Another Lost Weekend (Subtitle: Bleepin' Rain)

Bleepin' bleepedy bleep rain - that's what I've got to say. Gawd the weather has been miserable in Portland this spring. Other than the first weekend of the season (which was real nice - shirtsleeve weather), it's been cold, windy, wet and miserable for most of the season. For the third consecutive homestand, the Saturday game was rained out and scheduled for a Sunday doubleheader. For the third consecutive homestand, the rain remained through Sunday. I've been scheduled to work all of these Sundays. The first time both Sunday games were washed out. The second time, they managed to get one game in before cancelling the second game. Today the first game was delayed by 1 1/2 hours, but finally we played two.

Yay! Six hours in a rainy ballpark! Even better, the home team managed to push across just one run (in the first inning of the first game) in the process. Now the Sea Dogs' record vs. the Bowie Baysox is 0-6 for the season.

You can read about the Friday loss here, and the Sunday losses here.

And you can read about the offense's struggles here. For the weekend series, the Sox outscored the Dogs 10-2. Portland's starting pitching was pretty good, with only Jon Papelbon being saddled with a loss. Jon Lester struggled some with his command, but only allowed 3 hits and 4 walks in 7 innings on Friday night, while striking out 8. It was Manny Delcarmen's two leadoff walks in the 9th and some shaky defense that did the Dogs in that night. David Pauley ran up a high pitch count in striking out 9 through five innings of work in Game 1 on Sunday, but the Baysox scratched across one run off the bullpen in the 8th. Finally, Papelbon was "roughed up" (for him) giving up three runs on five hits and three walks (with only 4 K's) in the nightcap.

Scorer's Notes for the three games:

• Saw an unusual play on Friday - David Murphy tapped one to the right of the mound, which pitcher Cory Morris fielded, then outraced Murphy to the bag.
• Another unusal play on Sunday as Woody Cliffords was out stealing in the fourth when he took off for second before Papelbon began his delivery. He was thrown out easily. The Baysox were clearly timing Papelbon's set and delivery, as Gary Cates took off before Papelbon began his delivery in the following inning and ended up with the steal.
• Speaking of Cates, he's another small infielder. I mean, real small. I mean, Dustin Pedroia could kick his ass small. Naturally, he was 2-4 with a double, three walks, a sac fly, two RBI and two runs scored in the series, combining with Cliffords to lead the Bowie offense.
• We missed Bowie's best starter, Hayden Penn, but that didn't stop the other guys from shutting us down. Former Oriole Eric Dubose's six shutout innings on Sunday followed fine performances by Cory Morris (now with a 2.31 ERA in 37.1 IP) and Matt Bruback (2.95 ERA in 42.2 IP). Dubose now has a 2.09 ERA in 43 AA innings this year. Bowie's offensive numbers don't look that great, but the pitching has held up. Sound familiar?
• Another guy that I profiled with Bowie's prospects was Chris Ray, who closed out two games (on save) with four K's in the series.
• Attendance for Sunday was listed as 6,500. If you counted everybody for the two games combined, you wouldn't have reached 6,500 - but that's how many tickets were sold. I'm not sure how many people stayed for game two, but it probably wasn't quite 200. Slugger the Sea Dog personally greeted everybody in attendance with a handshake. We also got complemimentary general admission tickets as a thank you. The Sea Dogs do everything with such class!
• I watched the second game from the second row behind home plate. A great place to watch the game, but not so good for the scoring we do. It's hard to judge the depth of the balls put in play, and outfielders are sometimes blocked from view by the infielders. Still, especially with nobody in attendance, you can hear a lot from the players and the umps. For example, Bowie catcher Morgan Clendenin misjudged a foul pop and said a bad word that I won't repeat here.
• Manny Delcarmen was impressive on Friday, topping out at 97 on the radar and demonstrating why he is such an intriguing prospects. 8 pitches into the 9th, though, there were two runners on base and the winning rally was on. For the season he's pitched 15.1 innings, striking out 20 but allowing 16 hits and 12 walks, resulting in 16 runs allowed, though 8 unearned runs make his ERA a deceptive 4.70. Harness that thing, Manny, and you'll be going places!
• Jared "the Wicket" Sandberg is no longer at third base, but continues to be an adventure in the field. He has trouble judging fly balls and has an infielder's arm out there. On top of that, he's done diddly with the bat since the second week of the season. I'm praying for him to get promoted when Chris Durbin comes off the DL so I don't have to watch this boondoggle any longer.
• Next up: the Binghamton Mets return for a four game series. I'll be doing the first two games on Monday and Tuesday nights. If I get a chance I'll update the Mets prospects tomorrow, otherwise look for updates in the scorer's notes for the next two games. (The forecast? Rain.)