After seven days and over 1,400 miles of traveling, I am back in El Paso. This past roadtrip was not a succesful one as we went 1-5 in six games played. In the first series against Lincoln, we were swept in three games. Kudos to the Lincoln starter Jarrett Gardner, who threw the third no-no in league history in the second game of the series against us. The three games really put an exclamation point on the teams inability to come together in all facets of the game. The playing surface in Lincoln is outstanding and is among the best in all of independent baseball. I always love playing in Lincoln. Haymarket Park, which is also home to the University of Nebraska baseball team, is pretty much a perfectly manicured field. It was good to fun into former teammate, CT (Chris Thompson), in Lincoln as he is now the Saltdogs' closer.
The trek from Lincoln to Sioux Falls, SD was three hours and I fell asleep immediately. We got into the hotel a couple hours after midnight. I threw the first game of the series against the Canaries on Friday Night Firework night and felt really good. I breezed through the first four innings without allowing a run before giving up one in the fifth. The offense scored early as after five innings, we were winning 3-1. In the sixth, I retired the first two battters of the inning before leaving an 0-0 changeup to Reggie Taylor (5+ years in MLB) over the outer-third and he put it over the right field wall. I would come out after the sixth inning with the lead but did not end up getting the victory as Sioux Falls scored a pair of runs late in the game to steal the win. This was the third consecutive start in which I felt great as I was moving my sinker around to both sides of the plate. I have really settled in lately in using my offspeed off of my fastball and have seen great success with it. In college and for the majority of last year, I did the opposite as I would throw my fastball off of my offspeed.
On my 30 minute run the next day, I had a chance to run next to a river in Sioux Falls. It was a very scenic run as the river had many small bridges, pretty landscaping, and was filled with fish. I could see it was a pretty popular spot for the locals. I also ran through a Veterans Memorial and made sure to touch the stone wall that represented those (both grandfathers) that fought in our wars. The temperature was in the low-80s so it made for a relaxing experience. I ran into a good friend of mine, J.D. Reininger, after the first game and we talked for a good bit. J.D. played with the Diablos last year and was one of my closest friends.
The team ended up splitting the final two game of the series as Justin Mallett threw game two and came away with a 6-2 victory. We were winning the Sunday's afternoon game as well but a couple late inning runs by the Canaries propelled them to victory. The interesting thing about this roadtrip is that we were in position to win in almost every game. Aside from the no-no thrown on us by Lincoln, we were leading into the latter innings in every me. It's tough to look back and see we went 1-5 on the trip because some quality baseball was played by our team. Ultimately, the decision is what is important and there is no doubt we should have been 5-1 on this trip.
The drive back home took about 20 hours and I filled that time with reading, listening to music, watching ESPN, etc. We actually tuned into an intesting VH1 segment on Punky Brewster, which was a popular girl that had her own TV show in the 1980s. When I got off the bus, I had to immediately go upstairs to do an interview for ESPN. The network is considering doing a reality TV show on the Diablos and they asked us a few questions about ourselves. It was nice to get back to El Paso for many reasons but the most being that Katie was back in town. She had flown in earlier in the day. She and my roomate picked me up from the field and Katie was waiting for me with open arms!
The weather outside today is quite gloomy and thunder is in the vicinity. I just checked the weather and a flash flood warning is in effect for El Paso as we speak. I am not sure if we are definately going to be able to get the game in tonight because El Paso does not hold rain that well. The streets flood easily as the city's drainage system is pretty brutal. Cardoza Tucker is scheduled to throw tonight in the first game of a three-game series against Grand Prairie and Josh Neitz is up for tommorow. I have the last game of the series on Thursday night. Today is my bullpen day and I am ready to throw after taking off yesterday.
