My son and I went on a short trip to the US this week and I decided to take a small detour and take in the Lansing Lugnut game on Monday night in Lansing.  Here's my report.

Oldsmobile Park

I paid $4 for parking and parked directly accross the street from Oldsmobile Park.  The ballpark is at the southern end of a city block on E Michigan Ave and is bracketed by N Cedar and Larch Sts.  From street level you can see right into the ballpark through the chainlink fencing as the stadium is set into the ground (like Rogers Centre without all tiers above).  The outside is all bricked and there is a square with fountains in the entrance area.  We purchase two $9 box seats down the 3rd base line.  It doesn't look like a busy night.  We enter on the concourse level and I buy a program for $3.  This is a mistake as the program has not been updated since maybe March since it includes players that have not made an appearance anywhere in the Blue Jays' system this year.  The food prices do not reflect the bargain that the ticket prices are as we spend $22 for a couple of Philly Cheese Steaks and drinks.  We take our seats which are 3 rows above the visitor dugout about 2/3 of the way to 3rd base.  There are about 20-25 rows of seats in total extending down the left and right field lines.  Above the concourse are the private boxes and broadcasting areas which are covered by a metallic roof.  Many balls fouled back will land on this roof and disappear over the back.  I wonder if they land outside in the square?  The grass and large dirt areas look to be in excellent condition.  Homeplate is set more toward the corner of Cedar and Michigan and this affects how the Stadium is configured.  There is the high wall down the right field wall which is angled toward centre field and that is likely due to the fact that Larch St. limits how far you could put the wall.  You can see and hear traffic going by above the wall.  The wall is topped by a high fence to prevent balls from landing on the street.  The angled high wall then turns and becomes a more normally angled high wall which points back toward the infield.  At the end of this wall to the right of right-centre is a 337ft sign.  The high wall ends and a 15ft wall continues and turns sharply away from the in field before making another sharp left turn toward the centre field wall which it meets at 412ft.  This is actually to the right of dead centre (say centre-right-centre).  What you have is an alcove in right-centre.  This ball-park looks like death to LH hitters not just because of the high wall but also due to the alcove in right-centre.  I wouldn't expect any Lugnut LH hitter to win a HR title.  RF'ers shade more toward right-centre because the high wall deflects balls that way and also to defend the alcove.  At the 412ft sign the centre field wall starts at 90 degrees to the RF wall and seems to go straight across until it is almost at the LF foul pole (maybe an optical illusion) where it meets another angled high wall but much small than the RF version since the LF line runs parallel mostly to Cedar St.    Where the angles high wall and CF wall meet is a 330ft sign.  Above the LF wall is a grassy hillside and you can purchase a $3 ticket and have a picnic there a la Christie Pits.  There is also a grassy hillside in right-centre.    There seems to be a lot of OF area to cover.  I hope readers are not completely confused.

Travis Snider

Short and stocky he doen not look overweight but the baggy uniforms they wear now make it difficult to tell.  He took his time getting into the batter's box where he set up a good foot inside the back line.  He has a foot-in-the-bucket open stance with weight on his left foot.  Tremendous bat speed, there is no tentativeness in his swing.  It is always all out no matter what the count.  His first AB he falls behind quickly then works the count to 3-2 before striking out on a breaking pitch.  He repeats this the second time with the bases loaded this time on a 2-2 breaking pich.  The third time up Smit again throws a breaking pitch for 0-1 and then tries to slip a fastball by Snider who while staying back waiting on a breaking pitch flicks his wrists and rifles the ball over the 3rd baseman's head for a double.  I think the MWL has learned: Do not throw Snider fast balls.  Next time up he's hit in the foot by a pitch.  He takes off for 2nd on a steal attempt with his short legs pumping furiously but the batter grounds out to SS and Snider is on 2nd.  There is some sort of hand signal exchange between Cathcart the 3rd base coach and manager and Snider. Don't know if he missed a sign?  He scores on a subsequent hit and his running style seemed more suited to football as he came around third.  He runs adequately but with maximum effort.  His final time up is against a tall lefty.  He has no trouble hanging in the there but K's on another breaking pitch.  All of the breaking stuff he's K'ing on seem to be more like hangers to me.  He just doesn't scale back his swing with 2 strikes. He really didn't have much to do in the field.  He made one strong throw on a bang-bang play at the plate on a single to right (runner was safe).  It was a 2 hopper through the cut-off man.  If it had been cut-off the runner would have easily been out between 1st and 2nd.

I need to take a break now but I'll continue with Kyle Ginley and other impressions in a bit.

Kyle Ginley

Ginley is thick-bodied, a smaller version of Roger Clemens.  If fastball velocity is the main indicator of whether a pitcher can become a number 1 starter then Ginley has that potential.  His fastball touched 98 in the game and sat  at 94-96.  His slider was 86-89.  Off-speed stuff was very rare.  There may have been a curveball or two.  I thought his control was a spotty, especially of the slider early in the game but as the game wore on the slider became more and more effective.  He didn't seem to be wild in any way thus any problems he's had this year has been probably due to poor location of his pitches.  He's definately someone to watch in the coming years.

The game

The Great Lakes Loons are the worst team in the 2nd half of the MWL no doubt due to the pressure of representing such a large region.  The second batter of the game launches a Ginley 94mph fastball over the extreme left edge of the high wall in right in an area where the fencing above the wall is low.  I wonder if the ball didn't end up on the street.  Kyle Smit, the Loon starter, is tall and thin but can bring it also with a fastball only a notch below Ginley's and a good breaking pitch.  He easily mows down the Lugnuts in the first two innings.  In the third with one out  Kevin Nelson lines a ball into left-centre which the CF dives for and misses and the ball goes all the way to the fence.  Nelson is painfully slow but makes it all the way to third.  Smit then proceeds to fall apart allowing 2 runs without allowing a hit by walking and hitting batters.  He further unravels in the fourth keyed by doubles to Cdn Jonathan Baksh and Snider.  The Loons get a run back in the 5th when Pettway in left misplays a liner hit to his left which gets over his head for a double and the runner later scores on Sniders throw to the plate described earlier.  Benjamin Harrison comes in to pitch the eighth and promptly gets the Loons back in the game while giving C Nelson a workout behind the plate.  Edgar Estanga bails him out with a 3 pitch K and he works a clean ninth.

Random Observations

Harrison, a lefty, throws 87-90 with a breaking pitch he mostly bounced into the plate. 

Estanga  is small lefty and throws 89-91 with a very effective breaking pitch in the low 80's.

SS Jonathan Diaz is tiny and could easily be mistaken for the bat boy.

Jonathan Baksh has a nice line drive stroke and is very fast.  Has trouble with a liner hit straight at him in CF in the 8th which goes over his head for a double.

Brian Pettway showed very good plate discipline but couldn't seem to do anything with the count in his favour though the 3rd baseman robbed him of a hit down the line.  He did show a strong arm.

Kevin Nelson has a strong arm.

Preston Mattingly was the leadoff batter and looked exactly like his dad except he doesn't have a moustache, bats right, and can't hit (.210!).

A Van Slyke pinch hit later in the game is he Andy's son?

The Loons team had a more Latin American flavour (Dodgers affiliate) to it

The attendance was sparse, maybe 10-15% full.  Monday night and no give-aways might do that.

Big Lug is the mascot.  He looks like Barney the Dinosaur with fangs and lugnuts for nostrils.

Shoffit tended to go deep into counts also.

The runs the Lugnuts scored were more due to walks, HBP and timely hits rather than hitting the ball hard (7 runs on 7 hits)