Stories from Grand Junction: Riley Pint touches 101 mph

On Thursday, the Grand Junction Rockies played a pair of baseball games, that included an appearance from first-round draft pick Riley Pint. Clan Creasman was in attendance and filed this report:

“It’s a great day for a ball game. Let’s play two.” –E. Banks (noted philosopher)

It’s a heck of a thing to start your day down by one in the fifth, but that’s where the Grand Junction Rockies found themselves at six o’clock on a cool Thursday afternoon in July, finishing a game that started over 650 miles away. And by the end of the fifth, they were down by two.

But then came the top of the 8^th. (Our baby Rox were the visiting team to finish the game that started in Billings, Montana. In Grand Junction, sitting on the first base side, the GJRox were the visiting team. Baseball is weird sometimes.)

Jose Gomez got a base hit on a ball that the Mustang’s shortstop fielded expertly but didn’t quite have the jumping turn-and-throw to make the play. Gomez got to second on a sacrifice fly, then stole third and on a bad throw managed to get home for a run (error to the Mustangs.) Then Pedro Gonzalez knocked in the tie run with a double. The Mustangs called in a new pitcher who hit Steven Leonard with his first pitch. The excitement ended on a ground out with bases loaded, but still, the game was tied.

The bottom of the 8^th saw an outstanding running catch by [Center Fielder] at the wall and a Helton-esque dig by Hunter Melton (70-grade name) for a ground out. The Mustangs managed a double, prompting a pitching change and a strikeout.

The 9^th accomplished little other than to make me wonder, once again, what is a balk really? #WFTisaBalk? That and an extra inning!

The 10^th saw a double from Melton by the skin of his cleats, a base hit to put him on third and a sac fly to send him home. The baby Rox clinched it in the bottom with a pair of fly outs and a strikeout. Not a bad way to start a pseudo double-header.

Game 2 started at 8:34, foretelling a night of staying up way past my bedtime. On the bright side, I got to see Riley Pint pitch.

I’m not a pitching expert (or a baseball expert for that matter), but it was pretty darn impressive from where I was sitting. He certainly showed us the heat, with speeds between 94 and 98 according to the scoreboard (it was later announced that the official gun had him hit 101 mph; the GJ in-stadium gun is notoriously low on its readouts. Even so, he had a little trouble with the strike zone, with a walk and a wild pitch that let a run score. After three innings and (by my count) 54 pitches, he was done.

[Pint finished with 3 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 4 K]

One of my favorite parts of baseball is the sounds: crack of the bat, roar of the crowd, call of the blue. The sound of Riley Pint’s fastball in a catcher’s glove gave me chills more than once tonight. I understand that rookie ball is a long game that ends in a different league and a different year, that what Mr. Pint and the rest of the GJ Rox did tonight wasn’t so much about tonight, but next year or the year after or the year after, but man am I excited to see Riley Pint pitch again.

Other than that, Rox got crushed 7-1 in game two.