Bhagwan @ Large

Game 1

And it’s about time.

Season opener for the Seattle Thunderbirds, and warm on the heels of today’s Pac-10 escapades.

Leaving the Duchess, Eric and I swing by and pick up Bree, who has come up for this event. After some traffic hilarity (game traffic always sucks in the U-district after a game) the three of us join Jen at the homestead, while we wait for the Mindy unit to pick us up. We three have tickets, and Eric decides to take the gamble, and buy on-site.

Success! Not only do we secure free parking within a reasonable walk, but Strand gets a seat in our same section. Given Seattle sports attendance this year, it is a virtual lock that he will be able to upgrade to our level of cool seatness.

Dinner is good (as always), and our football buzz carries us through the meal and into the opening ceremonies. On the way in, I stop to arrange for a tape of the game, but then discover that DVDs are an option this year from TRG video. Since my ultimate goal is to transfer the games over to that media, I decide to wait until more data can be collected on pricing and availability. Plus, I can always pick up the season series later, like I did last year.

Lots of new kids this year, and plenty of time to get to know them better during the long lineup session. Some kids like Dustin Johner are gone, and replaced by new faces with little english. We expected that, since he was playing semi-pro hockey at the end of spring. Other veteran names like Zach Fitzgerald are still around, but in a surprise move by new coach Rob Sumner (yay!), fan favorite Tyler Metcalfe has been named team captain.

How about that?

For Portland, the only two names I recognize are the kids we love to hate, Robin Big Snake and the goalie, Kevin Butler. That’s not bad at all, since both are effectively out of the game by the end of the first period. the t-birds go up 3-0 with lightning speed, even after one goal is called back.

Silly Zebras, you can’t keep a good puck down. And neither can the Winterhawks, who make 35 shots on the night, only two of which get between the pipes.

T-Birds win, 4-2, claiming a 2-0 lead in the season series. It’s so nice to see a Seattle team win.

Probables for my next game are Friday night here in Seattle, and Saturday up in Everett. But since both conflict somewhat with other activities, I’ll need to play it by ear.

Analysis Schmalysis

I just started a review of how well Mariners hitters were supporting the Pitching staff.

Then I stopped.

I’ll get back to it later, but the results for April were quite depressing, and not really indicative of the actual problems.

The M’s opened the season with 5 straight losses and a gimme win, and generated 58 hits during those games.

They scored 28 runs. That’s 30 stranded baserunners in 54 innings, in case anyone’s couting.

I sure as hell was. And am.

I’ll return to this theme later. There’ll even be a full page devoted to it someday (have to do something with those schedule pages, I’m thinking)

T-3 months, 8 days until Hockey Season.

Then we can watch yet another Seattle Sports team lose it all at the end.

many hours later…

Of course, then there’s always the failure of the Mariners Pitchers to support the batters.

3 runs in the first inning. Gulp.

Starting Pitcher leaves with the bases loaded, eventally charged with 7 runs. In the 6th, which is nice. But after giving up 8 hits, and walking 4.

Not so good.

It just got a lot easier to make a roster move this weekend. Ouch.