So I guess I'm going to have to write this down! (Image: Ken Blaze/USA Today)
Yesterday was a good day, my good friend Brian Bowman came to visit the family with his son Sharrief who's starting to look like a man now, we never get pics, we should have gotten one. Anyway, after a pleasant evening hanging out and chatting with them I tuned in to a late west coast Yankee game that had just started, game two of a three game set. I was a little disapointed, the Yanks have been scrapping, they have a winning record but we learned earlier in the day that Aaron Judge had a torn ligament in his big toe from stubbing it hard against the concrete barrier at the bottom of the wall as he crashed through the fence making a spectacular play in Dogers stadium right field a few weeks ago. A spectacular play that in hindsight maybe shouldn't have been made?
The Yankees took a tough 2-1 loss in the first game against Oakland, a team that has been historically bad this year by the way, and German's last two starts were not great. So, not the makings of an exciting game, even for a diehard like me who usually watches or listens to every game, anyone would be forgiven for reading the tea leaves and deciding to skip this one. Boy was I glad I didn't.
The first few innings were not exiting, it was looking like a decent pitching matchup with JP Sears was on the mound for the A's, and German throwing a lot of first pitch strikes, not usual for him when he's feeling it. So I didn't really take notice until the 4th inning after watching him mow down three more A's batters, he really had his good stuff going. I don't have the stats in front of me, but it seemed like any time he fell behind in the count he was able to throw a great curveball and get back in it. He was really only ever in danger of walking two batters the entire night, what an amazing performance.
So, for the record, the night Domingo German threw his perfect game I was at home on my couch basking in the afterglow of an almost perfect day.