Yes, that kind of sucked last night. Good news, I guess, is I get to take the kid to game 6 tomorrow. There were a couple of dubious decisions by Maddon and a couple of good calls from Francona.
Probably should have let Kazmir pitch into the eighth. Even if you don’t, I have never been comfortable with Dan Wheeler pitching. Maybe should have stayed with Balfour or gone with Howell earlier, or better yet, bring in Price or Jackson.
Once you had that big lead and Matsusaka out of the game, I would have brought in Fernando Perez for Gabe Gross. Gross just doesn’t have the defensive range that Perez does. Game would have been over - that one hopper to Gross in the eighth is an out with Perez in there - probably also that double over Gross’s head.
Brilliant to bring in Papelbon when he did to stop the bleeding. He doesn’t do that, the Rays probably get 2-3 more runs.
Crisp for Ellsbury just made a ton of sense. Ellsbury is just too cold to take the chance on him.
Of course the game goes into the 10th if Longoria doesn’t rush his throw on Youkilis. Such is life. Nice come back by the Red Sox. See them tomorrow in our house.
The TV guys had just finished praising the arm strength of the Rays’ outfield in the 8th – and then that guy (totally unfamiliar with the Rays’ roster) in RF comes up firing and barely hits the cutoff man. I thought for sure there would be a play at the plate.
The really sad thing? Is that I know this. Because I am a bit-more-than-casual Sox fan myself (“they’re my AL team”) and my husband is batshit butternuts crazy for them. So, durrr.
It just doesn’t seem “inevitable” to me that they’ll sweep the Phils, because the Phillies are so … erratic? unpredictable? stroke-inducing? Like, they drop games where they shouldn’t and then score 10 runs when they ought not. So who knows what the crap will happen …
Obviously I am both thrilled and horrified about the World Series. Can the Phils actually do it this time? Or will they, once again, as is their wont and custom, tear out my heart and shred it into little bits? I mean, Mitch Williams is long gone, but clearly Brad Lidge is personally trying to kill me dead.
Angst like that is reserved for fans of teams who haven’t won a pennant since the year we dropped the bomb on Japan. The Phillies won the WS in 1980 for Og’s sake.
Well that’s kinda my point. The Rays’ held their leads in the first two games, and I was hoping for more of the same in the third game, because they’re a darn good team. The Mariners, OTOH, have blown any number of leads at Fenway in the last few years, and every time Niehaus & Rizzs loudly give credit to the ballpark (at least that’s how it comes across on the radio) instead of just saying the Sox are a much better team than the Mariners. They’ve done the same, to a lesser degree, when the M’s have blown leads at Yankee Stadium. Any other ballpark, and they readily admit that the M’s blew it. You never hear them blaming Kaufmann Stadium or Camden Yards when the Mariners lose to the Royals or Orioles.
I sure wish that they’d left Game 6 as a day game instead of night. So tired. Hope to be jacked up soon. The evil villainy of Red Sox Nation must be repelled!
Not me. I turned on the radio at the originally-scheduled time, found the WSU/USC football game and thought, “Oh for fuck’s sake, midseason college football is preempting the MLB playoffs again!”* When I checked MLB.com a bit later so see how the game was going, I was relieved to see the game time had been changed.
This exact thing happened to Game 6 of the 2003 World Series, in which the Marlins clinched the title against the Yankees. The local sports radio station was broadcasting WSU football instead of the WS.
BJ Upton Regular Season Home Runs: 9, in 145 games
Postseason Home Runs: 8, in 10 games
Talk about turning it on.
Upton also has 11 RBI just in the ALCS. The record for RBI in any postseason series is 12, by Bobby Richardson in the 1960 World Series. (Ominously, Richardson’s team lost.) So Upton has a shot at that record.
Bah. Can anything go right tonight? First, TBS fucks up the broadcast and then the Rays lose. If the Rays blow this, they can blame game 5. I still can’t believe they blew a seven run lead. I really wanted to see Rays-Cubs. I hope I can still see one of them in the Series. If the Sox win, I will be rooting for the Phils hard.
