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Before Saturday's game, which started less than 15 hours after Friday's game ended, Peņa talked about the ways in which playing a day game after a night game changes his routine.
OAKLAND, Calif. -- In the minor leagues, you don't play too many day games after a night game. Maybe on the weekend sometimes, but not like up here. In the big leagues you do it a lot. A lot of times you have to do it twice in a week, and that's one of the many things I have to learn to adjust to.
The main thing is that it throws you off your routine. When you get to the park for a day game after a night game, it's like you were just there an hour ago. It almost feels like a doubleheader. So what I try to do as soon as I get home after the night game is take a mental break.
If you go home and go to bed right away, it's going to seem like you slept at the park. You went to bed with baseball, you woke up with baseball. So even though it will cost me a little bit of sleep, I want to occupy myself with something other than baseball before I go to bed, like video games or something.
Anything but baseball, just to give myself a mental breather. That way, when I wake up in the morning I feel refreshed instead of feeling like I just finished playing in a game.
You also need to pay attention to the way you eat. We eat late after night games, and that's another reason I don't want to go bed right away when I get home. You want to give your body time to digest first. Same thing in the morning -- I make sure to eat as early as possible, because if you eat something too close to game-time, your body is dealing with that instead of dealing with just playing baseball.
It's all a matter of finding the right pattern, because when your pattern changes, you feel different. And whether it's a day game or a night game, you don't want to feel different. You want to feel like nothing's changed.
Carlos Peņa's diary appears as told to Mychael Urban, who covers the Oakland A's for MLB.com and can be reached at murban@oaklandathletics.com. This story was not subject to approval by Major League Baseball or its clubs.
