HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?!  

Phil Coke has been such a tremendous part of the last few weeks, he should have been hazed before Humberto or Cervelli who I adore, but who were both called up to avoid burning an option.

All I can say is that SOMEBODY owes me a picture of Phil Coke in a cheerleader’s outfit next September.

I’ve been so busy since my last update so I’ll hit the high notes before getting into my recent attempts at seeing the kid pitch.

Despite all of the things that were written, Phil Coke was not traded to the Pirates, and I won’t even lie, I was giddy beyond words. I spent the day after the supposed trade out of the house and away from baseball pouting, so I didn’t find out until my favorite person in the world sent me a text while we were at lunch. I wanted to cartwheel all over the restaurant when she told me. I figured this was a second chance and that I was destined to see him pitch live. Haha, jokes.

I was sad to see Ohlendorf, Cutch and Karstens go, but I’m glad that they are going to get serious looks. I have been DVR-ing Karstens starts as a Pirate, and actually was watching the almost-perfecto on television. I didn’t move for 5 innings, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Sadly, his last few starts have been either good with no run support or just flat-out bad. I hope he finds the consistency he needs because he’s got good stuff.  … Is it just me or does Ohly look totally different as a Pirate? He hasn’t had great luck, but hopefully he gets things together also because he’s a great kid.  McCutchen is the player I think will bite the Yanks in the ass down the road, though. :-/

On the Coke front, quickly: How weird must it be for him to be on a team with the two guys he was supposed to be traded for? It’s amazing to me that the kid can be up on the big club and people are still questioning his health. The “journalist” who wrote that he has a labrum issue should be eating crow right now, but instead is just pretending he never said it.  Anyway…

Operation See Phil Coke Pitch is finally completed!
August 1st was the day we were scheduled to go see the Thunder vs the Sea Dogs, and my chance to finally see Phil Coke pitch live, right? Yeah, not so much. We drove the 4 hours to Portland and stood in line for hours with a sea of Sox fans (we kinda stood out, the three of us in our Yankees gear) in the sweltering heat waiting to get into Hadlock Field only to…not see Phil on the field anywhere. I didn’t even have to be told, I kind of instinctively knew, but a few frantic text messages later confirmed he’d been promoted to Scranton that very afternoon. *facepalm* But really, that’s just my luck, you know? A good time was had watching the Thunder beat the Sea Dogs, however, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Of note: Jason Jones needs to either be promoted to Scranton with thoughts of getting the the big club, or he needs to be let go. The guy is too talented to be stalled at AA. I’d hate to see him go, but really, give the guy a chance to have a future. * Austin Jackson deserves the hype – he’s not only unbelievably fun to watch on the field, he is great to the fans off of it. * Colin Curtis is a very, very classy kid. * James Cooper is funny and good with kids. * Ramiro Pena is not only smooth at short, he’s now the hero of my 13 year old nephew for throwing him a ball while running to the dugout between innings. That totally made his night. * Kevin Whelan has some nasty stuff, it was fun watching that kid pitch. * Scott Aldred hasn’t changed much from his years as an active player. I was impressed, I won’t lie.

After the Portland trip, I tried to find a way to get to Pawtucket to watch the Scranton Yanks there, but there was absolutely no way to make that happen due to financial and work issues. We’d already planned a trip to New York over Labor Day weekend, way before the Scranton promotion so I was really pissed when I realized that Coke really would be a September call-up. I mean, I was excited at the thought of him on the big club, don’t get me wrong, but that also meant I’d miss seeing him in pinstripes. *facepalm part two* I even looked into tickets for one game in September, but without selling an internal organ, there’s no way to make it happen and nobody will go to Boston with me. Asses.

Determined to actually see Phil pitch in person this season, I convinced my fantastic siblings to go to Yankee Stadium Friday night (August 29) and then on Saturday drive the 8 hours from Stamford, CT (where we always stay) to Rochester where the Scranton Yankees were playing the Red Wings. They knew how much I wanted to see him pitch in person, so they agreed. We set out early Saturday morning for Rochester. We got there plenty early, but the Frontier Field gates don’t open until afterBPfor some ridiculous reason, so we literally walked into the stadium as the Yankees were leaving the field. It was like one big cosmic tease because we were fourth in line, so I could seeCoke and Chase Wright shaggingthrough the metal gates out on the field, but he kinda looked like an ant in jail from that distance and was gone by the time we got in. Our seats were amazing for watching the game, but crappy for pictures. We were 8 rows behind the plate and about 20 seats away from where Hughes & Igawa were charting pitches.

