Trip through the Rotation, Part 5--Nineteen Up, Nineteen Down

Game 5, 5/17/05, Wes Obermuller (82, 24) vs. Claudio Vargas (14, -12)

WP--Obermuller
LP--Vargas

Seating: Section 523, Row 2, Seat 13, though I actually sat a few seats away b/c 11 rows were comprised of NRL people, so we sloshed around.
Hat: Red Nationals Home cap (script W)

One great pitching performance and one lousy one. Vargas got shelled in 1 1/3 and only threw 44 pitches by my count; Brady Clark hit the first pitch for a homer and Carlos Lee finished him with a three run bomb. in fact, due to back spasms from Patterson, he'll start again on Friday on only two day rests. Obermuller on the other hand was perfect through 6 1/3, and one of the hits was a fly ball that should have been caught but Geoff Jenkins lost it in the lights. Fortunately that was not the first baserunner.

Tomo Okha actually had a hell of a "start" in relief--5 2/3, 2 hits, 0 runs, would have scored 67/13.5 as a start.

As I figured, I was the only one from the lab I noticed keeping score. I meant to go with a less overdone and pitch-tracking scoresheet, but baseballscorecards.com was down, and the newsprint scorecard in the program isn't very good, so I printed out my technical one anyway. It's not as if the fact that I'm an obsessive geek is a state secret or anything.

I think I actaully managed to keep a couple of people who were present more for the camaraderie than the baseball from leaving while the perfect game was still a possibility. I kept stressing how this was unlikely but historic and they'd hate to miss it. Either that or they were just happy to have another overpriced beer.

So I saw 5 games in about 99 hours, made 4 Metro rides and one car trip, saw the teams I was rooting for at the time go 2-3, saw a couple of multi-error innings, watched some great and some lousy baseball, and had a pretty good time. I'm a little tired and ready to eat a meal that doesn't come in a bun or a plastic container at this point. I also definitely need to catch up on bills, apartment cleaning, etc. and grab some down time at home. Thanks for coming along.