Well, we were there for their first home win…. Why shouldn’t we be there for their first home loss?

Tonight’s game just was not as good as Thursday’s. It’s bad when the highlight of the night is seeing Senator Chris Dodd walk past.

The crowd was lackluster. The folks who run the canned organ music (it’s probably too much to hope that there’s an actual organist) just didn’t understand that it was their responsibility to help create an atmosphere to get the fans energized.

The defense was off from the very beginning. Pitcher Tomo Ohka pitched a ball for his first throw (and, from what I could tell, threw balls during his warm up as well) and seemed more interested in getting his batters to first and then throwing as often to first as to home. Catcher Gary Bennett threw four runners out at second, but also threw one late and high, allowing the first run to score. Infielders were flopping all over the place, but they were slow to throw themselves after the ball and then slow to get up. And at one point they were so shifted to the right, that a routine foul pop fly over the third base coach went uncaught because the third baseman was playing where the shortstop should have been. Outfielders (with the exception of one leaping catch by JJ Davis in center field) couldn’t seem to get anywhere near dropping balls.

And the offense just wasn’t connecting tonight. The exception was the bottom of the seventh, when I went out to stretch my legs. Someone hit a homerun while I was in the ladies’ room, so I decided to stay out in the concourse while they ran their course. And they managed to force the Marlins to pull their starting pitcher and the first reliever before ending the seventh.

I had hope when we managed to keep anyone from scoring during the eighth or ninth innings, but, despite a run in the bottom of the ninth, it was unfounded. The end score was 9-4.

The crowds starting thinning out in the seventh, so we didn’t need to fight to get on a train at Stadium/Armory, but we did have to wait about 15 minutes for a Red line train at Metro Center.

No red cap yet, but a pennant to hang on my office door. =)