Bird’s Eye View
Wednesday, June 28, 2017 – Pavilion Section 20
Twins 4, Red Sox 1
On Wednesday it was time for my fourth game in the past six days. But this one was unique because it was part of a technical conference for work. There’s a conference room on the fifth floor, right across the hall from the press box, that companies can rent out for events. After meeting our hosts downstairs in the afternoon, we were taken up to the media level, down a hallway past the broadcast booths and the media cafeteria, to the conference room. During a break, I passed the NESN booth on my way to the restroom, and saw that they were preparing to film the “open” to the night’s broadcast. When the presentations from the conference wrapped up around 5:00, we got special wristbands allowing us free food and drink at the end of the Pavilion level concourse, and our seats for the game were in “Coca-Cola Corner,” the farthest section of the upper deck over in left field. Warning: this section is not for those who don’t like heights – when you have to look down to see the Green Monster, you know you’re really up there!
It’s funny because I don’t often watch from that level, but I had been in the Pavilion standing room just five days ago, for the ceremony retiring Big Papi’s number 34. That night I was over on the first base side, though, and the view was very different in left field.
What wasn’t any different was the frustrating season of Rick Porcello. He spotted the Twins two runs on three hits in the first inning. He then labored through some high-pitch-count innings, but kept them off the board through the fifth. A two-run deficit shouldn’t be insurmountable, but the Red Sox offense continued their equally-frustrating trend of not scoring any runs for him. Despite having runners on base in every inning, they couldn’t get that one big hit to bring them home.
Between innings, as the sun got ready to set, I went to the far back corner of the section, which is actually behind the foul pole, to take some pictures from that perspective.
Porcello gave up a two-run homer in the top of the sixth, making it a 4-0 hole. Finally, in the bottom of the seventh, the Red Sox managed to load the bases on a single and two walks. A big hit would have gotten them right back in it, but instead a groundout to short knocked in the only Red Sox run of the night.
When the Twins switched from their left-handed starter to a righty reliever, Tzu-Wei Lin came in to pinch-hit for Deven Marrero. I had seen Lin pick up his first Major League hit during his first start on Monday, and I was calling for his first RBI to come tonight. Instead, he flied out to center – “his first career flyout,” I noted – and grounded out to second. “That’s his first career 4-3,” I joked to my co-worker. “We’re witnessing history tonight.” Sadly, there would be no comeback tonight, historic or otherwise, and despite the unique vantage point, the game ended up with an all-too-familiar result.