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Eyewitness Report: Bakersfield Blaze at San Jose Giants, April 12, 2014

The family went down to the Blaze-Giants game last night. You can read the boxscore in the next Farmers Only no doubt, and as I was there with the fam I didn't take a ton of pictures. Nevertheless, I thought I'd share a few impressions.

I'll never get tired of this sign.

Great lineup to see for the Blaze: Wright, Winker, Mejias-Brean, Waldrop, Smith. While they didn't end up with a lot to show for it, they had a lot of hard hit balls in the first few innings that just went right at guys.

Here's Ryan Wright Brought to You By Kevin Mitchell is Batman, warming up before leading off the game.

3-Brean had a pretty good night. He had a couple of very nice plays at 3rd. Defense was the easiest thing to scout from the stands. There were a lot of hard hit grounders for the infielders to handle, and they did okay at it. Along with his nice plays, Mejias-Brean had a couple of close calls where he had a little trouble reeling it in, but recovered. Vincej looked pretty bad - he was bobbling almost everything that came to him. In the third, he couldn't handle a hot shot that put a runner on first; immediately afterward, he bobbled another. After finding the handle he tossed it to Wright, who couldn't catch it. They gave the error on that play to Wright, but it was really Vincej who didn't get the play working properly. Silva (I think) had a try at an outfield assist in the first. If I hadn't been busy enjoying the play, I could have had a nice shot of a slide at home. Hey, I was enjoying the Real Life!

Here's Seth making contact:

Wandy Peralta was decent. He was hitting 90-91 on the gun, but he didn't seem to be blowing anyone away. There was a lot of contact and not a lot of whiffing.

Things got interesting in the 6th. Here's Wright scoring and NASCAR Waldrop going into third on a Marquez Smith single. The throw to 3rd was way off target, but it would have been close on a good throw. That continued what I saw the last time I went to see the Blaze a couple years ago -- this is an aggressive running team. In fact, NASCAR got thrown out at the plate in the first inning as he was waved in aggressively.

Major leaguer Jeremy Affeldt came in for the 7th. Apparently he pitched well, but the kids were getting antsy and it was time for us to go.

I guess my family was keeping the lid on scoring, because the Blaze scored 7 in the top of the 10th, and the Giants scored 3 in the bottom of the 10th. But there are no pictures of that, because we had gone home. Oh well.

Bottom line: the hitters looked pretty good. The pitchers, not so great. The fielding, not so great. It was a beautiful evening though. The media relations person said she would give me a media pass, so maybe next time I'll try to go midweek when the crowds are small. With a media pass, I might be able to get some more shots without the netting in the way.

Good times. Municipal Stadium is a great place to see a game, the crowds are fun, the ushers are nice, and the weather is great. If you ever get out to San Jose, make sure to catch a game!