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E-mail StoryAndy Kehe: Breakfast-time game nutritional for the Blaze
| Wednesday, May 14 2008 9:07 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, May 15 2008 9:31 AM
Breakfast with the Blaze. Why not? It fits the theme of 2008. Wednesday morning's wake-up call at Sam Lynn Ball Park was odd. It was different, although not unprecedented. Fans came actually expecting a Blaze victory. Kids on a holiday from school came thinking they weren't going to get yelled at ... OK, maybe not.
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Pitcher Jared Hyatt is pictured in the May file photo from a game against San Jose.
Normally bearded home run shagger Walt Bledsoe was walking around clean shaven. Outfielders and infielders, and not batters, were shading their eyes from the sun.
Like the first half of the Blaze season, making sense of the whole experience requires an instruction manual.
Maybe the best thing to do, regarding the team's blazing start anyways, is not to try and figure it out at all. Just go with it. Embrace the 25-15 record -- 25-11 since losing the first four games -- because a season like this one so far doesn't come along very often -- no winning ones since 2001, only six in the last 30 years, 19 in Bakersfield's 60 years of pro baseball.
"We knew about the struggles this team has had," said Julio Borbon, perhaps the best Texas Ranger prospect on the club. "We talked about it and coming in here we wanted to do something about it. Knowing the team we had, I'm not surprised we're winning."
If pressed to offer an explanation, you could start with speed and patience leading to timely hitting, which the Blaze are getting regularly, along with decent pitching. Moreover, just about everybody can play, is healthy and belongs at the high A level, and rarely has that been the case.
"We've got talent on this team," Borbon said, an observation shared by his skipper, Damon Berryhill, with one qualifier.
"We've got talent, but they've still got things to learn, for sure," said the rookie manager, who, being an ex-Cub, knows a thing or two about performing within a culture of losing.
It looked for a while Wednesday that the Blaze were playing this breakfast matinee a little too over easy, but win they did, again, 7-2. Ho-hum ... five straight now. Nine of its last 10, 15 of its last 18 to climb to 10 games over .500 for the first time this late in the season since July 9, 2003, when Joeys Gomes and Gathright were patrolling the outfield for the then-Tampa Bay-affiliated Blaze.
Now 10-3 in May, the Blaze have hit .305 as a team over the stretch and have scored on average nearly seven runs a game. But as fate would have it, all this upswing was good for only third place in the Northern Division going into Wednesday night's games, albeit just 11/2 games out of first, while looking across the way at the south Division I saw no team better than three games under .500.
For the first time in ages you're hearing stuff around Bakersfield and the ballpark like "The best team nobody's seeing," and the old standard "Break up the Blaze," only this time it's not being uttered sarcastically after a win to halt a six-game skid.
Only be careful what you wish for, because it might be just a matter of time before this team gets parceled up a bit due to promotions. Already gone to Double A Frisco is lights-out reliever Andrew Laughter (pronounced "Law-ter") and Borbon, hitting .325, could be next if there's a spot for him. Skippers at this level always want to remind fans, as Berryhill reminded me yesterday, that they want to win championships but losing players to the next level is a good thing.
The Blaze has won on each of the three "must-win" Wednesday promotions, which means no free tickets to the next game. I don't know if that's good or bad for management. About 2,400 of the 2,632 out there Wednesday were kids who, next time, might bring their parents with them. If there's one thing that's not out of the ordinary about this Blaze team is the community support for it -- barely more than an 1,000-a-game average (last in the league) and no more than 450 on some nights, even during the hot stretch.
This Blaze team deserves a little something, you know, for the effort, whether or not the good times last -- remember the 2003 team finished 70-70. The county paying a visit to the park it manages with some new lumber and a paint bucket in tow would be a nice if not well overdue gesture. A substantial gathering of fans tonight to watch the last game of the homestand, and not just to drink dollar beers, would be a nice send-off for the guys on their four-game road trip. Go ahead and have a brew, too. It's going be hot.
"That would be awesome feeling," Borbon said. "That would really mean a lot to the guys."
Maybe there should more breakfast games on the schedule, with free hash browns for everybody. It is, after all, the most important meal of the day. At least yesterday, it looked like it went down pretty well.