#162---CHA @ CLE, 7/15/2002

With this sheet, we have now reached a full season’s worth of games (excluding a handful of “special” editions, and offset by the embarrassing Home Run Derby "scoresheets"). Given the name of this blog, this should have taken a little over three calendar years but in fact took about 12.5. That’s ok; no one’s reading except my ego.

Confession: I do not remember Jason Phillips at all, which is a shame because this must have been the best game that he ever pitched, given that he only had 18 career starts (32 relief outings) with a ERA of 6.20. He shut out the White Sox through seven, scattering four hits and two walks (albeit with just two Ks) before Kenny Lofton hit a leadoff homer in the eighth (I like that; my heart sinks at seeing Kenny Lofton in the lineup of the White Sox of all teams). He was relieve with runners at first and second and two outs by Paul Shuey, who yielded an infield hit to Frank Thomas was batting sixth, behind Jose Valentin (read that carefully; this was the sad phase of the Big Hurt’s career). Shuey would fan future Indian Jeff Liefer to get out of the jam, then have a 1-2-3 ninth in which he retired two more future Indians (Tony Graffanino and Lofton).

The Indians led 4-0 through sixth, but really took control with a two-out, three-run blast by Ricky Gutierrez, one of his four on the season.

#161---HOU @ CLE, 3/24/2001

Protip: If you want to score a spring training game in person live, go to a game later in the spring when the substitutions have been reduced from a torrent to a babbling brook. This was a live from Winter Haven scoresheet. I don’t remember much of the game (it was spring training after all); I think Russell Branyan’s homer was titanic, although that could be false memory of his raw power filling in the details. My brother snagged a batting practice homer hit by an Astro – maybe off the bat of Daryle Ward?

#160---OAK @ CLE, 8/23/2000

No Thome triple here, just a second inning homer to get Cleveland on the board after Bartolo Colon yielded three runs in the top of the first. The Indians tied it and then took the lead on back-to-back two run hits in the fifth, something you don’t see that often; the first three batters of the innings had reached to load the bases, then Einar Diaz hit a comebacker that led to a fielder’s choice at the plate. Lofton’s double plated two and left runners at second and third. Omar Vizquel jumped on the first pitch he saw from Tim Hudson for a single into right to bring them home.

Oakland would tie it in the next frame with a two-run double from Miguel Tejada, but the Indians ended the scoring with two more in the bottom of that sixth inning. In all, 8 of the 12 runs scored in this game in those three half-innings. This was a big game for August; coming in, the Indians led the A’s and Red Sox by 1/2 game in the wildcard race. Oakland would go on to win the West, running down Seattle, and the latter would edge the Indians out by a game for the wildcard.

#159---CLE @ TEX, 5/1/1999

I’m inadvertently making Thome triples a theme of this blog, as this game also features one of Thome’s 26 career three-baggers, coming on what I assume was a liner pulled down the right field line to put the Indians up 2-0 in the fourth. There was a 32 minute rain delay after the first pitch ball thrown by Aaron Sele to Manny Ramirez in the second (see the circled R and notation “AA” for “after pitch A” on the right side of the scorebox). Manny hit the first pitch of the resumption to left for a longball to make it 1-0 Cleveland. Rafael Palmeiro and Todd Zeile would homer late, but it wouldn’t be enough as the Indians prevailed 5-3.

A couple fun things from this game: Ivan Rodriguez stole a base in the fourth, one of a career-high 25 this season (his second-best was ten, three times); Robbie Alomar drove in brother Sandy with a two-out single in the fifth.

#158---NYA @ CLE, 7/13/1998

Jaret Wright pitched an excellent game against the great 1998 Yankees, striking out four and walking two while allowing one run (a Darryl Strawberry longball) over seven frames. Paul Assenmacher and Mike Jackson each pitched perfect innings in relief to nail down the 4-1 win. Kenny Lofton homered but Jim Thome was the offensive star for the Tribe, hitting one of his 612 career home runs but also one of his 26 career triples.

Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s, area McDonald’s had a special menu item, the Thome Triple. If memory serves, it was three burger patties with two kinds of cheese on an elongated bun (kind of like a Romanburger for you Clevelanders). I always thought it was a terrible name, but he was one of the stars and the alliteration was hard for marketing people to pass up. In the sixth inning on this day, facing El Duque, I guess it was appropriate.

#157---BAL @ CLE, 5/25/1997

I’m always torn about posting the dreadful Excel scoresheet – it’s so bad, yet they are also some of the earliest extant scoresheets I have to post. Thankfully, I’ve almost exhausted the supply at this point.

