Last night, the Yankees played their opening day game against the Houston Astros down in Houston. As this is Derek Jeter’s last season, it was his last opening day game. I watched the game, and as I usually do when watching, I kept score. Here are my scorecards, visitor and home, respectively.
The Yankees lost 6-2. 4 of those 6 runs came in a very defensively sloppy first inning by the Yankees. The scorecard doesn’t quite capture the sloppiness, but for a while there, the Yanks looked more like a AA team than a major league club.
CC Sabathia also got off to a rocky start, giving up 6 hits in the first two innings, including 2 home runs, before finally settling down. He gave up only 2 more hits for the remaining 4 innings he pitched. He also struck out 6. And, if you look at Houston’s scorecard, you’ll see an asterisk next to CC’s strikeout of Fowler in the bottom of the 4th inning. The asterisk is to note that this was CC’s 1,000th strikeout in a Yankee uniform.
All eyes were on Jeter, of course, and I winced along with everyone else when he was hit by a pitch in his first at bat. But it was superficial. He ended up 1 for 3 with a run scored. Looking at the pitches the Yankees saw, it looks like they weren’t as patient at the plate as they usually are, but you’ve got to give them some leeway. It’s the first game of the season and they were probably excited to be playing baseball again.
Someone is bound to ask why the paperless guy is still keeping score on paper. I’ve tried other methods. I’ve used apps, and other electronic means of keeping score. The truth is, I like keeping score on paper. Normally, I get a scorebook each year, and indeed, I ordered my scorebook but it hasn’t arrived yet. I like watching the game with a pencil behind my ear and my scorecard in my lap. Of course, when the game is over, the scorecard gets scanned into Evernote.
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True blue fan. I’m not one to do it every year for every game I’ve seen, but I’ve done it a couple times for my beloved Cubbies. Not to get too hoity toity about it, but it makes the whole experience of watching a game just a tad bit more meditative — all your focus is on the game, the experience.
Interesting. I’m doing the same with my daily Printable CEO time tracking sheets.