What day was Target Practice?

On Thursday, our journalism class checked out a series of shorts at Cinematheque. We were most interested in a documentary directed by Paula Kelly called The Trib: Story of an Underdog Newspaper. It was paired with a dramatic piece by John Kozak called Target Practice, where one scene in particular caught my attention.

Without giving away spoilers, the scene has two people talking at the doorway with a baseball game playing in the background. Me being me, I immediately began paying attention to the game in the background. While dialogue made it hard to hear it in its entirety, I took away what I could and decided I would figure out the day of the events in the movie based on the game that was playing.

Here are the four key details:
- Mark Trumbo (Angels) was batting and had already struckout twice in the game
- Trumbo was batting against Phil Coke (either Tigers or Yankees)
- The score of the game was 1-1 at that point.
- The Angels scored a run on a sacrifice fly towards the end of the scene.

I started by going to Phil Coke's Baseball Reference page. Since I didn't know what team he played on but Trumbo's, I searched Coke's game-by-game results for games against the Angels since 2009 (when Trumbo broke into the league). I find out Coke didn't face Trumbo once in 2009, narrowing down his team to the Tigers since he was traded there before the 2010 season.

In 2010, Cokes faces the Angels three times, but not once was Trumbo in the lineup. On July 4, 2011, Trumbo and Coke finally face off when the Angels first baseman singles off the pitcher. However, this is not my game since the score was never 1-1 and Trumbo did not strike out in the game. Their next meeting is on July 28 but the details of that game does not match either.

The next matchup is July 30, 2011. Trumbo strikes out swinging in the top of the second and does so again to end the fourth (!). In the top of the sixth, with the score 1-1 (!!), Trumbo steps up for a third time, this time versus Phil Coke. He is walked and a few batters later, the Angels score on sacrifice fly (!!!).

This is the game.

Not another game matches the details provided in the movie and it also fits with other minor details said in the movie (Erick Aybar is playing was one).

I can say conclusively from my research that the events in the movie Target Practice take place on July 30, 2011.