Tag: play offs

Bush League Radio

WEEI… ugh.

I was about to write a post about some bush league coding, but now I know the code is fine. I’m trying to listen to the Red Sox game’s radio feed via the MLB app on iOS. It’s been really crappy for the last couple of innings. Just drop outs and break up and terrible. I assumed it was the app. I was wrong. My sincere apologies to those who work on the app for my cursing you up and down and saying bad things about your mothers as I was getting more and more frustrated. I was wrong. I am sorry.

No, the bush league shit is actually WEEI itself. It was the actual radio feed that was failing. They are currently broadcasting a major league baseball playoff game via a cell phone. I shit you not. Now, I have a teeny tiny mini spec of radio experience and I am willing to accept that this is actually Tropicana Field’s fault. If that is the case then it’s just another in a long line of garbage coming from that stadium. The team is epic. The facility is the shittiest of shit. I will not, however, let WEEI off the hook because they should expect crap like this and have some sort of backup in place for when the shitty stadium goes to shit. Nope. They have a cell phone. Bush. League. Crap.

Anyway, it’s the top of the fourth inning. The Red Sox are down 5-4. The Sox opened the game with two runs in the top of the first and then Sale sucked up a storm and gave up five in the bottom of the first, including a grand fucking slam. Remember when David Price was a post season dog who was guaranteed to choke in the big game? He overcame that eventually and has a ring to show for it. Sale was supposed to be different, and I know he’s coming off a gigantic injury, but he choked in a must win in his last regular season start, and he was god awful tonight. The fuck, dude? Are you a new pre-redemption David Price?

The Sox did manage back to back home runs in the third inning to close the gap, but I didn’t hear it because WEEI was falling apart at the time.

Come on, Red Sox. Let’s get that lead back and let Mr Sale off the hook.

Red Sox = Ulcer

We are down to the last weekend of the Major League Baseball season. My beloved Red Sox are clinging to the final American League playoff spot by the proverbial skin of their proverbial teeth.

Here is the current standings:

We could realistically finish the season on a four way tie in the wild card race. I’ve no clue how that would be handled. I’m sure there are tie breakers built into the standings, but could they all have to have play off games to make it to the play in game?

Note, three of the four teams are from the AL East. That’s crazy, but it gets worse. Check out the “if it ended today” bracket…

The first team the play in winner will face is yet another AL East team. How insane is that?

Needless to say, go Red Sox.

Game #163

For the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers the 162 game major league baseball season has 163 games. The two teams face off tonight in Texas to break the tie for the second AL wild card slot. The winner then gets to play a second one game playoff, this time against the Cleveland Indians. The winner of that games faces the triumphant, glorious, freakishly bearded, civil war re-enactors knows as the Boston Red Sox.

So as a Boston fan, who do I want to win? Honestly, I don’t know. The Rays’ pitching scares me. I’ve been saying for weeks that I don’t want to face them. Now though, are they in better shape than Texas and their current seven game winning streak, or Cleveland who have also been playing well lately? Tampa Bay is kind of a mess right now. Hell, they almost blew their chance at the post season yesterday by blowing a 7-0 lead to the last place Blue Jays. On top of all that, the Red Sox have dominated the Rays in recent weeks.

I don’t know. I guess I really don’t care who wins today or tomorrow, just so long as they use up their entire bull pen and waste their best starting pitchers, and maybe have the stress of the play in games launch their hitters into terrible slumps. It doesn’t matter who the Red Sox face, so long as the Red Sox win three straight to sweep themselves into the American League Championship Series. I’ll settle for that, for now.

Home Field Advantage

Hello and welcome to the final day of the Major League Baseball regular season. As of yesterday, there is nothing left for the Red Sox to play for. Just as the Sox vs Orioles game was starting, the A’s lost their game. That guaranteed the Red Sox home field advantage through the American League playoffs. The AL’s win at the all star game guarantees the AL pennant winners home field in the World Series. So the Sox could potentially have home field all the way through the post season. That has a nice ring to it.

Boston has 97 wins with one game left to play. After the nightmare horror of last season, I was optimistic that they could win 81 games. Let’s look at the current standings and see where an 81 win season would have placed us. How does second to last in the AL East ahead of only Toronto sound? It sounds like a huge improvement over last year, that’s what it sounds like. It also looks really depressing to finish behind the Yankees yet again. Fortunately, we’re just cruising our way to the best record in the entire American League. I cannot overstate how happy I am with this team. What a great season, and hopefully the best is yet to come.

As for the Division Series match ups, they are set for the Division winners. Oakland plays Detroit and Boston plays the wild card winner. The wild card race is still up in the air. Neither spot in the AL has been clinched yet. With one game still to be played, Cleveland (91-70) has a one game lead over Texas and Tampa Bay (both at 90-71). Tampa Bay plays Toronto today at 1:00, Cleveland plays the Twins at 2:00, and Texas plays the Angels at 3:00 (all times are Eastern). If the race ends with two teams tied for the second wild card spot, there will be a one game playoff on Monday (to decide who gets to play in the one game playoff… confusing, eh? Just wait, it gets worse) with the team that won the season series hosting. If the race ends in a three way tie it gets really strange.

The league has a formula where they designate the three teams as Teams A, B, and C. I am not sure about this, but I think the slotting is based on winning percentage against the other two teams, with the team with the best record getting to chose which slot they want. Cleveland is team A, Tampa Bay is team B, and Texas is team C. What does that mean? On Monday, Cleveland would host Tampa Bay. The winner gets the first wild card slot. On Tuesday, Texas would host the team that lost on Monday with the winner getting the second wild card slot, and the loser getting the opportunity to start Christmas shopping a little early. Then of course, the two wild card teams play each other to determine who wins the chance to lose to the Red Sox in the Division Series.

Part of me is rooting for that three way tie! Imagine having to play three one game playoffs on three consecutive days (I think, the wild card game might be Thursday, but I am pretty sure it’s going to be Wednesday), talk about stress, huh? I don’t really care who wins what, just as long as Tampa Bay doesn’t advance to the Division Series. As far as a Red Sox opponent goes, all three teams scare me, but Tampa Bay’s pitching scares me the most. I would much rather facing the Indians or the Rangers.

We’ll have to hang on and see how it all turns out over the next few days. It definitely looks to be a fun finish to the regular season in the American League, and I haven’t even looked at what’s happening in the National League yet.