Tagged: Sanches

Football Fever

Are you ready for some Football??? Week one is underway, and besides Fantasy Football, the Marlins players also have allegiances to certain teams. Being an Eagles fan, I already knew who the Eagles supporters in the clubhouse were: Brendan Donnelly and Dan Meyer. On the flip side, there are way too many Cowboy fans in there – Cody Ross, Bo Porter, and Brian Sanches. At least Burke Badenhop told me he strongly dislikes the Cowboys, though he doesn’t really have a favorite NFL team; I enjoyed hearing that.

Locally we only have two Dolphins fans in Gaby Sanchez and Jeff Urgelles. Ross Gload was caught wearing his Jets shirt today, and that won’t make the locals too happy I’m sure. But across the state, Chris Coghlan supports the Bucs – his favorite player was Derrick Brooks.

I did confirm today that Jeremy Hermida is indeed a Gator fan, though he grew up in Atlanta; he said it’s because of his parents and he was definitely the underdog in high school – most of his friends liked the Georgia Bulldogs of course. Back to the NFL – his team for that at least makes sense, the Atlanta Falcons.

Andrew Miller is a Jaguars fan – he had season tickets. But the other dominant team in the clubhouse was the Tennessee Titans believe it or not: Brett Carroll, Dan Uggla and Sean West. Meanwhile, Cameron Maybin pulls for the Carolina Panthers.

Over to the west coast, Tim Wood flies with the Cardinals, Nick Johnson’s a 49ers fan and Jorge Cantu likes da Raaaaiders.

A nice number of the guys in the clubhouse prefer soccer though, in their mind, the real football. I spoke with Rick VandenHurk about it a bit, and his favorite is the local team where he’s from, PSV Eindhoven. Apparently they’re number one in their conference right now. Last time he went to a game was January, and he had season tickets – still follows them on the Internet while he’s over here.

So there doesn’t seem to be too many rivalries in the clubhouse for NFL teams, besides the Eagles-Cowboys domination. And as I write this, both teams are winning in week one. Let’s see what happens Sunday night, November 8th when they faceoff.

Jinx, you owe me a…

A lot of people in sports believe in jinxes and superstitions – it’s probably the most common in baseball. We’ve heard it all, from what they wear when they’re on a hot streaks, hair cuts, at-bat music, etc. Yesterday even the Marlins Manager admitted that he felt like he jinxed his ace on the mound Friday night.

In case you missed his dominant performance, Josh Johnson was throwing a no-hitter into the seventh, and during that span also struck out career high 11 batters. His pitch count got a little high though, reaching around 100 pitches in the seventh inning. Fredi Gonzalez told us he turned to Mark Wiley (pitching coach) while JJ was on the mound that inning pitching to Garrett Atkins, and asked: “With the day off Monday, JJ has an extra day to rest, right?”

Wiley responded, “Yes.” And Fredi continued to say, ” So we could even push him back one more day if necessary…” Just as those words came out of his mouth, BAM! Atkins goes yard.

We asked Fredi if the pitch count just became too high, into the 130’s or so let’s say, and he needed to pull JJ with a no-hitter going, what would happen. Fredi laughed and said he wouldn’t do it, he’d send Carlos Tosca to the mound to do the dirty work.

Another topic that came up was Nick Johnson – Fredi said, and we all agreed, that it really might not be a coincidence on how well the team’s been doing since acquiring Nick. The guys are known to be hackers at the plate, but we’ve seen a lot more patience as of late, and I know for a fact he’s rubbing off on rookie Chris Coghlan.

Speaking of Coghlan, his bat has been hot since the All-Star break. He just rattled off a 12-game hitting streak and his OBP is up to .362. Right now the Fish just have a lot of things clicking offensively. Usually it’s just one or maybe two guys whose bats are hot, but right now they have five or six.

What hasn’t been going too well is the starting pitching going deep into games (besides JJ and Sean West last week), so the bullpen’s been taxed. They’ve been rotating a spot in the bullpen with the minors for a week now – Tim Wood, Chris Leroux, and now Cristhian Martinez.

Another thing I have to comment on is Brian Sanches. He’s now pitched 24 1/3 scoreless innings at home, which is the longest home scoreless streak in the Majors this season. Now, because the Fish are playing the Rockies, I must mention another notable similar stat – Rockies reliever Matt Daley has now pitched 14 2/3 scoreless innings. That is the longest current streak in the Majors.

Hope we didn’t jinx it by talking with him about it today – same with Sanches.