Category: Baseball

Red Sox vs Tigers Game Six

It’s the bottom of the seventh inning. The Tigers lead 2-1. The Sox have two on and one out with Ellsbury coming to the plate, and Jim Leyland just came to pull Scherzer from the game. If the Tigers have a weakness, it’s their bullpen.

Now is the time, Red Sox. Now is the time.

Seriously, because I am totally going to have a heart attack. This is so damn stressful!

Thanks, Dodgers

I’d like to thank the Los Angeles Dodgers for rolling over and playing dead last night in game six of the NLCS. I know I said that I wanted the Cardinals to win the series, and yes the Dodgers’ suck fest last night gave the series to St Louis. That’s true, but I also wanted the Red Sox to start at 4:00 today and that required a Dodgers win. So thanks for nothing, Dodgers.

Red Sox vs Tigers tonight at 8:00 from Fenway Park. A Red Sox win clinches the series and punches our tickets to the World Series.

Win it tonight, Red Sox.

The Fourth Win is the Hardest

Last night’s game was incredibly stressful. Nothing new in this series, but this time the stress involved holding onto a lead. The Red Sox came out strong and took an early 4-0 lead. The Tigers spent the rest of the game inching their way back, but it wasn’t enough. The Sox won 4-3 and took a three games to two lead in the American League Championship Series.

Game six is Saturday at Fenway, but don’t ask me when. You see the television networks are more important than the 30-40 thousand paying customers, so the game doesn’t have a start time yet. We’ll find out after tonight’s NLCS game. If the Cardinals win, the series is over and the Red Sox and Tigers play in prime time (or post prime time for a sporting event) at 8:00. If the Dodgers win tonight, game seven of the NLCS will be Saturday at 8:00 and the Red Sox and Tigers will play at 4:00 and Red Sox and Tigers fans will actually get to watch the whole game. To hell with the tens of thousands of fans who actually paid for tickets and need to actually get to the stadium. They are irrelevant when the question of television coverage comes up.

It’s Buchholz against Scherzer. If nothing else, it’s two last names that I probably misspell every time I try to write about them. Scherzer pitched like a god in game two and the Sox still beat him. Buchholz pitched like a chump in game two and the Sox still managed to win. The offense we saw last night needs to continue against this great Tigers pitcher, if it can. Buchholz needs to be better. A lot better. Game six is the biggest game of the year thus far, and it is an absolute must win. The Red Sox cannot give the Tigers life. They cannot let this series go to game seven. Beat them now while you can, Boston. Finish them.

One win away from the World Series. You can do it, Red Sox. Even if your fans are having heart attacks left and right due to the stress of it all. Win game six!

ALCS Game Four – What Happened?

When your starting pitcher is a former Cy Young award winner, and he walks in a run in the biggest game of the year… you can pretty much rest assured that the outcome is not going to go your way.

That was painful for Red Sox nation to witness. Now we’ve got to put it behind us (yeah, right) and look to tonight’s game five. The series is tied at two games each. We’ve got Lester going tonight. The offense, while unable to come up with the big hits when they needed them, did show some signs of life last night. We’ll just retake the lead in the series tonight, right? Right.

That’s how a rational fan would think. Unfortunately, Red Sox fans are generally far from rational. After a 1-0 win in game three in which the team was barely able to put the ball in play, we were convinced that the World Series was ours for the taking. Then last night after getting beaten up badly, we’re balling our eyes out into our coffee today trying to decide if we want the Cardinals or the Dodgers to be the ones to knock off the Tigers.

We’re kind of a mood swingie bunch, you know?

Tonight. Game five. Let’s take back the series, Red Sox!

Stress, Baseball Style

I have been listening to game three of the ALCS between my heroic Red Sox and the dasterdly Tiggers. Boston has a 1-0 lead in the top of the eighth inning. Verlander and Lackey have been magic today. This is one of the best pitchers duels… EVER.

I’m home now and the game is on the tube. I am stressing like crazy. The Red Sox have to hold on. They have to win this game. They have to hold on for Lackey, who was lifted in the seventh inning.

What a game!

Blame TBS

I would like to publicly state that anything I do wrong today (and probably tomorrow too) will be blamed on the Turner Broadcasting System.

Last night my home town baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, played a game that started at 8:30pm. Assuming that the average game runs about three hours, in order for me to go to sleep at a decent enough time to get myself at least seven hours of sleep, I would have to stop watching approximately half way through the game.

During the regular season, most East coast teams start their games at either 7:00 or 7:30pm. Both teams in last nights game, and by extension the overwhelming majority of their fans, are on the East coast. Why then was the start time for the game set at 8:30? It’s disgusting enough that the games start so late that no school age child could ever dream of watching the entire game, but no adult who wishes to be productive at work the next day could stay up for the whole thing either.

I’m not even complaining about the four hours the game actually lasted. That isn’t TBS’ fault (although those commercial breaks between innings sure seemed longer than regular season breaks, didn’t they? I should watch with a stop watch next time to see how long they actually are), but it’s also irrelevant. Anyone on the East coast who works a 9-5 job would still be sleep deprived if the game had been three hours long.

It’s all about money though. If they run two games in one day without overlapping them, then they can sell 18 innings worth of ad space instead of having to split 9 innings of ad space between two Turner networks. The actual people who would like to watch the entire game are not even considered in the advertising equation.

I stayed up for the entire game last night. The final out was made at about 12:30am this morning and I can honestly say that as soon as the game ended I was in bed with the lights off, and I was dead asleep before the Red Sox left the field. My alarm clock then went off at 5:00am. TBS could care less.

Game Three

Tonight at 6:00pm Eastern time… Game three of the ALDS Between the vile, evil, twisted, perverse Tampa Bay Rays and the Heroic, Majestic, Knights in Shining Armor known as the Boston Red Sox.

It’s another great pitching match up with Buchholz going against Cobb (not Ty). If the Red Sox keep playing the way they have been they should be able to win. If the Rays keep making bone head plays in the field, they should continue to lose. Some of the idiot moves in their outfield have me on the verge of wondering if any of them are wearing black socks.

One philosophical question: if the Rays play a home game in the playoffs and there are no fans in the stands to see it, does it really happen? I’m curious to see their attendance today.

Go Red Sox!