Off Day Weirdness

It seems so weird tonight. I mean, what am I supposed to do with myself? There is no Red Sox baseball tonight, nor is there Bruins hockey. I feel so lost.

I think I’ll go to bed really early so that I can be well rested for game six tomorrow night.

World Series Game Five – A Win and a Fail

Game five of the 2013 World Series was a win of gigantic proportions for the Boston Red Sox. It was also an epic collapse for me.

Jon Lester was amazing. David Ortiz came into the game hitting .727 and actually saw his average go up. Stephen Drew continued to be the worst hitter on Earth, but drew a key walk and scored a run and also continued his fantastic play at shortstop. David Ross had the game winning hit. Did I mention that Jon Lester was amazing?

Of course I fell asleep around the sixth inning. I tried to stay awake, but three nights of midnight finishes in a row was just too much for me. I did my best, but I failed. I missed all the Ross heroics. It was still 1-1 when I fell asleep. I feel shame.

My failure aside, the Boston Red Sox are one win away from a World Championship, and they have two chances at clinching. The Cardinals will pitch Wakka Wakka tomorrow. Fozzy Bear’s catch phrase has been all but unhittable in this post season. It will be a huge challenge to avoid a game seven, but the Sox have done screwier thing this year. Lackey will pitch for the Sox. He’s been awesome and we’ll need him to be awesome again.

The mentality for Boston must be that game seven is out of the question. Game six is our must win game. We cannot give them any life. We have to finish them. As my dad used to sing to us, “when you’re in a fight and you’ve got ’em down… kick em!”

Go Red Sox! Follow my father’s philosophy! Win game six!

Go Red Sox!

More Like the WTF Series

World Series? More like the WTF Series.

There have been four games played in the World Series so far, and each team has made plays of inexcusable stupidity in two games. As a result, we’re tied at two.

I had to eat my words twice. The Red Sox were trailing one to nothing and Stephen Drew came to the plate. I was begging the baseball gods to have Farrell pinch hit Napoli. What happened? Drew hit a sac-fly and tied the game. Thanks, Steve! Later, I was calling Gomes an automatic out. What did he do? Nothing, just hit the game winning three run home run. I will gladly eat my hat on that one. Thanks, Johny!

And the play of amazing stupidity? Two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Cardinals down 4-2. There’s a runner on first, and Carlos Beltran, arguably the best post season hitter ever, is at the plate. The Cardinals put in rookie Kolten Wong as a pinch runner.

And he gets picked off.

W. T. ever loving F?

As if the obstruction buffoonery in game three wasn’t bad enough, game four ends with the tying run at the plate on a pick off! At least the winning run didn’t score as a result of the pick off. The Cardinals have that going for them at least. The Red Sox idiot play is still the idioter.

Game five is tonight. We’re back to the game one starters. I have a lot of confidence in Jon Lester’s ability to hold St. Louis down.

As for the Red Sox pitching last night. Buchholz pitched four solid innings. He gave up one unearned run, thanks to an error in center field by Ellsbury, but otherwise he was very good. He was clearly less than 100%. His fastballs only topped 90mph a couple of times, if that. His location and movement was excellent though. Many of us here in Boston were fully expecting to see Buchholz scratch himself from this start and would have (rightfully) flayed him alive for his pussitude. It didn’t happen though. He came through. Felix Doubront came in and was lights out for two innings. He now leads in the race for mayor of Boston by a huge margin. Workman came in after that and sucked again. It’s time to nail his ass to the bench. He has to be done.

That brings us to the eighth inning. Who came in to pitch? None other than John Fricken Lackey. Your game two, and now scheduled for game six, starting pitcher came out of the pen and put the Cardinals away, bridging the eighth inning gap to Koji. Koji pitched the ninth. He did let a runner on, but then picked his ass off first base in a move for the ages.

Somehow, despite their mountain of errors and dumb ass plays, the Red Sox are in a 2-2 tie in the 2013 World Series.

Game five is tonight.

Go Red Sox!

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.

World Series Game Three, Again

This game is going to kill me. The Red Sox were down 4-2 in the top of the eighth and somehow managed to scratch out two runs to tie it. I have had either 12 or 13 heart attacks. I’m not sure. I can’t tell if the eighth inning heart attack was one long one, or two short ones that just came right on top of each other. Good thing I have this defibrillator. This thing just pays for itself.

World Series Game Three

I’m reaching the point of frustration. The Red Sox are striking out left and right again. The Cardinals lead 2-1 entering the bottom of the fifth inning. Peavy is out of the game. He was awful in the first, great in the second and third, and got out of a bases loaded no outs jam in the fourth. Dubront is on to pitch the fifth.

The strike outs are unbearable. This line up could make my grandmother look like Nolan Freakin’ Ryan. K after K after K after K.

Salty and Drew need to go away. Neither of them can even make contact at this point. It’s humiliating.

They finally got to Kelly in the top of the fifth though. Hopefully that is a sign that things are looking up for us here in game three.

Please, go Red Sox.