A series of scheduling needs led to the rare opportunity to drag Viv out to a weeknight baseball game, Iwakuma starting against the improved over 2014 Houston Astros. It didn’t start well, the second Astro knocking a 381 foot home run into the right field stands, and he struggled with control until getting yanked in the sixth at a mere 71 pitches. This is his third weak start, and I am thinking he (along with pretty much every M’s pitcher nit named Felix) is in for a spell in Tacoma or even Everett. Eventually the M’s lost after tying it at 5-5 during Kuma’s tenure on the mound. We left after Kuma was pulled (something I had promised Viv in order to meet her bedtime needs), and I watched the end of game at home.

Two Astros fielders slipped and fell while attempting foul catches, there was a crazy Astros wild pitch, and several times when fielding coverage sagged on the Houston side, the Astros players visibly drooped and slowed down in effort. I don’t know how many of them are new to the team, but even though they won they did not look like a team that thought they could or would.

Finally, just before Kuma was pulled, I noticed a sliver of a moon with a hugely bright planet crowning it some distance directly above – a conjunction, I believe it’s called. After looking it up on my phone I knew the planet was Venus. The day was unseasonably warm and gloriously clear and so the dusk emergence of the pair was striking, the occluded side of the moon warm and dim with Earthlight.