, is a little on the sedate side. We are the owners of four dogs. Four large, overly excitable dogs that don't take to sedation very well. Fireworks for us is an adventure. So, with no baseball and large dogs, today is a relaxing holiday for the Frinklin Household. Sleep late, enjoy the day-off and perfect weather, fire up the grill later this afternoon and later walk a couple blocks for a great view of the Freedom Fair fireworks show.
Have a happy and safe fourth everyone.
If you are between 25-35 you know about the Transformers. A massively successful toy line in the 80's, it spawned a TV series and an animated movie. The storyline never changes: massive robots from a dead world land on Earth, impersonate pick-up trucks and fighter planes, and beat the bejezus out of each other.
The movie hews pretty closely to the established Transformer mythos. Dead planet, centuries long war between the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons, Earth caught in the middle. As this is a Michael Bay picture – a Michael Bay picture based on a toy-turned-TV series, no less – plot isn't really all that important. All the Transformers are looking for the All Spark, a giant cube that can either return life to Cybertron or turn Earth into Cyberton, Jr. The key to finding this thing is a kid named Sam Witwickey (Shia LaBeauf) who has the coordinates to the All Spark encrypted on his great-grandfather's glasses.
Boy, that made even less sense after I type it.
Still, doesn't matter. This movie is about action and there is plenty of it. We have running. We have shooting. We have yelling. We have shooting while running and yelling and we have yelling while running and shooting. Sometimes we don't have yelling, just running and shooting. Always running and shooting. This movie runs a thousand miles an hour from the first scene (a US Army base in Qatar gets blown to smithereens by a Decepticon) and never, ever lets up. The effects are spectacular, from the CGI robots to the amazing car chase scenes (three of 'em!) and dizzying final battle through the streets of Los Angeles.
Not everything can be CGI, so there is a rather impressive human cast, led by LaBeauf, an enormously appealing young actor and old hands like Jon Voight as the square-jawed Secretary of Defense and a scenery-chewing John Turtorro as the head of secret government operation that knows about the robots. This is Michael Bay's world, so the women are preposterously good-looking and there is a surfeit of gun-toting hero-types such as Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as survivors of the Qatar attack.
Is it necessary to be a pop-culture obsessed Gen X type on a nostalgia trip to enjoy this movie? No, but it helps. There is a certain thrill the first time Optimus Prime comes around a corner or when Megatron sneers “fleshling” like it's 1986 again, but it isn't necessary. This movie is just so damned much fun, anybody willing to buy into the concept will enjoy it. This movie is so full with guy stuff - cars, guns, jetfighters, incomprehensible army jargon, semi trucks, leggy blondes…. Well, it’s easy to overdose on it all. I’ve been using Sufjan Stevens albums to recover. It's well worth it though. For two-plus hours I - and everyone else in the theater - was 14 again.
Okay, look: this movie features giant outer-space robots with swords. Tell me that isn't cool!
Brodie Downs – the 27-year old rookie – picked up his first win as a Tacoma Rainier on Saturday, and that strikes us as just being incredibly cool. Brodie, in his second appearance as a Rainier, worked two scoreless innings to pick up the win in relief of Horacio Ramirez. Ho-Ram, as he is annoying called, is the Mariners' Quadruple-A starter that cost the team the services of Rafael Soriano in one of the more lopsided trades in baseball this past year. Ho-Ram was Ho-Awful, giving up six runs over four innings in his first of three scheduled rehab starts.
Tomorrow: Zooperstars. Run while you can.
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There is one team though, that is always noticed, and almost as often mentioned. We are fans of Arsenal of the English Premier League. Football to 99.9% of the world, soccer to those around here. Probably because European football is a cult sport here in America, whenever we venture out sporting Arsenal's ultra-cool crest, somebody has to mention it. Japanese tourist guy at Pike Place Market? Thumbs up! Guy on the train, he's a Liverpool fan. Don't know his name, he's “Liverpool Guy”. Just today at the restaurant, guy sporting a Chelsea shirt. Is Lampard leaving the Blues?
So, just where are we going with all this? We were working on an Arsenal post, to complain about Thierry Henry leaving for Barcelona. We stumbled upon this brilliant YouTube collection (which should explain just why we Americans are so wrong about the beautiful game) and while marveling at M. Henry's goals we kept noticing something.
Just what the hell is that green thing? Oh Lord... Arsenal has a mascot? That can't be. This is a team with 120-plus years of history, a member of the G-14, a group of the most powerful professional franchises in the world, a team with fans across the world. This is the only team to finish undefeated in the history of the Premiership. This team has a freakin' mascot? A Goddamn dinosaur?
Presented without further comment: The Gunnersaurus Rex.
Photo Courtesy of Yahoo UK
Okay, one little comment further: We die inside just a little bit every time we see this.
The modern-day Pacific Coast League is a massive enterprise consisting of 16 teams stretching from Tacoma and Portland in the Pacific Northwest to New Orleans of the Deep South. These are the teams our hometown nine will face throughout the long season. You must know the enemy!
The Team: Oklahoma RedHawks
The City: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
The Affiliation: Texas Rangers
The Website: OklahomaRedHawks.com
The Ballpark: AT&T Bricktown Ballpark. Awkward name, gorgeous park. Built in 1999, the Bricktown is considered one of the best Triple-A ballparks. Home to the Big 12 baseball championship and the yearly “Bricktown Showdown” match-up between the PCL and International League champs, this park is part of the revitalization of it's namesake district.
