Thoughts on the Nightmare that was Game Three

Here are a few thoughts on the horror that we all witnessed last night.

I wasn’t watching. I was sitting on my bed, listening to the radio through a really sweet pair of cans, with my laptop on my lap, reading everything coming across the old twitter feed. At this point I refuse to watch a replay. If the Red Sox manage to survive and win this thing, then I’ll watch the play on the victory DVD. Until then, I’m done with it.

The one thought that keeps coming back to me is that Saltalamacchia has to go away. If I were Ben Cherington I would have cut him this morning. It’s bad enough that he’s an automatic out at the plate, but the play he made was absolutely inexcusable. I don’t care whether or not Middlebrooks obstructed the play (he did, intention is irrelevant), Saltalamacchia never, ever should have thrown that ball to third. The fact that he threw it away makes it 1000 times worse, but the simple fact is he should have held the ball.

I give Saltalamacchia 100% of the blame for the bottom of the ninth.

Of course, he might not have ever been in that position had Farrell not screwed up mightily in the top of the ninth. The fact that Brandon Workman made his first professional at bat in the ninth inning of a tie game in the World Series proves that Farrell is in way over his head. Add to that the fact that Mike Fricken Napoli was sitting on the bench, available to pinch hit, leads me to the belief that Farrell needs to go away. That move, or lack of move, is every bit as horrifyingly awful as Grady Little’s decision to let Pedro Martinez stay in the game against the Yankees in 2003. And we all know what happened to Grady Little as a result. Farrell should be tarred and feathered.

I look back at the aftermath of game one and I cannot believe that I ripped on the Cardinals for their defensive play. I apologize wholeheartedly to the Cardinals and their fans. Their lapses in game one were nothing, nothing at all, compared to the shit the Red Sox have pulled in games two and three. Given the Red Sox defensive performance, it is clear that they have no business being in the World Series.