SAN DIEGO — “That’s baseball.”
Manager manager Bud Black said it Thursday night after the Rockies hammered the Padres, 7-2, in the season-opener.
Referring to Elehuris Montero’s inconsequential doink single to right field to lead off the ninth inning, Black said, “In the box score, another hit is going to show up, but hey, that’s baseball.”
Black will likely utter “that’s baseball” another 161 times this season. I’ve had friends and family — casual baseball fans — ask me what the heck Black is talking about.
I’ve tried to explain that baseball is a quirky, lucky, maddening, heartbreaking, ironic, unpredictable, and endlessly fascinating game. Weird things happen all of the time. A daily parade of numbers verifies that.
“That’s baseball.”
Pitchers love the phrase. If they give up a couple of cheap singles that lead to a bad inning, they’ll shrug their shoulders and say, “Man, nothing you can do. That’s baseball.”
Sometimes the quirks of the game matter a lot, sometimes they don’t. It’s all part of the game’s tapestry.
“That’s baseball” happened big time Thursday night at Petco Park.
First, consider that the most hits in a game the Rockies managed on the road all of last season was 14, something they did twice. But they banged out 17 hits against the Padres, in their very first road game of the season. But here’s the rest of the story: Colorado also struck out 17 times, thus becoming the first team in baseball’s modern era (since 1900) to have at least 17 hits and strike out 17 times in a nine-inning game.
“I was trying to figure out how we did that,” designated hitter Charlie Blackmon said after the game.
The king of “That’s baseball” is Jayson Stark, the Hall of Fame baseball writer for The Athletic. Nobody ties together baseball stats, history, quirks and irony quite like Stark.
Here’s an example.
In last year’s NLDS, the Braves brought in lefty Dylan Lee specifically to face Phillies star Bryce Harper. Harper, of course, promptly launched a titanic homer to right-center field. As Stark pointed noted, it was Harper’s first home run off a left-handed pitcher since May 14, coming off the Dodgers’ Julio Urías. Moreover, it was Harper’s first home run off a left-handed reliever all season. Harper hadn’t hit one of those since Sept. 6, 2021, when he homered off the Cubs’ Rex Brothers. Finally, it was Harper’s first home run ever against a left-hander in the postseason — in his 24th postseason game.
As Stark wrote: “I would never have guessed that. I’m thinking most of you never would have guessed that.”
“That’s baseball.”
Jerry Schemmel, the longtime Rockies radio broadcaster for KOA radio, knows what I’m talking about.
Schemmel, who can do a spot-on impersonation of former Rockies manager Jim Tracy, loves to tell the story of Jonathan Herrera hitting an improbable home run against the Marlins on July 20, 2010, in Miami.
“That next year, I was sitting with ‘Trace’ in his office, and he started talking about Johnny Herrera,” Schemmel recalled as he shifted into his sing-song Tracy impersonation. ” ‘Schem,’ it’s the eighth inning and we’ve got men on first and second and we send little Johnny Herrera up to bunt.
“But he gets two strikes on him so we take off the bunt. And then what does Johnny do, Schem? What does he do? He hits a three-run dinger-donger! I love this game Shemmy, I love it!’ ”
The homer, which put the Rockies ahead, 8-7, was the first of Herrera’s career. He only hit 10 homers in 490 games and 1,345 plate appearances.
But wait, there’s more.
Marlins pinch-hitter Donnie Murphy hit a walk-off, two-run, two-out homer in the ninth inning off closer Huston Street to beat the Rockies, 9-8. The blown save was the first of the season for Street.
“That’s baseball.”
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