Yu Darvish takes Astros down a peg
Baseball almost had to wait all of three days into the 2013 season before its first perfect game (but probably not the last) revealed itself in the form of the Rangers' Yu Darvish; simultaneously, the Houston Astros had to wait all of three days into the 2013 season to be victimized by their first potential perfect game (but definitely not the last).
Darvish took a perfect game into the seventh inning at Houston's Minute Maid Park… and then the eighth… and then the ninth… and then the ninth, with two outs.
As the evening grew later and the numbers remained zero, it became difficult to maintain composure.
A single out away, the Astros' Marwin Gonzalez socked a grounder right through Darvish's legs and into center field to ruin everything (Which Rangers fans enthusiastically noted on his Wikipedia page). Darvish was pulled immediately to raucous applause and the Astros were safe from being no-hit for another night.
They still lost 7-0, though.
GET RID OF HAMELS
The first Phillies game of the season is hardly the indicator it is made out to be. Built-up enthusiasm can cloud the real meaning behind a 7-5 loss, and create some overreaction on the part of excited and/or confused fans.
TODAY, though. Today, the Phillies second game of the season is when we'll be able to determine whether this team is an exuberant underdog story or a horrendous waste of time, probably within the first inning.
Roy Halladay makes his first start of the 2013 season tonight in Atlanta, using a new pitching style that relies less on velocity and more on some alternative to velocity that he hasn't quite mastered yet. The general assumption is that his entry into the 'wily veteran' portion of his career will go well; he just has to get there, and there wasn't quite a start in spring training that inspired complete trust.
Still, it's not at the point where handing Roy Halladay the baseball feels like a bad idea. Until, as mentioned, he gives up a hit or something. Then we'll know for sure.
WHAT A CROC
We've only just begun our fourth month into 2013, and already we can deduce that cinema is dead. For that reason, we need constant reminders of the medium's majestic past.
Drexel's Academy of Natural Sciences will be showing 2010's contemporar reptile-fight classic, Dinocroc vs. Supergator, tomorrow night at 6:30 pm.
You will be spared a plot synopsis, as whatever you can glean from the title and from the fact that the phrase "secret island laboratory" is included in the film's summary will probably suffice.
On stage for additional analysis of the film will be several people who know more about alligators, crocodiles, and science than anyone within several galaxies of the film's production team. There will even by a guy on stage whose job during a screening of The Core was to provide "actual science commentary," meaning he almost certainly exploded within the first 15 minutes.
TURNING THE PAGE
The Sixers have won three games in a row, and look to win a fourth this evening, though to be fair, they have had the notable advantage of playing the Charlotte Bobcats twice in a row.
Mathematically, the team still has "playoff hopes," but for some reason, everyone would just as soon talk about next year; namely, Evan Turner's involvement.
"If they don't want me, somebody will, you know?" Turner said in a recent post-game interview.
And perhaps they won't. Or maybe they will. One thing for sure is that Doug Collins is not giving up on those playoffs. His belief that by winning, the Sixers still have a chance, is technically true, but this has been a season in which hopeful truth has been pretty much devoured by several unavoidable, menacing truths.