San Francisco Giants @ Boston Red Sox (game 2)

The middle game of this three game series was another night game.  It has turned rather chilly here this evening, so although I'm still wearing shorts, I've wearing a double polo shirt, my Giants shirt and coat (and two pairs of socks!)

It took 15 minutes to get into the stadium, as the staff are glacially slow at processing the queues through the security lines.

Today, I was in section M9 on the Green Monster, which is just to the other side of the lighting stanchion, which means that I had an unobstructed view to pretty much the whole field except, obviously, for the bit at the base of the wall.

When you first go up to the Monster seats, you get a little Monster stamp on your wrist so that you don't have to keep showing your ticket - it's a weird looking thing.

Today's starter was Jeff Samardzija, one of our better pitchers and it showed.  After last night's 15 inning game had used almost everybody on the roster, it was vital that the starters on both teams went as far as they could into the game to try to save the bullpens.

Happily, San Francisco managed to score 3 runs in the top of the 1st inning, immediately putting pressure on Jhoulys Chacin (and first names with an H in a strange would be a recurring theme in this game)  In the end, he didn't get out of the 3rd inning.  Meanwhile apart from a few walks, Jeff Samardzija gave up no hits until there were two outs in the 6th inning when Devers hit a home run.

After that, San Francisco added on a couple more runs in their 8th inning, and an extra 5 in the 9th inning, as we watched a procession of pitchers for Boston come and go.

There weren't very many Boston fans left in the stands by the time Jackie Bradley Jr hit a home run in Boston's half of the 9th inning, but there was an 11-2 lead going into the inning giving a level of comfort to which Giants fan are unaccustomed in recent times.

And so it came to pass that Bruce Bochy back the 11th manager in MLB history to have accumulated 2000 career victories, starting with 900-odd with the San Diego Padres starting back in 1995 up to the 1000+ with the Giants, including the three championships in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

A congratulatory message was displayed on the scoreboard by the Red Sox, in a series that has been hard fought, between teams that are out of contention this season, but in good spirit, not least exemplified by Carl and Mike Yastrzemski - Carl, dressed in his Red Sox uniform, threw out the first pitch to his grandson Mike today, in his San Francisco uniform, ready to lead off the game for the Giants.

There is a small chance that Bruce Bochy could finish his career in 10th place all-time, but the Giants would have to go 9-1 in their last 10 games of the season to get him past Leo Durocher, which is unlikely given the opposition in the final three series will be tough (and there's another game with Boston to go yet too!) 

Although it was a chilly evening, as already mentioned, the killer is the wind up on the Green Monster, as it is fairly exposed up there.



In part to get out of the breeze for a bit, I walked around some of the other areas of the ballpark and discovered other concession stands.  One was offering a portion of French Fries that had 0 calories - sadly, a mistake on their past.  I also found a green roof that the Red Sox had installed, where they grow the herbs and other ingredients for many of the concession stands around the ballpark.

It was not so cold on the train back to Riverside, but it was much colder when we got there and I had a 5 minute walk back to the hotel - it was only 8C/46F.