Old-timey baseball men will swear to you that a close, low-scoring game, is like the equivalent of God's England or whatever they think is really orderly and beautiful. Maybe they are, or maybe they just ended faster and you could head out on the town, or go to sleep, faster. This one was 2-0 for long periods, a pitcher had a no-hitter going, and we even had some late drama. Nevertheless, watching these two lineups "go at it" wasn't exhilarating. At certain points, it felt like a slog, a timeless slog. When the Mariners loaded the bases in the 6th, the tension was so thin you could gently let butter roll along. A few innings later, Ichiro pointlessly stole two bases, and the situation had all the drama of your Wednesday drive to work.
- I'm not sure Davies' no-hit bid went deep enough for it to really qualify as an object of discussion. I'm not going to tell people tomorrow about his dance with history that ended barely halfway through the game. Still, with Davies, you always hope you're seeing signs of the breakout we all know is never going to come. I'm stupid about these things, what did you guys think about Davies tonight?
- The Royal bullpen, with no Soria, only allowed a run. I'm having the boxscore faxed to my shared office tomorrow for safe keeping.
- I enjoyed the Butler homer. Because he's a Royal, a small part of me is always going to be afraid that he's going to turn back into Ken Harvey.
- I like Bruce Chen.