The Pecan Park Eagle

Marvelous Marwin Gonzalez
“The Man That Makes Things Happen!”

AMERICAN LEAGUE BATTING AVERAGE LEADERS

THROUGH GAMES OF SATURDAY, JULY 22, 2017

NR * = NEEDS MORE “AB”S TO QUALIFY FOR RANKING.

ASTRO~NOTES: With the rise of Evan Gattis to a BA of .292, the Astros now have seven starters, including the DL assigned Carlos Correa, hitting .292 or better. Gonzalez and Gattis both lack the number of AB’s needed to qualify them, otherwise, the Astros would fill six of the twenty spots open in the American League’s very top spots, with C/DH Gattis also now making noise as though he expected to join them soon. …. Bland expressions can be deceiving. The poker-face of Marwin Gonzalez, for example, is nothing less than a mask for the volcanic trigger finger that this man’s soul holds and usually pulls in the Astros’ most dramatic moments of need. When he came into Saturday nights’ game in relief of the injured Colin Moran and blasted that 3-run dinger that regained the lead from the Orioles, I almost wanted to see the baseball god’s script who wrote that little fun into the game for us. It also made me think of an historic moment that awaits the Astros in both the playoffs and the World Series. Each projected instance is a game to be remembered by future generations as clearly as the Mazeroski blast is forever recalled in Pittsburgh.

Let’s zoom straight away to Games 7 of the World Series. It’s the Dodgers and Astros at Minute Maid Park – and Dallas Keuchel versus Clayton Kershaw for all the marbles. Both star pitchers are so much on top of their games that it almost feels like a cultural mist from the 1930’s has rolled into the open-roof Halloween night coolness of the ballpark and turned the place into a throwback competition between Lefty Grove and Lefty Gomez. Nobody’s going anywhere – and not many batters are reaching base. Each team has a couple of singles going into the bottom of the 9th. Keuchel has 10 punch-outs and Kershaw has 13. Neither man has walked a single batter and nobody’s tired.

Relief? Forget about it. Both men are rubber-armed strong. The way bodies used to be.

Then something strange happens. After Kershaw quickly fans Gattis and Bregman for the the first two outs in the bottom of the 9th – and his 14th and 15th K in the game, Nori Aoki is due up, but maybe not. Hinch is making a change. And why not? Aoki is going for his fourth K of the day if he repeats here and Hinch wants no part of that possibility. Hinch is pinch hitting the impassive-looking Marwin Gonzalez for Aoki.

Dallas Keuchel takes a quiet tired-looking glance at the change. Is he also hoping what we are all hoping?

Of course he is. He simply can never admit it. Bu that’s OK. There’s no time here to waste on angst and clubhouse honesty codes.

ON-THE-VERY-FIRST-PITCH-FROM KERSHAW, Marwin Gonzalez takes a Ruthian cut at an untypical Dodger Ace directive. It arrives as a fastball in the mistakenly center of the plate at 96 mph.

And it absorbs instant wooden contact with Marwin’s quick-eye club and departs from home plate toward left center field at 110 mph.

The ball climbs the sky as though there really is a stairway to heaven. It leaves the building, still ascending as it crosses Crawford – and it rises high up against the wall of the luxury apartments across the street. Lights flicker on and off briefly in a couple of the windows impacted by the force of Gonzalez’s blast – as the briefly hushed cardio-condition of the crowd seems to hold it all inside until they too see the ball caroming into our neighbor’s wall.

The roar that follows far exceeds anything The Lion King may have once upon a time imagined for himself.

‘THE ASTROS HAVE DONE IT! …. THEY’VE WON THE WORLD SERIES! …. HERE COMES MARWIN GONZALEZ AROUND THIRD …. DIVING INTO THE BEDLAM THAT AWAITS HIM AT HOME …. NOW BEING DRENCHED WITH EVERYTHING WET THAT COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION OVER TEDIOUSLY LONG AND INTENSE EXTRA INNINGS …. THAT WE NO LONGER (WAHOO!) NOW WILL NEED! …. THANKS TO MARVELOUS MARWIN GONZALEZ …. ONE LAST AND FOREVER LASTING …. ETERNAL TIME!”

If you like that movie, keep playing the movie from the point we’ve descriptively reached here. As far as we are concerned, nobody deserves to have that moment any more than “Marvelous Marwin”!

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Tags: AL Batting Average Leaders 07/22/17

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