April 6, 2021 [LINK / comment]
Belated Opening Day in D.C. (?)
Five days after the planned Opening Day in Washington (April 1) was postponed due to the coronavirus, there finally will be a game in Nationals Park later this afternoon -- barring more bad news, that is. The Nats and Braves were scheduled to play yesterday at 4:00, but there were so many last-minute roster changes that the Nats needed more time to get ready. Although it is still unknown exactly which players tested positive for covid-19, we do know which ones are under quarantine for either testing positive or having been in close contact with those people. Both catchers -- Yan Gomes and Alex Avila -- are quarantined, forcing the Nats to scramble and sign the unemployed veteran catcher Jonathan Lucroy on an emergency basis. Also available to play as catcher for the Nats: Tres Barrera. Others who are off the roster for the time being: Kyle Schwarber, Josh Bell, and Josh Harrison. Here is the expected starting lineup for the game, which will begin in about two hours:
- CF: Victor Robles
- SS: Trea Turner
- RF: Juan Soto
- 1B: Ryan Zimmerman!
- 3B: Starlin Castro
- 2B: Hernan Perez
- LF: Andrew Stevenson
- C: Jonathan Lucroy
- P: Max Scherzer
The good news is that the first five batters are all experienced players, and even without the missing players mentioned above, the Nats still have a pretty solid lineup. Hernan Perez was already on their 25-man active roster as a backup player, but I'm not familiar with him. The young Andrew Stevenson has shown great promise, and this will be his chance to shine. Lucroy (age 34) hasn't had much time to practice, but he has a decent record: .274 batting average with 4,121 career at-bats, mostly with the Milwaukee Brewers. Hopefully he will adjust quickly.
All-Star Game is moved to Denver
MLB announced late yesterday that the 2021 All-Star Game will be played in Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies in Denver. It will be the second All Star Game in Denver, the first being in 1998 -- about six weeks before I was there! That page has been updated accordingly, as has the Baseball chronology (general) page. Meanwhile, political partisans on both sides are using this occasion to accuse the other side of divisiveness and hypocrisy, etc. etc. As a certain former president often commented, "Sad!"
The above official logos from the 2005, 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2018 All-Star Games were extracted from the photos of the respective stadiums whose photos were displayed in my blog post three days ago -- except for 2008. I didn't realize until taking a closer look at my photos a day later that the All-Star logo was indeed displayed inside Yankee Stadium (behind the left-center field bleachers), as you can see when you roll your mouse over the image.
NOTE: I have wavered back and forth on how to punctuate "All Star": with or without a hyphen. The standard seems to be with a hyphen, so I'll try to stick to that from now on. For the record, however, in all five of the logos above, there is a star between "All" and "Star," so perhaps an asterisk (whose root word is "star") would be better. "All*Star"? Whatever...
Packed house in Texas
The very first Texas Rangers game ever played [with fans in the stands] at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas yesterday was a "virtual sell-out," with 38,238 fans; total seating capacity is 40,300. [Frankly, they could have easily sold 2,000 more tickets and made it a real sell-out if those empty seats weren't all in high-price luxury suites.] Many people were apparently not using masks as they were urged to do. Last year's World Series and National League Championship Series games were played there, with sharply reduced attendance allowed.