Jeez, Kendrick...

SI

horrible AB by Kendrick (looked as bad as Ellsbury against arredondo)

Yeah, he and Figgy are good friends. Makes you wonder...

Woot!

SI

Woohoo! Within one!

Who's next? Crap, it's Aybar.

fuckin masterson - get it over the goddamn plate

I like how Aybar tried to duck that one into a ball. lol

Not quite...

there we go justin - good rook

Shoot. One closer. But one closer inning to the end, too.

No Shark Bite this time.. but the JAWS theme was playing at 150db there.

Well, there was a one run bite. You guys were that terrier that got bit by a shark, and then Masterson, after dicking around for a bit, punched the shark in the head to free the dog.

And Jacoby.. free tacos for the nation if you steal a base.

That wouldn't be hard. We don't have a Molina back there anymore. As a catcher, Napoli...


...hey, did I tell you about his bat?

*chuckles* I gues this is a non-traditional use of K-Rod, but this is a must stop situation

Wow. No one covering on the play?

If it was Aybar who missed the sign on covering 2B, he just made up for it there.

Still has to make up for the AB, though, he and his partner Kendrick.

We needed Garland this year, so I guess it worked out, but how much better would it have been to have OCab in that spot when we needed a big hit? Izturis, who is hurt, is more likely to get that hit, too.

Chief: I don't know about you man, but this game feels like a 200 minute (so far) heart attack.

Chone!

SI

Chone, baby. I take back everything I ever said about you.

I know it does for me and I don't really have a vested interest in it except for a minor dislike for the Red Sox and a desire for this series to go longer than 3 games :)

SI

SHITFUCK. Should have brought in Javi or Paps

Oddly enough, that resignation thing is a serious kicker. Of course, I care, but I feel like the fan of a team that has already lost or is guaranteed to lose. So there's not much pressure. Joy at making a run, but no pressure. Yet.

We'll see how it goes if we actually catch you, though.

I'll say this: great fuckin' game! :)

And I'm laughing when I say this.. I tell you what, if the Angels fail to score Figgins from third with no one out, and I was an Angels fan, there would be some serious 57 channels/Springsteen action on my TV "So I bought a .44 magnum it was solid steel cast/And in the blessed name of Elvis well I just let it blast"

...

SI

You gotta be kidding me.

Tie game!

SI

Hell yeah!

Tie game. Are we having fun yet?

Have to say, if I was going to bring in Paps for six outs, I would have done it BEFORE the triple.

But the big bats for the Sox are up in the ninth. Ortiz, Youk, Drew, Bay.

Yup. And K-Rod's the perfect pitcher for you.

And as I am typing this, Ortiz get's a double. Well, at least K-Rod will start trying now.

PAPI!

At least Papi is out of the game.

Napoli's doing it again. Sheesh.

Bull.

Missed call. Crisp still hasn't touched 2nd since Aybar had it blocked

SI

Looks like he was safe on the 2nd look.

Second replay, second thought. It was a good call by the ump. Damn tough to call.

okay - gotta say

between tori hunter and aybar these angels are some whiney fucks. can they stfu and play?

Completely biased, but it looked like the tag was out in front and never touched Coco until the swipe at the end.

Not at first, but he slipped his foot in. Just before Aybar reached back.

There we go. Drew with the Angel killer.

BAM!!!! JD DREW!!! MONSTER POSTSEASON HR'S!!!!

It was a close call. Give them a break, huh?

The angles that we saw didn't really show when he touched the bag since he slid in between his legs and one of the legs obscured the area where his foot would have first touched the bag.

Starting to get in their heads? Where the fuck have you been, dumbass announcer?!?

Well, anyone who has watched the Angels this year knew that was coming eventually. It's amazing K-Rod doesn't have more blown saves this year. He just never has an easy 1-2-3 inning.

but on both of the close calls the guys were jumping up and down and shouting hysterically...i dunno, frankly i thought it was more funny than anything else that they had identical responses practically

Yeah, you're worth $15 fucking M, Frankie.

You want to see a guy who's actually worth that? Look at the closer in the other dugout.

Unbelieveable. Just wow.

I suppose. But really, right now, with us getting beat by you guys again, I just don't want to hear you badmouthing us, too. We're taking enough shit from ourselves. So we don't really need the help there.

