Win - Lose - Rain: Baseball, BBQ, and Big Boys
It was a fun weekend, even though the NCAA doesn't always seem to know what it's doing.
Baseball is back in full swing, and I’m on week two of my sabbatical. The Royals salvaged the series with a blowout win on Sunday, March Madness delivered some fun games, and I made a pretty delicious Easter meal. Things are pretty good, if I do say so myself.
Welcome to another edition of Win - Lose - Rain, where I detail a few good things, bad things, and other things from the past weekend. Obviously this list is not exhaustive, as writing an infinite list would really eat in to my time off.
WIN
Royals Starting Pitching
In 2023, Royals starters Zack Greinke, Brad Keller, and Jordan Lyles combined to put up this stat line in the team’s first three games:
15.1 IP
17 H
6 R
7 BB
12 K
2.93 ERA
Through three games in 2024, Cole Ragans, Seth Lugo, and Brady Singer did this:
19 IP
10 H
2 R
5 BB
23 K
0.95 ERA
Ragans induced 20 whiffs on Opening Day and he probably had the worst start of the three. Singer had a healthy lead, but he was also always in control, and his slider befuddled Twins bats all afternoon. And Lugo’s curveball was exactly as advertised.
Three games are just three games, but it was fun to see the Royals’ arms keeping a good offense down all weekend.
Burnt Ends
I smoked a brisket this weekend. Nothing else needs to be said.
DJ Burns, Jr
Once again, America loves our big beefy boys, don’t we? North Carolina State finds themselves in the Final Four after winning their ninth consecutive must-win game, most recently against ACC rival Duke in the Elite Eight, on the large shoulders of DJ Burns, Jr.
Just try to watch Burns play basketball without smiling. You can’t.
Unless you were rooting for Duke, I suppose, but then again, if you root for Duke you probably are incapable of feeling human emotions like joy in the first place.
LOSE
NCAA Doesn’t Own a Tape Measure, Apparently
Yesterday, before the women’s Elite Eight game between NC State and Texas, it was discovered that the two three-point lines on the court in Portland were set to different distances. This is wild on its own, but even crazier is that this was only discovered after four other games had already been played at the site. Just, how?!?
Norman Dale would never.
I’m kind of surprised the teams didn’t notice before, but they also are likely so focused on the game plan that they don’t feel the need to check something like the size of the court since, you know, it’s probably something that shouldn’t need to be checked.
The coaches yesterday agreed to play the game anyway, and while it should all even out, imagine if your team had to shoot from farther out while your opponent splashes threes late in a close game. The NCAA is simply incapable of sustaining any kind of competence.
Making Vikings Seem Tiresome
I’ve been reading more frequently lately, and thankfully, every book I picked up had been a winner. Until I started on this piece of work:
I thought it seemed like a fascinating topic: Vikings, pre-medieval times, history on the North Sea, all things right up my alley in Dad Non-Fiction.
But this was a chore to read. The author had a habit of namedropping and listing locations with zero context, and the paragraphs were not always cohesive, so it was hard to tell when one anecdote ended and a new one began. He also used semicolons more than I, as a civilized person, cared for. I made it about 100 pages in before I had to bail.
RAIN
Royals Relief Pitching
You might have expected this to end up in the LOSE section, and while the overall line was not pretty (8 IP, 7.88 ERA, 5 BB, 3 HBP, 7 K) the Royals got scoreless appearances from five of their eight relievers in the opening series. James McArthur gave up a run on a high chopper with the infield in, which is not ideal, but also not terrible, and his curveball looked just as good as it did in September.
He’ll be fine.
Will Smith and Chris Stratton had debuts to forget, though. They combined to face 15 batters, allow four hits, four walks, one hit batter, one strikeout, and six runs. The Royals allowed nine runs all weekend. Again, it’s just two innings of work, and they both have track records of varying levels of success, but they didn’t exactly drape themselves in glory to begin the season.
Easter Egg Hunts
We took the kids to a community Easter egg hunt on Saturday morning, and they seemed to enjoy it. They both got to “find” eggs filled with candy, and the church that was hosting it was handing out free breakfast burritos. Certainly a win for me.
That being said,
*puts on Angry Old Man hat*
Doesn’t the word “hunt” imply that locating the eggs will require more than the most basic effort? I mean,
Throwing a ton of eggs on the grass is an Easter egg hunt in the same way that grabbing an apple out of the fridge makes one a chef. You can’t call that a hunt! Words mean things!
I understand we don’t want to make things too difficult for young children, but we can do better. When I hid eggs in the house and front yard yesterday, I put the eggs in places they could be found, but the girls at least had to look around to claim their prizes. As they grow up, the hiding places will become more challenging, and they’ll need to work harder and look closer. The real world doesn’t just throw eggs on the ground for us, and my daughters will grow to appreciate this life lesson. Or they’ll abandon Easter egg hunts altogether and resent me for making candy less available. Could go either way.
Again, I did end up with a breakfast burrito and the Parent Tax collections from the candy, so it wasn’t all bad.
That will do it for WLR this week, thanks for reading, and feel free to drop your own thoughts in the comments.
Have a great week, y’all.