Tampa engaging in some strategery. Knowing that Dice-K has been lights out, they've decided to move the struggling Kazmir to tomorrow night's game, so as to have Shields (their best pitcher) pitch in Game 6, at home.

Always sound so smart on the surface but assuming Boston wins game five and then pull out game 6, suddenly you put a massive amount of pressure on yourself.

With a 3-1 lead they should still win it though.

Uh... regardless of when Shields and Kazmir pitch, if they win Game 5 and Game 6, there will be massive amounts of pressure.

bad juju!!!!

Fire Burns Landmark Citgo Sign - Local News Story - WCVB Boston

Chan Ho Park sighting

The wheels are coming off the Dodgers.

Bad News Bears sighting...

Furcal is having a forgetable series

Wow....nice inning for Furcal

Man, Philly might be partying tonight.

Meh

Ohh, nice escape.

well there goes that rally

Damn Manny hit that thing far

WAY TO GO COLE!!!

This ump is...not good?

Yeah, Kent had a legitimate beef there.

And Manny gets a hit in his last AB as a Dodger?

3 MORE OUTS!!

That was close.

Lidge has been doing that since the last week of the season. It is going to bite him.

Gah. Congrats to the Phils

PHILLIES WIN THE PENNANT!!

:)

congrats to the Phils.


Puke.

can I delete this thread for real this time?

Who is gonna be NLCS MVP?

Congrats to the Phils. It's not the Blue Jays, but if someone from '93 had to get there, Philly has earned it.

I'll root for Tampa Bay, though.

But I do like their team a lot. Nice, scrappy guys but who actually can play baseball. Good for them.

Congrats to the Phillies, at least I got to see the Dodgers win a post-season series for the first time since I was 5 years old.

Cole has to be the MVP

Someone wanna complain about baseball celebrations before the World Series yet?

Sigh :(

A little bit of craziness going on in the streets of Philly right now.

:thumbsup:

Yeah!!!!!

:banana: :banana: :banana:

Good for the Phillies. Looks like it will be a great world series as well.

Let's Go TAMP!

:):):)

WOOT! I've been rooting for the Rays all year. LET'S GO!

Congrats to Phils fans. Hopefully the Rays can finish their series up tonight in 5 as well tonight.

SI

Good Lord. If the Rays win tonight, there's an outside chance that the playoffs may not go into December this year. Wouldn't that be something????

Crazy talk! He's a witch, burn him! ;)

SI

Tho, in theory, they're locked into starting Oct 22nd, even if the AL ended tonight. What flavor of stupid is that?

SI

Works for me because I could only go to the game on a weekend, and it falls perfect that I got tickets for the 26th!

I thought you had game 5 tickets? That's on a Monday. Keep me in mind of you have to sell off your tickets for any reason. Have I ever told you that you are easily my favorite FOFC'er? :D

dola: My memory failed me, now I see it was game 4. Oh well, can't blame a guy for trying. ;)

So, I just woke up about a 1/2 hour ago. :D

Last night was ridiculous. I didn't go into Center City, but even the party on the Main Line was pretty ridiculous. For those who are familiar in the area, we started out at Kelly's in Bryn Mawr, and ended up at Brownies in Ardmore. So much fun.

GO PHILS!

Upton homers again, Rays up 2-0 in the first. If they win tonight let's just have the Series begin on Saturday.

!!!!


Pena with a TWO RUN HR!!

BACK TO BACK BABY!!! WOOOW

Man o' Man. You knew Longoria was gonna go deep. You just knew it. He wants that MVP.

So yeah, why the heck are we going to have to wait until Wednesday for the World Series? Are the TV ratings for baseball playoff games really that much better on weekends?

I just don't want to see both teams coming out like the '06 Tigers did after a long layoff.

Or like the Rockies last year. Though they did sweep in the NLCS which doesn't help, so it wasn't really baseball's fault I guess.

Finally the announcer says what I've been saying for 3 innings - throw at somebody please.

I'd also leave Dice-K in. He really isn't pitching badly - he has good stuff and he's throwing strikes. Going to the bullpen now wouldn't work.

Fuck

Papi is no joke.

That said, I still say Tampa gets out of this.

Holy smokes...when do the Rays start getting nervous, as they have yet to be all season?

How can you not bring in a lefty to pitch there?

No doubt.. sheesh.. what a BOMB!

For the same reason they need to know the home league in July, few good reasons.

whoa....interesting to see how youkilis responds to the one over his head.

Wheeler started shaking his glove coming set, and I went to the fridge to get a drink. He was still doing it when I got back.

re: Wednesday start for WS
from last year's article on the subject

In an effort to boost sagging ratings for the World Series, Major League Baseball announce Monday that the 2007 Fall Classic will start on Wednesday instead of Saturday.

A Wednesday allows baseball to avoid playing on Friday, which is TV's second-least watched night after Saturday. If the Series goes to a Game 5, it also would go head-to-head with ESPN's Monday Night Football.

