#291---SEA @ TOR, 5/17/1998

Seattle jumped out to a 3-0 lead on solo homers from Glenallen Hill (two) and Alex Rodriguez. Toronto took a while to get going, with Jose Canseco starting his huge day with their first hit off Jamie Moyer in the fourth. With one out in the sixth, Canseco doubled, which was followed by a Carlos Delgado double and a Tony Fernandez single to cut it to 3-2. In the seventh, Moyer got the first two Jays before walking Shannon Stewart and yielding a single to Shawn Green. Mike Timlin, famously acquired from Toronto along with Paul Spoljaric for Jose Cruz at the previous year’s trade deadline, walked Canseco to load the bases. Tony Fossas came on to face Delgado and walked him to tie it up.

The Mariners offense went quiet from the sixth on, with only singles by Joey Cora and ARod. In the ninth, Alex Gonzalez coaxed a leadoff walk from Heathcliff Slocumb, moving up to third with two outs on a pair of groundouts to David Segui. Then the hero of the game singled to left (marked here incorrectly as a double) to win it. Canseco drew two walks, hit two singles and a double

#290---MIL @ CLE, 4/19/1997

John Jaha hit two homers for Milwaukee, but the Indians rapped out seventeen hits including solo homers from David Justice, Manny Ramirez (those were back-to-back) and Brian Giles and slugged out an 11-6 win. Ramirez was Cleveland’s offensive star, as in addition to the homer he had two doubles and a single. 

#289---UConn v. OSU, 2/17/2023

This was the first game I had the opportunity to score in calendar year 2023. Despite this game being a “home” game for the Buckeyes in Florida, UConn offered a surprisingly high-quality internet stream of the game. Unlike some major league radio broadcasts I could name, almost all pitches were reported as they happened, enabling me to keep score pitch-by-pitch with details on strike types. 

This was the opening day of the college baseball season and thus marked the debut of Bill Mosiello as OSU head coach. The Buckeyes got a run in the first inning on a RBI from Miami grad transfer Cole Andrews, and would tack on the game’s only two other runs on a two-out double off the fence that just missed getting out from true freshman shortstop Henry Kaczmar. Isaiah Coupet had a tremendous start for the Scarlet and Gray, going 5 1/3 hitless innings. His final line was 6 innings, no runs, one hit, one walk, and nine strikeouts. The bullpen allowed a few baserunners, but no runs as true freshman Landon Beidelschies earned the two-inning save.

#288---CLE @ CHA, 3/19/2022

The Guardians sent fourteen men to the plate in the fourth, tallying nine runs on six singles, two doubles, two walks, and a hit batter. Since the system I was using to track hit locations used a dot, I replaced my standard dot for an out with an “x”, but I think it makes the scoresheet looked too cluttered. The next time I used this system, I think I will use an open circle (which is my usual RBI symbol) for an out. 

I’ve described those hit symbols before, but I think looking at the at bats for Cleveland’s #3 hitters should give you enough to decipher it: line drive single to center in the fourth, ground ball single to left in the second at bat in the fourth, line drive double to left in the seventh, flyball triple to left in the eighth. Anderson reached on an infield single to third base in the third.

2023 Bonus Game---CLE @ CIN, 2/25/2023

This was the spring opener for both the Reds and Guardians and the first game played under the pitch clock that I had the opportunity to score, so I’m including it here as an example of how I handle pitch clock violations. Namely, I put an “a” prefix in front of the normal letter used to designate the pitch, or in the case of a violation for ball four or strike three, in front of the “W” for walk or “K” for strikeout. There weren’t any of these terminal violations in this game, but they would be “aW” or “aK” (actually, it would be a backwards K as it’s pretty obviously a called strike and not a swinging strike, but that’s not easy to render in text).