Mickey Mantle-esque power. Please

SI

Besides Lopez, who do the Sox have in their bullpen for the ninth?

valid point. my apologies. if it helps i'd be badmouthing the red sox guys if they were doing the same thing. my irritation with it was on a sportsmanship-level.

You don't think Paps will finish it out?

Paps doesn't have a single two inning save this year. I'd have Manny Delcarmen ready just in case.

Just in case, absolutely, but I'm confident in Paps finishing it out.

Well, if they keep on getting out in one pitch (GREAT play by Youk)... I think Paps can finish

I can see that. Really, these guys have all been pretty straight up and cool all year. Not really a lot of bad sports on the team. I think the streak is getting to them. And let's face it, we haven't gotten a lot of help from the umps tonight.

I'm gonna say we give them a break, since we just can't seem to beat you guys. Think about you guys versus the Yanks before 2004. That's what it's like for us with you. That's the shit we're dealing with. We're a pretty damn good team here, and you would never be able to tell with how we play you guys.

Gotta say, Chief. I respect Angels fans a ton.. and the weird thing is (and NO, I'm not trying to rub it in).. I can think of three four games where there was walkoffs or what have you.. this streak isn't that we're so much better then you, the breaks have just gone our way, which is maddening I'm sure.

Wow. Nice catch.

You see? Plays like that. The Red Sox make plays like that against us.

Youkilis! Are you kidding me! :D

Exactly. Foz, this goes back to Dave Freakin' Henderson. This streak killed a man, for Crissakes. And 19 years after he died, it's still going.

Another good game, Red Sox. You made the plays when you needed to. We made some plays, too. But it's the team that makes the last play that takes the game, and you guys have a lock on that.

Ball game. Wow. Talk about trouble. The Angels have to face Beckett in game 3, Lester again in game 4 if need be, and then again, Dice K in game 5

Oh Gawd. "You needed an epidural just to walk..."

I hate announcers. Not everyone is freakin' Kirk Gibson.

Well, I'm not really freaked out about facing Dice K. Not that we'll see him again.

I can't feel sorry for Angels fans. At least you guys have a title to enjoy. Let them suffocate under the dirt that's burying them. Finish it off, Sox. Do it for Framingham, do it for Gloucester, do it for Billerica, do it for my old town of Winchester, do it for Brockton, do it for Cambridge, do it for all the places by Cape Cod. Ipswich and so forth.

..and then, if you wouldn't mind....get spanked by the Rays in the ALCS :)

Sure thing.


No.

Word :)

SI

I am so pissed at myself right about now. I hadn't checked my home email this week and just saw that I had a chance to get tickets for the NLCS. :(

I'll be at Brewers-Phillies tonight for the first Brewer playoff home game in 26 years. Series hasn't gone well but hopefully we can get a win tonight.

Not too optimistic with Suppan going tomorrow if necessary, but hey, stranger things have happened.

Wow. Brockton, Gloucester and the 'ricca nation? Why don't you throw Fall River, Dorchester and Pittsfield on that list of terrible towns in Massachusetts? :)I don't think Francona will do it, but what about going to Byrd or Wakefield Game 3? There's not much difference between them and Dice-K, and it would line Beckett up to go 1-4-7 in the ALCS if we could get the win. If we lose, we still have Beckett-Lester Games 4 and 5.

Pretty clear that college football (early conference play) > MLB (playoffs) around these here parts ...

Cubs off to another crappy start - six groundouts so far against Kuroda and down 2-0 heading into bottom of 2nd.

Wow, how about that choke job by the Cubbies? Did anyone expect that? Will the White Sox do the same against the upstart Rays? Red Sox loves beating up on expansion teams, though I expect the Rays to put a number on the Sox like the Marlins did on the Yankees in the Classic a few years ago.

It's all part of the plan to get them nice and prettied up so MLB can move them after the Marlins get their new stadium and the Rays fail to get theirs.

Brooklyn anyone?

;)

I tried to post a couple times while I was at the game, but ATT coverage sucks at Dodger Stadium when there are 56,000 people there. Here are some pictures I took at the game.

Picasa Web Albums - DanGarion - Dodgers vs. C...

From Dodgers vs. Cubs 2008 NLDS

From Dodgers vs. Cubs 2008 NLDS

From Dodgers vs. Cubs 2008 NLDS

From Dodgers vs. Cubs 2008 NLDS

I took like 400 total, since I do lots of sequence shots.

