The Sports Informant

By Albert Samaha
Sports Informant Contributing Writer

One morning last June my summer slumber was interrupted by a phone call at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m. I presumed it to be some sort of emergency. Maybe my friend Jack was in jail for socking Sasha Vujacic in the face. Maybe my buddy Dane was trampled at a party by a swarm of beautiful women who had mistaken him for John Mayer. Maybe my cousin Jed had been invited into the VIP lounge at the Tryst in Vegas by Mickael Pietrus and needed me to set his DVR.

Nope, nope, and nope.

It was my boy Javie. He had just woken up, wearing only boxers, his entire body covered in syrup. His clothes were on the ground also doused in sticky sweet. He called me to convey this story as well as keep him company as he walked through Los Angeles covered in syrup, wearing only his boxers, holding his sticky clothes under one arm. The ultimate walk of shame, he said.

Wait, What?

I was utterly dumbfounded. So many questions…

To this day, Javie does not know what happened that apparently eventful night. There are so many holes to fill, so many answers to clarify.

So many questions…

Serendipitously, one morning this June — just a few days ago in fact — my summer slumber was interrupted by the urge check box scores. And that’s when I saw it: 19-10.

19 runs.

Oh. Em. Gee.

The River Cats dropped 19 runs on the hapless Salt Lake Bees. The consistently docile offense suddenly exploded. However, since minor league baseball games go, for the most part, untelevised and since this game was played in Salt Lake City, my only knowledge of this game came from the box score and short game summary. I felt like a sports fan in the 1920′s. I mean, 19 runs?

I was utterly dumfounded. So many questions…

The series matchup was interesting from the start as the Cats stand as one of the premier pitching teams in the PCL, ranking third in ERA, fourth in WHIP, and fifth in K’s, while the Bees are the most powerful offensive team in the PCL, leading the league in home runs and slugging percentage. Of course, on the flip side, the Cats are ranked in the bottom half of every hitting category and the Bees are unequivocally the worst pitching team in the PCL.

It was to be a match-up of styles and presumably the victor would be the team that imposed their “tempo.” Salt Lake won the first game of the series, scoring five runs, something the Cats hadn’t done in the previous eight games. Sacramento won game two 3-1 on another Gio Gonzalez gem. The games were unfolding as the universe intended.

But then game 3.

Usually watching the River Cats offense is like texting a girl you really like and just staring at the phone, waiting and hoping for a response. You wonder if it will ever come, you wonder why it hasn’t come, you wonder if something is wrong. There are some premature teases — deep fly out, text from friend, hard line out with a runner on second, ESPN mobile update. But in the end it does always come and when you least expect it. Well, game 3 must have been like instant messaging a girl. Messages come faster than you can even respond. It can be overwhelming.

Just ask the Bees.

But to this day we still don’t know exactly what happened that day in Utah. We can only attempt to fill in the holes using the box score. The Cats scored at least two runs in each of the first five innings, including eight runs through the first two innings. Matt Carson, a .234 hitter batting seventh in the lineup, hit three homeruns. Sacramento’s one through five batters hit a combined 16 for 26. And no pitcher on either team went more than 2.2 innings.

Additionally, Daric Barton, who went 3-4 with a homerun and four RBIs, once again proved that his .235 clip may be the most misleading statistic in minor league baseball. Ostensibly he has been a worse letdown than watching “The Office” episodes with Stringer Bell. Yet in actuality, he gets hits when they count the most. With runners on base, Barton is hitting .363 with an OBP of .491. With runners in scoring position, Barton is even more potent, hitting .375 with an incredible .507 OBP. Pitching to him is more dangerous than sitting down the third base line at Raley Field.

Three things have been overplayed this summer: Cincinnati Reds hats, “Boom Boom Pow,” and the River Cats stealing a win with timely hitting. It seemed as if the Cats were getting too many breaks in close games — breaks that would eventually swing the other way according to the laws of karma. However, I eventually realized that the Cats’ timely hitting was similar to the Orlando Magic’s scorching three-point shooting in the NBA playoffs. Initially you figure they’ll steal a few games, that many of their wins are simply flukes. But then a fluke becomes a trend and it becomes clear that some teams can consistently win unconventionally. The Magic kept shooting nearly 50% and the Cats kept winning low scoring games with late inning scoring.

The River Cats’ 19 run explosion, be it against the worst pitching team in the PCL, illustrates that the potential for offensive potency remains, that on occasion the team can rear back and slug it out, that they can win in multiple dimensions. It was like finding out that Drake can sing too.

The box score can only fill some of the holes, so many questions will always remain. Was it bad pitching or good hitting? Was an air of fatalism present in the Salt Lake bullpen, inevitably creating a snowball effect of poor pitching? How was the hustle on defense? As he walked back to the dugout after giving up 10 earned runs in less than three innings did Bees hurler David Austen look more like Brad Pitt did in “Se7en” after finding out what was in the package, or Detective Trupo at the end of “American Gangster”?

We may never know.