Another three-homerun game...

Okay, so last night was the FOURTH time I've gone to a Dodgers' game where the Dodgers hit three home runs in one game.

September 2, 2006 - JD Drew, Nomar Garciaparra, and James Loney (first major league home run)
June 12, 2007 - Wilson Betemit, Matt Kemp (the one that landed in the loge level), and Hong-Chi Kuo (with the controversial bat flip)
May 5, 2008 - Rafael Furcal (lead off the game with one), Blake DeWitt (first major league home run), and Matt Kemp
Then last night, June 2, 2008 - Jeff Kent, Andre Ethier, and Matt Kemp

I've seen seven home runs so far this year (in only nine games)... I only saw twelve last year (in seventeen games total). If I knew how to post my Excel worksheet on here, I would. Yes, sadly, I have an excel worksheet of with information from all the games I've gone to. That's what box scores are for.

Anyway, back to last night's game. So, Nina and I actually did get to the stadium in time for batting practice. I got off work at five, got pizza and gas, went to Nina's. We left a little after six. I really needed something to get my mind off work, as you could tell from my previous post. We got to our section, after stopping at the concessions to get a soda and ice cream cookie sandwich. Nina was blown away by my new PayPass debit card. I didn't know how to use it at first. It was my first time. We got to our seats ... and no one was there yet. Kent guy and his cousin showed up. Later in the game, we learned that Kent guy's cousin's name is ... Matt. We actually learned quite a bit about our neighbor's... mostly Matt. It was fun. Nicole and her family didn't show up. Kent guy's ex-girlfriend showed up at the previous game (Cardinals - May 23) and she sat in the row behind us. Kent guy said she gave him a dirty look the entire game. And yes, she did show up again. She gave us all a dirty look. One name down, one more to go. I was disappointed to see Danny Ardoin warming up on the field instead of Russell. This was the first time I've ever gone to a game where Russell didn't start, or play, since he didn't play the entire game. He must've been bored out of his mind. So bored ... he danced in the dug out, fooled around with Delwyn Young, played hackey-sack with a baseball, hung from the dugout ceiling ... he's got a lot of energy! The game started and the kids took the field with the players. I asked Nina, which kid would get lost this time. Turns out, the kid going out to Andre was the one who got lost. He ended up with an umpire instead. Then on his way back, he visited another umpire (maybe it was the same one). Very cute.

Nina and I spent most of the game chatting with our neighbors. It was fun. They grabbed a gripload of All Star ballots and spent the first five or six innings punching them out. At first, they were serious about voting. Then they voted for teams and stuff like that. Matt even voted on one where he voted for all Dodgers on the National League team, and on the American league team, he voted for all former Dodgers. I think they wrote in Russell Martin at third on one ballot, Blake DeWitt at third in another. Or was it Russell Martin at third and Danny Ardoin at catcher...? Nina had the great idea to try and punch out several at a time with her bobby pin. I forgot how many it was ... but the last one didn't get punched right. Then Matt did it with the pen he borrowed from Nina. Since we spent most of the game talking, I missed taking pictures of each of the home runs. The game went by very quickly. Two and a half hours. They showed on the Dodger Vision screen a sparrow in the Rockies' dug out. It was sitting on the bench next to a bag of sunflower seeds. Very cute. I love sparrows! I used to feed some at PCC when I was on break in between classes. I would buy a croissant and break off little pieces and toss them to the sparrows. They showed the sparrow again laster, this time it was in the corner in the dug out. I think they showed the sparrow about two or three times. They had two different captions. 1) It thought this was a Cardinals game. And 2) Cheep seats. I've seen the second caption quite a few times. Especially with birds.

Lowe did pretty well, giving up only one run in the first inning and then no more the rest of the time he was out there. Then there was Blake getting caught in the run down. You knew he was toast, unless he managed to trip up the infielder like Kemp or get the ball bounced off his head like Furcal. What was funny was ... he just stood there ... like he knew he was toast ... but didn't move. Then he started playing pickle. He held them up long enough for Loney to score from third. Nina didn't like it that Bowa didn't hold up DeWitt or whatever ... but I told her ... well, would she rather have the bases loaded with Hu up next? Later in the game, Sweeney came up to pinch hit ... and well... let's say I was glad that they gave Sweeney the double instead of giving the outfielder an error. Because the outfielder did catch the ball ... until he hit the wall and the ball popped out of his glove.

So, my record now stands ... for this year .. 6 wins, 3 losses. Overall ? 18 wins, 9 losses. I have twice as many wins as losses. How sweet is that? Not too bad. The most team I've seen is the Giants, and after tomorrow, it will be the Giants (2 - 3) and the Rockies (3 - 1 for now). The pitchers I have seen the most are Derek Lowe (4 - 3) and Brad Penny (6 - 1). Mind you, they may not have actually gotten the win in the games I have gone to ... but the team did win. Just for my record-keeping purposes, I only record who the starting pitcher is. Who knows, maybe I'll go back and record who the winning and losing pitchers are. But for now, it's just the starter who gets the credit in my worksheets.

More tidbits? My worksheet is incomplete. I'm missing the boxscore information for some games from last year. I started typing up the numbers for this year ... but I'm going to wait till after tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to be my TENTH game of the year. Last year, I didn't go to my tenth game till July 18, and that was after the All Star break. I'm on pace to go to ... twelve or thirteen games BEFORE the All Star break. Mind you ... I only went to seventeen games last year. Like Matt and many have said, I'm making up for all those years that I never went to a baseball game. That's about twenty-one years.