In this game there were three examples of violations:

* Bottom of the 2nd: First pitch from Cal Quantrill to Jose Barrero is an automatic strike

* Top of the 3rd: First “pitch” from Daniel Norris to Mike Zunino is an automatic ball

* Bottom of the 5th: Seventh “pitch” from Xzavion Curry to Jason Vosler is an automatic ball (watching Curry pitch in the fourth I declared that if he was allowed to pitch much more, he would commit a violation)

As for the game, Cleveland’s regulars led off the game with three straight singles against Brandon Williamson to get a run, and later unlikely sources David Fry and (especially) Roman Quinn hit solo homers. Quantrill allowed a run in the first and another in the second and had to be relieved with one out, but from that point Cleveland pitchers retired sixteen in a row before Cincinnati tied it in the eighth and won it on Matt McLain’s one-out solo homer in the ninth.

#287---ARI @ CLE, 3/3/2021

2021 Spring Training games offer the opportunity for all manner of oddities. I already had an example of a schedule game of less than nine innings and the notation “IT” for “inning terminated” in #261, and this game features those examples as well. What it adds is Taylor Widener making two separate stints on the mound for Arizona without moving to another position in-between. I decided that the best way to handle this was to give him two separate pitching lines and note that the second stint was a “re-entry”. As for the game, the Indians committed four errors including two by former Gold Glover Roberto Perez in the third (“[CE2]” indicating a muffed foul pop that extended Leyba’s at bat). One of the highlights was listening to Tom Hamilton not even bother to try pronouncing “Querecuto”. 

#286---KC @ CLE, 7/26/2020

 

This bullpen game didn’t go great for the Royals, with Jose Ramirez’ two homers leading the Cleveland offense to nine runs. Carlos Carrasco fanned ten and walked one over six frames, allowing two runs. Oliver Perez and Dominic Leone each added two Ks, and Cam Hill one in his ML debut for a big total of fifteen.

#285---CLE @ KC, 4/4/2019

This is the kind of back and forth game that illustrates why I don’t think trading the convenience of seeing the whole game on one page for extra room on the scoresheet is worth it. The Indians got a leadoff homer from Leonys Martin and added two more in the first, but Corey Kluber didn’t have it, surrendering two homers in the second for four runs, and two more runs in the third, being knocked from the box after just 2 2/3 innings with 89 pitches and 5 walks. Cleveland trailed 8-5 going into the seventh, but scored three off Richard Lovelady to tie it. The Royals set the Tribe down 1-2-3 in the eighth and ninth, and in the home half Brad Hand was up 0-2 before walking Ryan O’Hearn. Pinch-runner Terrance Gore swiped second, took third on a throwing error, and came home on the next pitch went Hunter Dozier lined a single down the left field line.

#284---NYA @ TOR, 3/30/2018

The Yankees beat the Blue Jays 4-2 behind a very efficient start from Masahiro Tanaka, who struck out eight, did not issue a walk, and allowed just a run on 79 pitches over six innings in his first start of the season. Aroldis Chapman got the save by striking out three in the ninth, albeit with two doubles sandwiched in.

New York’s offense came largely from unexpected names at the bottom of the order – all the RBI were accounted for by Brandon Drury and Tyler Wade, who each drove in a pair. 

#283---LA @ CHN, 4/10/2017

 

This was not my favorite baseball viewing experience, but it was early in the season and the only game I had access to that night so I soldiered through. It was the Cubs home opener, and there was various pageantry surrounding their 2016 World Series win that needed to be fulfilled (as an Indians fan I have to admit to being a tad bit annoyed by that), and then there was a long rain delay but the stupid ceremony proceeded before the game, because I guess the fans couldn’t be denied this. I’m sure the Dodgers, who had been beaten by the Cubs in the NLCS, found this even more irritating than I did.

Once the game started, it was a good one, with the Cubs taking a 2-0 lead after four but stranding six. The Dodgers pushed around single tallies in the sixth and eighth to tie it, also loading the bases with none out in the seventh but failing to score. In the ninth John Jay pinch-hit with a single off Sergio Romo and moved to second on a groundout. Kenley Jansen was summoned to face Kris Bryant, who he fanned with Jay swiping third. Anthony Rizzo lined a 1-1 pitch down the left field line for the winning single