Opening Day in Tacoma
With the M’s having an off day (and potentially not having any games for a few days – weather in Baltimore is terrible right now), you can still get your baseball fix as the Tacoma Rainiers kick off their season down at Cheney Stadium tonight at 7:00 pm.
Ryan Feierabend takes the hill against Greg Smith and the Sacramento Rivercats to kick things off, with R.A. Dickey going tomorrow night if you want to make it down to watch the knuckler.
Clement, Balentien, Tuiasasopo, and Chen give the team four prospects in the starting line-up, and guys like Norton, Reed, and LaHair should help keep the team competitive. If you’re into cold weather, head on down to the stadium and check out the Rainiers this weekend. If you’re more of the feel-your-extremities kind of person, you can stay home and listen live as Mike Curto reminds you why he’s the best baseball broadcaster in the Northwest.
And, for those wondering, there will be a new Future Forty coming tomorrow to celebrate the return of the minor league season.
Woot! New Future Forty. Thanks Dave for all the work you do!
As a bit of self promotion, I’d like to draw attention to some pie-in-the-sky brainstorming going on today regarding possible future locations for a ballpark in Tacoma, closer to the downtown core.
My initial location proposal on a Foss Waterway location
Another idea from local architect David Boe suggesting a location at the mouth of the Foss overlooking commencement Bay
More related conversation
Would any of you Seattle folk deign to drive to T-Town for such an attraction?
Dickey is starting? Hmmm, I may have to fight the Friday traffic…
Future Forty! I’ve been waiting for the next one…
Doesn’t FSN have the Portland Beavers first game of the season on in certain markets tonight as well?
Man, I wish I could get to Tacoma to watch a game. This looks like a pretty damned good AAA team.
Edited to add: Hey, this is a cool comment-editing plugin! What’s it called?
[off topic]
A lot of the points you raise have been answered many times, most of them recently; for example, try searching on Balentien and seeing what Dave has had to say about him not being ready.
I’ll just answer one — inasmuch as the whole comment is not relevant in this thread:
Seriously, without meaning to sound offensive: On what do you base that? Morse has been a mediocre hitter, at best, throughout his career. He was decent in limited time last year, after years of nothing in his minor league career to make anyone think he’s a major league hitter. I understand — sort of — the fetish some people have with “giving him a chance”; but Morse “a monster”? That is a very odd alternate reality.
New future forty? Awesome!
While we wait, you want to estimate when Clement, Balentien, Tuiasasopo, and Chen each make the team?
I’d say…
Balentien: Mid-Late May
Clement: All-Star break
The other two when the roster expands.
5/Spike’s Ghost-Yes, the Beavers (AAA of our hated rival San Diego) are on tonight, so I didn’t have to watch the Brewers and Cubs (blech) for my requisite daily game.
I hope, for those of us not in the Seattle-Tacoma area, we can get some updates on Mr. Dickey and the others we’ll probably see back up at some point during the season. Thanks.
Love the new editing feature.
not having any games for a few days sounds like good news in the Putz department. getting a few days off of games, and it gets JJ closer!
[it was off topic before, it’s still off topic now, Morse is not in Tacoma]
It would be cool if I could take the Sounder to a Rainiers game. The sucky part about living in the north end.
Ah well, the Aquasox will be starting up soon enough…
Will Baltimore be the Cleveland of 2008?
Well, it’s good to see KHHO having problems as usual. Anyone else attempting to listen either on the radio or MiLB.com? Other than the commercials I haven’t heard anything after the line-ups. For those interested:
CF-Reed
2B-Chen
LF-Norton
RF-Balentien
C-Clement
1B-LaHair
3B-Tui
DH-Johnson
SS-Navarro
Wow. That is a pretty good AAA lineup.
KHHO has apparently corrected the technical glitch and Mike Curto and the Rainiers are back on and on-line.
coming to it a bit late, it’s coming in fine up here in the north, if occasionally buzzed by some incidental static …
so the Rainiers have a left-handed pen, to go with the Mariner’s righties?
I just saw Justin Leone hit a broken bat home run for Fresno against Portland. His bat broke in two. I’ve never seen that happen before.
Did Mike really mention that Salt Lake doesn’t have a single lefty on their staff? That can’t happen all too often I bet.
No more Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, Tony Butler, Kam Mickolio. Felix, Lopez and Betancourt have been in the bigs for a few years.
Well, at least M’s fans are bound to get to know some new names…
I was there last night. Ryan Feierabend looked very good. Lots and lots of strikes (89 pitches/53 strikes). Woods looked pretty decent in his two innings. I was wondering what the clock was on Jimenez. He didn’t look like he was chucking that hard, but wasn’t a lot of contact in the ninth.
Chen looked very good offensively and defensively. Hit the ball solidly. Count me among the unimpressed by Navarro at SS. Bad at-bats, and a horrible error in a run down that almost cost the R’s a run.
I might be one of the few, but I still am not sure if Clement is the solution. I just don’t see him raking against Major League pitching.
Norton played left. Didn’t have any plays out there, so don’t know how he looked defensively. Couple very weak swings though.
And as always, you know its baseball season in Tacoma when the fireworks come crashing down onto the field and one of the interns runs out to the OF to make sure nothing is burning.
PS. New ownership has really taken Cheney Stadium up a notch.
I just saw Justin Leone hit a broken bat home run for Fresno against Portland. His bat broke in two. I’ve never seen that happen before.
I once saw that happen (on television) in Enron…er, Minute Maid Park. I think it was Julio Lugo of all people.
I was there early shadowing Churchill with my camera (being the “Director of Photography” for Prospect Insider now). I don’t have anywhere close to all of the photos ready for publishing yet, but I do have a few on my Flickr account that I uploaded from the pressbox before the game.
Clement and Robby Johnson
Tug Hulett
R. A. Dickey (with a bat)
Wlad Balentien
Tui fielding
More, of course, on my Flickr account.
Nice pics. Look forward to seeing more through the season.