Oh no not again

In the first inning, the Kansas City Royals struck extraordinarily quickly, in more ways than one. Against fleshy, human-shaped ball hurler Anibal Sanchez, whose 2017 ERA at 6.95 is more than the yearly GDP of all American towns named Springfield, Whit Merrifield cracked a low line drive that cracked against Sanchez’s leg. The ball bounced away, and Sanchez misfired the throw to first base. This let Merrifield merrily jaunt to second base.

Sanchez then left the game. While generally it is good for the team that sees its opponent’s starter trot off the field after five pitches, most teams aren’t facing the Second Coming of The Worst Part of the Kyle Davies Experience. Still, Melky Cabrera knocked in Merrifield for an easy run, and after the first half of the inning the Royals led 1-0. A good start.

At this point, I, forgetting my schedule, rushed off to choir rehearsal. There, we rehearsed Johann Sebastion Bach’s Cantata “Eine Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott” (BWV 80, for those In the Know).

Now, we only went through the first chorale, but BWV 80 is nice, classic Bach that isn’t horrendously difficult. Sometimes Bach can be a Batch (kill me now; that was awful), but this wasn’t out of the realm of huge difficulty. Counterpoint being what it is, there’s some trickiness, especially towards the end where Bach moves through key centers quickly and suddenly you’re tonicizing A Major out of nowhere, but it’s all fine somehow.

Anyway, I pulled out my phone at break and saw this tweet by Kansas City Star Royals beat writer Rustin Dodd:

I blinked a few times, shrugged, and a few minutes later went back to Bach, or Bach to Bach as they say in The Biz (note: they do not do so). This time, I struggled with the pronunciation of ‘sein grausam Rüstung ist’ with the full speed of the melismas. That roughly translates to ‘his horrid armaments,’ which is coincidentally what Anibal Sanchez’s teammates call his arm and wrist behind his back.

Shortly thereafter, I checked the twitterz again. Oh no.

Anyway, I drove home with the sweet sounds of altos tepidly waffling on their runs and one of the sopranos sounding like a foghorn as she beat the high notes into oblivion.

The Royals lost 13-2. Jason Vargas was the culprit, his reconstructed left arm throwing baseballs well the same way that rocks don’t. It was their sixth loss of at least nine runs in their last 17 games. That is not a good look. They are currently, like, 68-69 or something, one win away from DOUBLE NICE but still a long way off from actually competing for a playoff spot (at the same time being unnervingly close to a playoff spot, like the one kid who keeps getting on the Dean’s list but who has never heard of the terms ‘critical thinking’ or ‘calculus’ in his life).

Go enjoy your night. I hope you had choir practice rather than watching the Royals game, too. This one at least.