Triple-digit temps cause problems for 51s, on and off the field
Johnny Monell may have had the least enviable position of any player last Sunday.
As the 51s catcher came off the field after each inning, manager Wally Backman draped him in an ammonia towel and had him down a glass of ice water.
When you play baseball for a team in Las Vegas, going to work in triple-digit temperatures is just part of the job.
“It’s really hot,” outfielder Travis Taijeron said. “But it is what it is, though. It’s Vegas. You kind of expect it.”
The 51s had two home games in their most recent four-game series against Tacoma that had start times of 12:05 p.m. The first-pitch temperatures for those two games were 102 and 99 degrees.
It’s not just the discomfort of playing when the sun is bearing down. When the temperatures are hot, it affects everything. The 51s do not have indoor batting cages or any baseball facilities that could be done in a cooler environment.
“It limits your work availability,” Backman said. “You can’t go out there and work in the cage for an hour when it’s hot like that.
“If you tried to go out there and take infield in this heat after taking batting practice, you’d run those guys right into the ground.”
When Backman hits the road to cities with a lower temperature — Tacoma, Washington, for example, where the temperature was in the 80s while the Rainiers were in Las Vegas — he sees opposing teams working longer in the cages or taking infield after practice as part of the pregame routine.
While a team like the Rainiers may have been unaccustomed to playing in the heat — the 51s won three of the four games in the series — it’s not a net positive for the 51s.
“Probably playing the game it’s an advantage, but if you look at the total, overall picture of it, we’re not able to do as much work as a team in Tacoma where the weather is not so hot,” Backman said. “Does it have an effect on us? You have to take the good with the bad.”
The heat does have an impact on the game itself. During the sixth inning of Sunday’s game against the Rainiers, reliever Zack Thornton allowed a home run to Tacoma’s Zack Shank that bounced off the top of the left-field wall and over for a home run.
Baseballs travel farther in the heat, and when the sun drops out of the sky and brings the temperature with it, Thornton wouldn’t be blamed for thinking that ball does not leave the yard under the night sky.
“The first month of the season or so here, that ball might be caught,” Backman said. “To me, that’s what they call a Vegas home run.”
Right-hander Seth Lugo took the hill that game for Las Vegas and, being a starting pitcher, is a creature of habit. When the sun is beating down that intensely, Lugo had to alter his routine.
“It makes it a little difficult; you have to preserve your energy better,” Lugo said. “For instance, I’ll cut my stretch and warm-up down a little bit just because you don’t need much. You get out there, you get hot pretty quick.”
While most players agreed that day games were an unfortunate part of the job, first baseman Marc Krauss found a positive to playing them.
“It’s not ideal, but at the same time, it’s not too bad because you know once the game is over, you have the rest of the day and have tomorrow off to kind of recharge all the batteries,” Krauss said. “Once you’re out there in the flow of the game, it’s not too bad.”
Attendance predictably plummeted during the two home games, as fans opted to do anything else than sit for a few hours in the Las Vegas sun. For the two night games, the 51s averaged 6,389 spectators and just 2,478 for the two day games.
The 51s have only two home day games remaining, June 26 and 28 against Sacramento. That’s just fine with the players.
“We’d all rather play in 80-degree weather, but you got to do what you got to do,” outfielder Eric Campbell said.
“It’s a dry heat,” he added with a chuckle.
Justin Emerson can be reached at jemerson@reviewjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @J15Emerson
