Tag: post season

Can You Believe It?

Can you believe it? Has the reality sunk in?

We live in a world where the Boston Red Sox are going to play in the World Series.

Really.

I’m not kidding.

I suppose I’ll take this opportunity to go over my predictions in the MLB post season thus far. After the wild card games and the Division series, I was at a pathetic two out of six. Now after the two League Championship series I have improved to four out of eight.

I picked the Heroic Red Sox over the wimpy Tigers, and the Red Sox won. I was right, damn it! I was right!
I picked the Cardinals over the Dodgers, and the Cardinals won. I was right again.

Two for Two in the LCS. I like being right when it counts. Of course, I wouldn’t care what happened as long as I was right about the Red Sox. What a glorious time we live in!

Do I need to actually voice my pick for the World Series?

Boston Red Sox vs St. Louis Cardinals. I’m picking the beards, beetchez! It’s time for the Red Sox to reclaim their place at the top of Major League Baseball. The Red Sox are a team of destiny and will win their third World Series 10 years!

PleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePleasePlease

Go Red Sox!

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!

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!

Not Good

When I said I wanted tonight’s game between the Red Sox and the Tigers to be a blow out, I was actually hoping for the Red Sox to be scoring tons of runs, not the Tiggers. This game is not fun right now.

Pre-Game

It’s almost time for game four. They beat Verlander last night. They beat Scherzer on Monday.

Bring on game four. Like I said earlier, I’m hoping for a nice, calm blow out. A 30-0 Red Sox win should do it for me.

Napoli

http://wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=31144743&topic_id=8878860

Lackey and Verlander were pretty much pitching gods last night. They both ate the other team’s lineups for breakfast. Most hitters were unable to make contact. Mike Napoli failed to put the ball in play in his first two at bats. I guess third time was the charm for him. Watch the video linked above (I was hoping it would embed, but I guess not).

In one swing, Napoli put the Red Sox ahead in the series two games to one. The Red Sox beat the Tigers 1-0 last night in one of the best, most intense pitching duels I’ve ever had the pleasure to watch.

Game four is tonight. As much fun as last night was, I could really go for a nice blow out tonight. How about the Red Sox score 10 or 15 times in the first inning. That would make a nice stress-free change of pace.

Wild Card Games

Well Robbie, that was a good way to kick of baseball’s post season. I picked the Reds to win the wild card play-in against the Pirates and the Pirates owned the game from the first pitch to the last. I am officially 0-1 in playoff predictions so far.

The American League game is tonight. The Rays and the Indians. I am rooting for the Indians because I think the Red Sox have a better chance at beating them in the Divisional Series than they do the Rays. However, this is a prediction post. I predict that the Rays will win and advance to face my team. Hopefully this time tomorrow I will be 0-2 in my prognosticating.

Oh, and the NHL started last night. No lock outs this year. I flipped the channel from TBS to VS (or whatever the hell it’s called now… NBC Sports or something?) just in time to see the Blackhawks unfold the Stanley Cup banner. Oh the hell with that. I switched back to TBS. The Bruins open against Tampa Bay on Thursday. No Stanley Cup banner raising ceremony for us this year.

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.