But why couldn't they (assuming Tampa holds on here) start the WS on Saturday? Then you have Saturday-Sunday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Saturday-Sunday. You still don't play on Friday and you even avoid MNF altogether. I don't get it.

I can't imagine how much this will help considering the matchup. The Rays just don't have a long enough history. It's not like they're the 100-year-old Red Sox, who have generations of faifthful sprinkled all over the country.

Tampa Bay has some budding stars, but none of them are either household names or polarizing figures. If only they somehow still had Josh Hamilton...

Maybe they're from the "People who catch the first episode are more likely to stay for the whole season" camp?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

UNBELIEVEABLE!!!!

I'm rooting for the Rays, but this is something to watch.

I still say Tampa gets out of this.

Wow, this is interesting. I mean, TB still has Howell, Miller, and Jackson in the pen, while Boston has Masterson and Lopez. I gotta believe papelbon (who is close to a career high number of pitches) is done.

Looks like we've got ourselves a game.

OMFG. Tied...man...Tampa might be toast for tonight. Gonna need some more Upton and Longoria magic.

What an AB. Holy shit this is crazy. 7-7, 9th inning. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

You kind of answered your own question there.
Your version, if it goes 7, includes 2 Saturday's the least watched TV night of the week.

Instead, the Wednesday start gives them only 1 Saturday (and lets the set the schedule in stone ahead of time instead of being TBD)
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 22
THURSDAY, OCT. 23
SATURDAY, OCT. 25
SUNDAY, OCT. 26
MONDAY, OCT. 27
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 29
THURSDAY, OCT. 30

As for whether it'll actually do them any good (as Karlifornia alluded to) is a whole different question.

Baseball fucking rocks.

:+1:

Why not walk Papi? He's not gonna be a run threat at first...

Or that works too...;)

If the Rays do make the Series, I do think that Philadelphia has an edge in the bullpen spot.

Oh, Evan....

Evannnnn...great play, bad throw

And baseball's aristocracy lives to see another night. But it's far from over.

Gawd, I wanna puke. Tampa, you better take care of business at home. I don't want to see another game in this ballpark this year.

This next game just became appointment TV for me.

Love that dirty water...

http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?gameid=281016102

Boston wins the series.

*sigh*

At least this has been a Rays team that hasn't really seemed like they get bothered by pressure before. They seem like a fairly loose team. Let's see if that can help them. And they are heading home, where they had the best home record in the majors.

Go Sox!!! I will kill someone if I have to listen to those assinine cow bells multiple games. Who ever started that should be shot, it's THE most annoying thing in sports (it has replaced the tomohawk chop).

A Red Sox/Phillies series would kick ass. It would be the ultimate nightmare for the fan morality police contingent.

I too am rooting for the Sox.

As much as I want Philly to win the Series, I really do not want the trophy to go to a bandwagoner fan base who chooses to pay attention to the team only where they are a step or two away from the show.

I'll do my part as well

Fucking Avalanche!

If Boston wins this series, forget the World Series. I just won't watch this year- I'd rather watch politics for 2 more weeks because I'm *less* tired of it.

I'll wish Phillies fans well and hope for a 4 game sweep with about a 50-7 run differential but I won't watch. I want to see something new, I want to see something interesting, and I don't want to watch Fox slobber all over Boston yet again.

SI

ESPN - Sources: Pads gauging interest in Peavy, whose contract runs through 2013 - MLB

Why in the world do you even entertain offers for Peavy? You have the best pitcher in the National League *under contract for 5 years*! It's not like he's going to be a free agent next season. He's got a pretty good club contract and it's for his age 27-32 years.

"Peavy, 27, will make $8 million in 2009, $15 million in 2010, $16 million in 2011 and $17 million in 2012, and he has a 2013 option for $22 million, with a $4 million buyout."


Doesn't make any sense at all.


SI

Yes because they had so much to root for the first 10 years they existed. It's hard to want to cheer on a team when they've sucked since conception.

I moved to Massachusetts shortly after interleague play began if I remember correctly (my memory fails the older I get).. but I remember the radio adds for interleague play... The Longtime heated rivalry between Boston and Philadelphia was playing on the radios for a week... I was like ... huh??


Maybe I was just irritated because I had hoped the Red Sox and Braves would play each season (since the Braves started in Boston) like Mets and Yankees play every season... since then I could watch at least one series of my Braves every year!

I don't know. I haven't heard the cow bell thing yet (I don't watch too much baseball), but it would be hard pressed to be more annoying than the "train whistles" that the fans in Nashville blew every time Jordan Tootoo was on the ice. It's a horrible sound.


That's the only reason I have for not rooting against the Sox. That and, let's face it, their fanbase can't really be anymore annoying/obnoxious than it already is (present company excluded, of course), so if they win again nothing worse will really happen.

Yeah, it's not like there are any bandwagon fans that support the Boston/New England teams.

I find the Philly fans to be rather faithful. Maybe that is because I live about two hours away and support a team in their division, but every team has more fans when they're winning.


Well said.

Divorce court.

Philly area FOFC outing at McFaddens?

Why is the red sox rays game not on yet on TBS?