The lack of detail on these is best illustrated by Marquis Grissom’s first inning, in which he singled and then was caught stealing (simply indicated by “C”). The Indians got a good game from David Justice with a single, two walks, and a homer for three runs scored and two driven in. I don’t have any idea why I didn’t record the Orioles ninth, but after reading the Baseball-Reference account, maybe it was a way of suppressing a near-disaster:

Surhoff singled
Webster struck out
Tarasco walked, advancing Surhoff to second
Incavaiglia, hitting for Bordick, singled, advancing Surhoff to third and Tarasco to second
Reboulet ran for Bordick
Anderson doubled, scoring Surhoff and Tarasco, advancing Reboulet to third
Alomar was intentionally walked
Davis struck out
Alvin Morman relieved Mike Jackson (for some reason pitchers get full names on this scoresheet but batters don’t)
Palmeiro struck out

Final: Cleveland 7, Baltimore 6

#156---TOR @ NYA, 2/22/2020

2/22 is the earliest date for a major league game ever chronicled on this blog, and is probably the earliest date for a major league game I’ve ever consumed. Unfortunately, that early start to games turned out to be completely unnecessary in 2020. It looks as if the scoresheet doesn’t have lines separating the scoreboxes, but they were in fact very faint and didn’t pick up the scan – I have nowhere near the spatial awareness that would be required to pull off scorekeeping without lines. The transparency makes the field diagrams on the right side of the sheet unrecognizable; I find those very helpful for spring training games to keep track of where the subs are playing in the field before it becomes clear where they are appearing in the batting order. And since I often eschew tracking pitches for such games, there’s room to facilitate it.

The most notable thing about the game was that it was a scoreless spring training game for five innings. The eventual winning run scored with one out and runners on the corners in the top of the seventh, the Blue Jays pulled off the delayed double steal play that I hate so much when employed by OSU coach Greg Beals. It worked here, with Anthony Alford swiping home while some guy named Wall advanced to second.  It was quite an inning for Alford; after lining a single to center as the leadoff man, he stole second and third with one out and then home during the next at bat.

Bonus --- SD @ LA, 8/13/2020

I didn't catch this whole game last night - MLBN didn't start showing it until 10:00, but first pitch had been at 9:40. I wasn't sure if I was going to stay up for the whole game, but Padres/Dodgers is an interesting matchup right now, so I figured I would keep a scaled-down scoresheet (I don't generally like tracing the diamond, and usually I track pitches) that I would have zero guilt about abandoning if sleep seemed more attractive as the innings went on. 

Instead, Mookie Betts made sure that I was interested to the end, tying a major league record by recording his sixth game with three homers. He ended up reaching base all five trips, although a squibber up the third base line in his last at bat was a bit of a letdown. 

#155---NYA @ HOU, 4/9/2019

Not that a typical Yankees/Astros game in recent years wouldn’t be interesting, but this one definitely looks more interesting in retrospect after the scandal and given that Gerrit Cole, who started this game for Houston, is now in the Bronx. A few plays in this game to note, mostly for the scoring:

* The New York third ended when Brett Gardner bunted into a double play, catcher – short – first

* Jose Altuve’s third inning homer was the 100^th of his career

* In the home eighth, Alex Bregman struck out swinging, but Austin Romine couldn’t handle it and he reached on a passed ball. Aledmys Diaz pinch-ran after the second pitch of Brantley’s at bat – I don’t recall what happened and didn’t note it, but I’m assuming it was some kind of injury scare. You can see that the substitution happened after the second pitch because I noted “PR Diaz 4-8 (AB)”, meaning that Diaz pinch ran during the 8^th inning at bat of the fourth place hitter, with “AB” indicating “after B” – that is, after the second pitch of the at bat.

#154---CLE @ ARI, 2/24/2018

This was the first game I had the opportunity to score in 2018, and since I was doing it off the radio I did not keep a pitch-by-pitch account (this is bad enough to do off the radio, but for exhibition games it’s completely hopeless because the announcers will invariably interview someone and you’re lucky if they tell you the direction a batted ball is hit, let alone what happened on the 1-1 pitch or even if there was a 1-1 pitch. That didn’t stop me from trying in the past, but no more.)

The Indians broke the game open with a six-run, three-homer ninth inning, forcing Arizona to run their total of pitchers used to ten. Given the limited space on the sheet, I did not bother marking RBI, and really I should consider doing that on all my sheets…I don’t care about them as a statistical category and if you really want to know, you can count them from by examining the PBP account, which after all is the whole point of keeping a scoresheet.