Tag: Baseball

Awake

Still awake. I wanted to go to sleep early but it wasn’t happening. Oh well, I’ll keep trying.

I just watched the first episode of Y the Last Man on Hulu. Color me hooked so far.

I wish Major League Baseball had booked game one of the ALCS for tomorrow instead of Friday. I have all this built up hype and no where to put it.

I still don’t know why the NHL season opened on the 12th but the Bruins don’t play until the 16th. Is it a TV rights thing? The NHL is back with ESPN for the first time in something like 300 years. Figures. NBCsn streams to an iOS app. ESPN only streams to subscribers. Jerks.

I mentioned we are going up to Vermont on Saturday. We are bringing cold weather clothing to Bellana (and bringing warm weather clothes back home with us) and we are meeting Harry for lunch. I can’t wait. Weekly FaceTime calls are great, but I’m looking forward to actual face time.

Okay, I’m going to put some music on and see if I can sleep. Talk to you all tomorrow.

ALCS Matchup is Set

Houston beat Chicago today. The American League Championship Series match up is set. We know who we’ll be playing, we just don’t know when yet.

The last time the Red Sox went to the ALCS they faced the Astros. That was 2018. It took five games to beat them. Then it took five games to beat the Dodgers for the World Series. I could handle seeing an outcome like that again.

Now they just need to announce the date and time for game one.

Playoff Bracket

I think the chances of the Red Sox advancing out of the ALCS are about the same, zero, as the chance they had of advancing out of the ALDS, but obviously I have no idea what I’m talking about. Clearly.

Bring on the Astros or the White Sox. I’m ready for game one!

The Red Sox Win the Division Series!!!

Holy shit, the Red Sox just won game four with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth, 6-5!

I was sure the Rays were going to utterly murderize us. I thought we’d be out in three and, can you believe it, they won it in four!

The Sox have moved on to the the AL Championship series. They will play the winner of the Houston/Chicago series (Houston is up two games to one).

How awesome is this?

Eighth Inning

The top of the eighth inning just started. The Red Sox have a 5-3 lead but the Rays have a runner on second with nobody out.

Am I panicking?

Hell yes, I’m panicking!

Panic!

Hold that lead!

Addendum: I haven’t even had time to click the publish button and it’s 5-4 with a runner on second and still no outs.

Shitshitshitshitshit

Game Four – Halfway There

Heading into the bottom of the fifth inning, the Red Sox are up 5-1. All five runs came in the bottom of the third. That was fun to listen to.

Now we are getting to the nervous point. Tampa Bay just scored for the first time in the top of the fifth. I am afraid of overconfidence. It was during the 2004 World Series run, when they broke the 86 year slump, that everyone in my family (I think, at least) started using the phrase “cautiously optimistic” all of the time, which probably annoyed the crap out of everyone.

It’s important though. Over confidence leads to the ball going through Bill Buckner’s legs. Cautious optimism leads to coming back from a three games to none deficit to beat the Yankees.

Cautious optimism, folks. Let’s hold that lead and put the best team in the AL away tonight.

Example

I wrote about struggling to leave the facebook this morning. Here’s an example of why leaving is annoying.

That Pedal Show, the guitar gear centered weekly show on youtube that I really enjoy watching, does a live show on Mondays at 5:00pm UK time, which translates to noon for me. I try to tune in during work but sometimes I miss out. Today being a holiday, I was looking forward to watching without any distractions. I was going to put my feet up, listen to the discussion, and maybe noodle on my guitar a little to kinda get into the spirit of the thing, you know.

Noon comes along and there is no notification on youtube. There’s nothing on their youtube landing page. There’s nothing on their web page. That last one isn’t unusual, they generally don’t put news there. They put it on facebook. There is a really active facebook group and that’s where I go when I want to find out if they had to cancel a live show. At least… it used to be. All I wanted to do was look at posts around noon time and see if they mentioned anything. I couldn’t though… because I made myself boycott the whole bookfaycey experience.

Shit.

Okay, so I’ll try again next Monday.

Unrelated note: The Apple Watch Activity app dangles these monthly challenge out to users. This month’s challenge, for me, is to burn a specific number of calories. The goal they set is higher than what I would have if I just hit my normal goal every day. In fact, I would miss the challenge by quite a bit.

Usually I don’t pay much attention to things like this. I just keep my head down and do my thing and yippee, right? For some reason though, I really want to hit this one. It told me how much I would have to average each day in order to hit it and I changed my calorie goal to match that number.

I’ve already closed my exercise ring (I’m actually two whole minutes over the 30 minute goal). I’m still only at 80% of the move goal (they call the calorie burning ring the Move ring). I’m going to have to exercise more today, aren’t I. Crud.

Unrelated note again: Kyle Schwarber played first base for the Red Sox last night. Early in the game he made a pretty terrible error. He fielded a ground ball and tried to throw it to the pitcher, who was covering first base, and he underhand tossed it to somewhere near the orbit of Neptune. I didn’t see it because I was listening on the radio, but it sounded really bad.

Later in the game he was faced with an almost identical play and this is what he did (roll the video, please):

The Red Sox Win Game Three

So the Sox won, but there is controversy… or not. I’m not sure. Traditionally the heartbreaking call goes against us, so I’m not sure what to do.

Top of the 13th, runner on first, bomb hit to right hits the wall on the fly, bounces off, hits the ground, hits the right fielder and lands in the bullpen. That’s clearly a ground rule double. Hitting the fielder is the only thing unusual, but it hit the ground. Had it gone off the wall then off the player then out it would have been a home run, I think, but hitting the ground makes it two bases. Period.

I don’t think that’s the question though. The question is where to place the runner who was on first. At the time the ball left the field, I believe the runner had already reached second base. So does he get two bases from there, or two bases from where he started.

If you had asked me this out of context I would have said he ends up on third. Two bases from the start of the play, but I would have asked if the umpires had any discretion in the matter. If they did then he scores. Fortunately for the Red Sox (or not, as it turned out) the umpires do not have any discretion on the call. Two bases from the start of the play. The runner on first advances to third. Period. End of discussion.

Tampa would have taken a 5-4 lead, the inning still would have ended when the next batter fanned, and the Red Sox would still have had a runner on base when Vasquez hit the walk off home run in the bottom of the 13th. The Sox would have won 6-5, but the runner was placed on third instead of being allowed to score, so the Sox won 6-4.

Either way, holy shit what a game!