8.19.01 ROCHESTER RED WINGS vs SYRACUSE SKYCHIEFS
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I neglected to mention that Damon Buford, miffed that he was being passed over for guys like 24-year-old Larry Bigbie when Baltimore needed bodies in their outfield, asked for his release a couple weeks ago. Oh, Damon. We hardly knew ye.
Of course, we’ve hardly missed ye, either. Will you look at these guys, kicking ass and winning all over the place, as if they had a perfectly good right to? Falling behind and coming back, even? The nerve! The unbridled audacity! Someone needs to come in here and remind these kids that they’re the Rochester Red Wings, fer crying out loud.
It’s a new team, though, and they don’t know any better. Tim Raines, Jr., Keith Reed, Geronimo Gil, Eddy Martinez, Darnell McDonald, Brian Rust…none of these guys were around at the beginning of the season, none of them learned the Red Wing Way at the knee of fat man Calvin Pickering, and all of them play like they want to win. Today capped a series of six home games against divisional rivals, oddly interrupted by a single game in Syracuse smack in the middle; the Red Wings took six of those seven games, three times with late-inning comebacks.
Such was the case today, when in the eighth inning the Wings suddenly found themselves trailing 5–4 after having led comfortably all afternoon. No matter. Darnell McDonald cashed in Brian Rust’s lead-off double and a couple walks by SkyChiefs reliever Kevin Beirne with a two-out, two-run single to left, putting the Red Wings ahead for good.
We then got to see the other part of that Dodger trade a few weeks back, closer Kris Foster. It’s funny, you know, when you only pay attention to baseball at the major-league level and you hear about some team pulling off a deal in which they only had to give up minor leaguers, it always seems like they got something for nothing. That was the line on the Dodgers–Orioles trade at the deadline, right? The Dodgers replenished their bullpen, much of which had become their rotation, with a proven major-leaguer in Mike Trombley, and they gave up…what? Nothing, right? A couple prospects. Invisible men. Nonentities. Well, having seen what Trombley’s done for the Dodgers—sucked, basically—and having now seen both of these “prospects”—a catcher in Geronimo Gil who could be playing in the bigs right now, and this guy Foster who hits 97 on the gun like he’s taking out the trash—I can tell you straight up: this was a horrible trade for the Dodgers. Oh well. Live and learn.
It had poured all morning and the rain started falling again just as Foster went to work. Izzy Molina managed a one-out single and advanced to second on a wild pitch, but with thunderclaps booming overhead and the rain falling harder Foster turned up the heat and got the final outs easily for his first save as a Red Wing. He looked a hell of a lot more convincing than Mike Trombley, that’s for sure. We walked home in the rain, umbrella-less. Oops.
FINAL SCORE: RED WINGS 6, SKYCHIEFS 5
FOOD CONSUMED: I got a wild hair and tried a sandwich from the “Altobelli Deli.” Four bucks got me a huge hoagie with lots of fresh vegetables other than shredded lettuce. Not a bad way to go at all.