The History: Oklahoma City was home to the Indians, an on-again, off-again member of the Texas League until the Oklahoma City 89ers were born in 1962 to coincide with major league expansion. In 1999, the team moved to the Bricktown, changed names and became affiliated with nearby Texas Rangers.
The Name: Yeah, 89ers is much better than RedHawks (yes, that is the correct capitalization), one of those nouveau 90's names that colleges made up to replace “Indians” and “Redmen.”
The Prospects: Not much. The Rangers are an awful team and the RedHawks have become a haven for nearly-were prospects like Ramon Vasquez and Desi Relaford, both former Rainiers and Mariners.
The Scheduling Quirk: Due to the PCL's scheduling plans – some teams don't play home and homes – the Rainiers will be playing in OKC, but the RedHawks will not be seen in Tacoma until 2008
The Zooperstars are in town on Sunday. Be afraid...
The Rainiers took won their third in a row against the struggling Tucson Sidewinders and – wonder of wonders – won a series for the first time since April. What was a tight ballgame tied at one through the fourth turned into a laugher as Tacoma scored at least one run each of the final five innings. Rob Johnson was the hitting star for Tacoma, pounding three doubles and scoring three times. Our Favorite Rainier returned to the line-up after missing the previous three after running into the outfield wall in Sacramento.
The Rainiers return home tonight to face Portland. The Beavers are coming off an ugly sweep in Colorado Springs (sound familiar?) and sit just two games ahead of Tacoma in the PCL Pacific North. Now would be the perfect time to pull out of the cellar.
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C.R. Roberts from the TNT has a quick Q and A with Aaron Artman, new president of the Rainiers. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it shouldn't be missed.
The modern-day Pacific Coast League is a massive enterprise consisting of 16 teams stretching from Tacoma and Portland in the Pacific Northwest to New Orleans of the Deep South. These are the teams our hometown nine will face throughout the long season. You must know the enemy!
The Team: New Orleans Zephyrs
The City: Metairie, Louisiana
The Affiliation: New York Mets
The Website: Zephyrsbaseball.com
The Ballpark: Zephyr Field. Built in 1997, the “Shrine on Airline” (yes, the dumbest nickname for a stadium we can recall), appears to be the minor league equivalent of New Comiskey in Chicago: new, shiny and pretty close to soulless. As with most newer minor league stadiums, Zephyr Field features outfield berm seating, the unfortunately named “Da Levee”. In 2005, Zephyr Field was used as FEMA staging area following Hurricane Katrina. Thankfully for New Orleans baseball fans, FEMA managed not to burn the stadium down.
The History: The New Orleans Pelicans were a longtime member of the old Southern Association; one of the crown jewels of Deep South baseball along with such franchises as the Atlanta Crackers, Little Rock Travelers and Nashville Volunteers. The SA collapsed in 1961, either unwilling or simply unable to integrate. In 1977 a new version of the Pelicans played one season in the Superdome, but a lousy stadium lease forced the team to relocate to Springfield, Missouri. In 1993, baseball returned to the Crescent City after the Denver Zephyrs were forced out by the expansion Colorado Rockies.
The Name: After decades as the Bears, the Denver franchise switched to Zephyrs in 1985. The name went with them to New Orleans, missing an opportunity to reclaim a great baseball name and look.
The Prospects: The Zephyrs feature two of the parent Mets' best pitching prospects in Phillip Humber and Mike Pelfrey. In addition, the talented-but-somewhat flakey Lastings Milledge and former Rainier and Mariner Clint Nagoette are on the New Orleans disabled list.
Did You Know? The Zephyrs are the only team in organized baseball with a "Z" on the cap?
Did You Care? Us neither.
For the second game in a row, the Rainiers got a last-inning (this time the 10th) homer to win. After Tuscon evened up the game at four with two in the eight, Wladimir Balentien hit his 17th in the 10th to put the Rainiers ahead. Julio Mateo redeemed his earlier mistake and picked up the win in relief.
The Rainiers go for a much-needed series win Tuesday night at 7:00.
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The Week That Was: Another down week for the Rainiers. Tacoma went an ugly 2-4, and lost Our Favorite Rainier for the weekend after he injured his hand running into an outfield wall. After winning the final game over Tucson to finish a short homestand on an up note, the Rainiers ran into the buzzsaw that is the Sacramento River Cats. The Cats took three out of four as the Rainiers remained deep in the cellar, stuck at 10 games behind Pacific North co-leaders Salt Lake and Colorado Springs.
On Deck: Two more in Tucson to end the road trip and the Rainiers head back home to entertain the Portland Beavers and the aforementioned Bees. The Rainiers added a very interesting name to the bullpen over the weekend, 2007 Mariner draftee Brodie Downs. At 27, Downs is the oldest player Seattle drafted this year. He quit baseball after high school to work as a surveyor until returning to pitch one season with Modesto CC. Live the dream Brodie.
We have been shamefully ignoring the hometown nine this weekend, lost in the return of Junior to Seattle. Sunday's game though, that looks like something we would have enjoyed. Tucson jumped out to an early lead, Tacoma came back, Tucson stretched it out again until the seventh. The Rainiers eventually won on Rob Johnson's ninth inning solo homer.
It might not have been the prettiest game, but it sure was fun. Same two teams tomorrow night in Tucson, 7:00 first pitch.
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