I looked over at BleedCubbieBlue.com....Cubs blog that gets a lot of traffic and a lot of comments during the games... Not too many comments during tonights game, for whatever reason (in game chat, maybe), but the few comments that were there after the season-ending loss were just brutal to read. I was kind laughing about the Cubs failures over the past few days. Now I feel bad for laughing. It's just hard to stomach, even as a die-hard fan of a baseball team that hasn't won a title in over a half-century.

The Phils offense continues to struggle. We got the luck of a few fluke plays in the first two games (Cameron's center-field drop in Game 1; Brett Myers channeling Babe Ruth in Game 2) that we just didn't get in Game 3.

In fact, the Phils best scoring chance of the night came on another fluke play when Corey Hart dropped the ball after a spectacular catch, converting a Jayson Werth out into a triple. That was how Philadelphia scored their only run of the night.

Good ole' Charlie made some pretty bad moves tonight in switching Victorino and Werth from their #2/#5 spots and leaving Chad Durbin in too long in the 7th.

Also, it was just a weird night. From the shifting strike zone (which went from really tight to much larger as the game progressed), to the Victorino interference play (what the hell was going on in his mind).

I guess you just chalk it up to, as Billy Beane would say, the "playoffs being fucking luck", and hope Sunday is different.

I just saw that Blanton is going today instead of Hamels. Probably a smart move, but I really don't want to see Sabathia again in Game 5.

Agree with all that coming from the other side.

I will say Miller Park was as electric as I've ever seen it. Home plate ump had a horrible strike zone.

There is a ray of hope left for the Crew. At least the Cubs got knocked out.

Understatement of the year.

I can't remember seeing such a horribly called game. He was awful for both sides. At any given time a pitch almost right over the middle, ankle high, a foot off the plate, etc... had about the same odds of being caled a ball or a strike.

dola: I wouldn't mind if he was missing consistantly where maybe all game you knew that a pitch 3 inches outside would be called a strike, or something along that line.

Agreed. From my view, I could only see high and low but I just couldn't make sense of the zone at all. I also thought they blew a check swing call that went the Brewers way? I forget which one but I thought it was one that a Brewer clearly swung and they didn't call it.

Hopefully today is called much better.

The outside and inside were being called no better. During one of the Brewers' at bats the count was 2-1 and the next pitcher was called a ball but in the replay pitch tracker the pitch was clearly in the zone (not even right on the edge). The following pitcher the batter though he had walked but it was called a strike. The replay clearly shows that one was about 5 inches outside. The 3-2 pitch was called strike 3 and the replay shows that was about 5 inches inside (probably about 8 inches farther inside than the 2-1 pitch which was incorrectly called a ball).

Nose rags swept by douche bags. Fucking Cubs.

Whiniest fans swept by ignorant fans. :)

Awwww

*cry*

:( That's just sad and the product of ignorance. It's like people talking about how baseball needs to end before football so they don't have to miss a couple of meaningless weeks of football.

SI

Cool- I'd love to go to a playoff baseball game :)

SI

HR Burrell!!!!! 4-0

lol, should have waited another minute to post.

HR Werth!!!! 5-0

Who knew Werth would be so good

Damn

Anyone else getting Poor Quality Signal on their TVs for the White Sox game?

I got mine at the start of the 2nd inning. :mad:

I really like Harold Reynolds. He's chatty, but...I like that he's knowledgeable and clearly loves the game. The TBS crews have been good in both games, with John Smoltz and those other guys, as well as this crew for the White Sox v. Rays game.

Woo! Big homerun for Upton.

Come on, guys. Don't blow it!

Come on Rocco!

I love watching Bobby Jenks. :)

2-1 series!

Sad part is, this could just as easily be the other way right now if we hadn't stranded so many damned runners in Game 2... but I'll take the staying alive. :)

All right, this is the first time I have really paid attention to Beckett and noted his numbers this year. They seem a bit underwhelming. I understand that he missed some starts, but a 4.00+ ERA isn't something I expect from him, and now knowing his numbers, I am wondering if maybe Lester should have been #1 overall for the Sox anyway (starting Games 1 and, if necessary, 4).

So can Sox fans give me a synapsis of what's gone on with Beckett this year? Has it just been the injury issues? Everyone knows what the guy can do when healthy and in a good place, especially in the postseason. His phenomenal ability in October is truly amazing.