The highlight for me was that Coke came in to the game withtwo on and two out and got out of it witha filthy swinging strike out. I had modified my Bruney shirt to be a Coke shirt (sticky felt, ftw!) and puffed my chest out proudly as he walked off of the field. Sadly, it kinda went downhill for him from there. He gave up a couple of solid hits (another Nick Green error didn’t help things) and he left with bases loaded, nobody out. Mark Melancon came in and I was trying to be positive so I was all, “he’s nasty, you’re gonna love watching him pitch!” to my siblings who don’t really know the minor league guys …so of course, Melancon immediately gave up a slam and all of Coke’s runs scored. Whoooops. I took a lot of ribbing for being a jinx because both guys I’d been talking up all weekend came out and spit the bit. In Melancon’s defense, he got better and actually (I believe) got the win. The best news of the game was that the SWB Yanks came back and won the game, clinchinga post season berth that night thus easing the “jinx” talk a little.

And, no matter the results, I finally got to see Phil Coke pitch live and in person. An entire season of listening to minor league games on the internet hoping he’d pitch, stalking blogs for tid-bits, and one traumatic trade-scare later, the payoff was seeing him live and in person followed by a well-deserved September call up. These are the highlights to an otherwise bland seasons.

Also of the good from that game:
Gettingto see Chase Wright bring out the line-up card and be all smiley and cute. I will always have a soft spot for that kid so I’m totally biased, but I’d love to see him get another chance in the bigs. I think he’s earned it. *Ian Kennedy was really, really good. It was a whole lot of fun watching him carve up the Rochester hitter. He gave up six hits, but gave up no runs and had 11 strikeouts in 6.2 innings. The best part was that he never once looked overmatched, he looked confident on every pitch. I haven’t given up on Ian, I hope he has a strong spring next year and makes the big team. * Melky (wearing #53) went 3-for-5 and battled in every at-bat. * Shelley had a rough night at the plate, but it was still good to see him out there swinging hard. Dilly had his Shelley shirt on and was psyched to see him in person. Also! We knew for sure Scranton had clinched when we saw Shelley glomping everyone. It wasn’t a full-on celebration, but it was enough to know something was up. (We didn’t have internet access the whole trip, so I had not been able to keep up with the SWBY for those 3 days) * Nick Green had a bad night on defense *laughs* the poor guy had two awful throwing errors and was taking a ton of crap from the fans around us. We did not participate, but we laughed. A lot. Sorry, Nick. * It was interesting finally seeing Eric Duncan play after years of hearing about him. I really thought that he’d be in the majors by now. From what we saw, he plays really hard and is solid defensively for the most part. *Scott Strickland is an absolute stud. I have no idea why he’s stuck in Scranton while Chris Britton and Jose Veras are in the majors. I just have no idea at all. * Poor Bernie Castro was dubbed that game’s “Taco Bell Strike Out Man” or some such nonsense, and hilarity ensued behind us amongst the Red Wings fans. If Bernie struck out even once duringthat game, fans could bring their ticket stub to the local Taco Bell and get a free taco. We very well could have been the only people in the place not rooting for him to K. Bless his heart, Bernie went 0-for-3 and got into a few 2-strike counts, but never struck out once. There was one man behind us who was hilariously rantingand sorta-heckling Bernie and had us in stitches. His best line was something like, “C’moooon Taco Man! One more strike and I will be rolling in free lettuce, salsa, cheese, and burger, dude. Why you gotta hit hit a flyball? Screw you, Taco Man. You hate me, don’t you? It’s personal, isn’t it?”   Runner up: ”I just paid $80 for gas to get here, $40 for tickets, $5 for parking, $10 for a beer, and $8 for two cold hot dogs but I’m getting pissed about not saving 99 cents on a taco? *inaudable talk from his quiet friend* You’re right, it would have been free! *loudly* Hatechu, Taco Man, hatechu!” Ahh, I love baseball fans. We were secretly cheeringfor every contact-out because we didn’t want people taking delight in a strike out of Bernie, ya know? After his final out (the aforementioned fly out),  my nephew to leaned over and snorted, “No taco for YOU!” and gave me the knuckles ^_^  Bernie, though, will forever be known as “Taco Man” in our family – but it’s said lovingly! *Um, I’d like to apologize to Trevor Plouffe whose name has also become an inside joke between the five of us. I’m sure he’s a fantastic person who rescues kittens and helps nuns cross the street, but “Plouffe” is just too easy.

That’s enough rambling for one post. I have got to update this thing more than once every two months. Yeesh.