Best Honeymoon Ever! Game 9 and Game 10 In Cleveland and Chicago

Best Honeymoon Ever, Game 9: Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians

Game Review:

Starters Trevor Bauer and Kyle Ryan drug the first few innings along, combining for 10 runs allowed, 15 hits, and 6 walks without either of them getting through the 4th inning. The interesting part is two teams not well-known for their bullpens then had two mostly unknown guys, Blaine Hardy and Jeff Manship, come in and combined for 5 1/3 innings, allowing a combined one hit between them.

The Detroit offense was clicking, and Miguel Cabrera did have a great game, but the guy who stole the show was Yoenis Cespedes, who clubbed a huge home run deep to right center field. He also had a double on the day as he went 3-for-3. Cespedes, who has always been known for his power coming along with a .250ish average, left that game with a .308 average, and the way he was swinging, he was going for more than just crushing the ball, which was very impressive.

One note that Braves fans will appreciate. I talked with a few people about Jose Iglesias. From watching him on TV, I considered him second only to Andrelton Simmons at shortstop, but in person, he’s even better. The crazy part is that so is Simmons. I saw a lot of very mediocre defensive play in the prime era of shortstop with Derek Jeter, Miguel Tejada, Nomar Garciaparra, and Alex Rodriguez all lauded for their offense from a traditionally defense-focused position, but that seemed to lead to a lot of teams emphasizing offense from the position for a short time, and it seems the pendulum has swung back the other way again.

Stadium Review:

Progressive Field has a very nice set up, and I enjoyed walking around the entire concourse on the main level. We had a downpour just after arriving, so we were able to watch how quickly the grounds crew gets the field ready for the game after a huge rush of rain.

While Progressive may not really stand out in a lot of the traditional ball park categories like sight lines, extra amenities, scoreboards, etc. However, Progressive blew away every other ballpark in one area – food prices. Hot dogs for $3.50, popcorn for $4, a refillable souvenir soda for much, much cheaper than elsewhere. I never got to the ice cream, but for a huge waffle cone of soft serve, it was cheaper than the little mini-helmet ice creams at most stadiums by as much as half the cost.