Belated Mother's Day

Mom and I arrived at the park with our Standing Room Only tickets about an hour and a half before the game, scouting out possible seating. After watching the Jays take BP (and not seeing any Sox at the dugout except Wade Miller), we thought it best to venture toward the bullpen. This was a good idea. In addition to seeing the Captain do the windmill arm warmups and watching Bronson throw for a while, we were able to find plenty of available seating, just one row up from the pen. We remained there for the entire game.

After snapping a few pics, my battery went dead. This was really unfortunate since Timlin, Myers, and Embree were a stone's throw from us. Mirabelli joined the group in the 7th. As if to taunt me, Timlin and Myers leaned back against the wall facing us in between every single GD inning. They posed and waved and provided the best photo opportunities I've witnessed to date. They threw us packages of sunflower seeds (mom kept one for her sports room - she gave me a few from the package. They are the BBQ variety, which is fine since I don't plan on eating them) and they hammed it up for us all like a bunch of grade school kids. Even Foulke got in on it. I am kicking myself, Trot Nixon style, for not charging it up before-hand. Oh, hey, I think I am going to call Trot "Mojo Nixon" from now on. What says you? In honor of a great musician. And also a nod to Trot's ability to consistently find his mojo.

Here are the shots I got before the battery shit the bed:

Me and Mom:



Bronson:



Curt, getting in a little practice:



Alvarez makes another appearance (He was in the pen throughout the game, too, but didn't seem interested in joining the antics of the Timlin-Myers show.):



We thought a fistfight was going to break out between the couple in front of us and the guy in back of us. The guy kept referring to Ortiz as "Big Daddy" and the couple was clearly offended that he didn't use David's official "Big Papi" name. "If he says Big Daddy one more time, I swear, I'm going up there. And trust me, he doesn't want to make me go up there," the woman said in a sort of David Banner-like way. Mom and I were a little scared. There was another guy who thought that the umpire calls were horrendous and kept begging them to "go back to umpi-ya school." Timlin was less than pleased when some ballyhooer kept loudly reminding us all how much Embree sucks these days. Mike actually walked over to the edge of the pen closest to us and motioned to the guy to stop (or else!). He used the thumb slicing the neck gesture to let the dude know that he meant business. It got heated at times. I won't kid you. Speaking of heat, I was impressed yet again with Embree's mix of pitches today, even though he was responsible for the runners who scored during Timlin's outing.

Though we lost, there was a great deal of faith in our neck of the woods at the bottom of the 9th. I let Bellhorn's out go (We got that out of the way, now on to scoring. BTW, 3 whiffs today! Yippie!) but everything ended with Johnny. Very disappointing. Sorry mom - I really wanted a win for you. Next time.

Oh, and how fitting was it that Halladay was up in the rotation during our series - and on the last day, the one closest to the 4th? Way to spoil our "hallady." Thanks a lot.

We remain 2.5 games from the O's though and that ain't bad.