2008 ALCS: Red Sox vs Rays

Red Sox at Rays - Fri., Oct. 10 8:00 PM - TBS
Red Sox at Rays - Sat., Oct. 11 7:30 PM - TBS
Rays at Red Sox - Mon., Oct. 13 4:00 PM - TBS
Rays at Red Sox - Tue., Oct. 14 7:30 PM - TBS
Rays at Red Sox - Thu., Oct. 16 7:30 PM - TBS
Red Sox at Rays - Sat., Oct. 18 4:00 PM - TBS
Red Sox at Rays - Sun., Oct. 19 7:30 PM - TBS

red sox in 6, i hope&pray

Rays in 6. I can only accept an Evil Empire Jr win if they go on to lose WS on a Manny HR.

Red Sox in 6 and it's gonna rock bells.

Sox in 7. Gonna be a brutal series.

Yes Sox in 6 sounds about right.

Tough one. I'll say Rays in 7.

rays in 7

Rays in six

Homefield advantage = Rays in 6.

Over/under on number of brushbacks, brawls, and "incidents" this series?

Sox in 5

"I've got my boy David Ortiz and (Mike) Lowell and all those guys," Ramirez said. "I'm pulling for them."

"That was a good trade," Ramirez said. "I think it was the right move. (Bay) can run, play the outfield. He's got six tools. I've got five."

^hero

sox 5

still got mad <3 4 manny

What's the 6th tool? Pavement saw?

sanity

But then a joking Manny Ramirez asks about a fortune of another sort: "You think I'm going to get a full share [of playoff money] from Boston?"

"joking"

Craig (New York, NY): With Lowell out, what do the Sox do at the corners? Youk at 1st and Lowrie at 3rd, with Cora at short? Kotsay take over 1st and move Youk to 3rd?

Rob Neyer: Francona seems to be amazingly flexible, so we'll probably see both of those options and maybe one or two more. By the way, have you ever seen a first baseman with more range than Kotsay showed last night? I think that was the most impressive thing I've ever seen a first baseman do.

I bet if you put Carlos Gomez at first base he'd have a lot of range.

but would miss the ball often.

I'm kind of scared about a Manny vs. BOS Series. I don't think I can spend an entire four-to-seven game series completely drunk, I've got midterms coming up.

Sox in 6.

That's right, Mark!

rays in 5 controversy

sox in 6 and i hope i'm wrong.

^i almost said exactly that btw

A tale of two home fields:

Tropicana Field:
TAM at home: 57-24
TAM vs. BOS at home: 8-1

Fenway Park:
BOS at home: 56-25
BOS vs. TAM at home: 7-2

Home field advantage is going to play a huge role in the outcome of this series, and this is why it was HUGE that the Rays held off the Sox all season long.

Rays in 7!

http://www.adamriff.com/images/postseason_cs.jpg

Hey fuck you!

lol

I didn't originate that; Bam has a bigger budget than Tampa, and Rays don't have a boner for killing bin Laden.

Is that last flourish gonna be a continuing meme, or is it only today?

maybe he will kill bin laden w/his boner

SEX BOMB

01 Sonic Youth Feat. Edwin Jackson - I Killed Bin Laden with My Big Fuckin' Dick.mp3

http://i35.tinypic.com/243f7f5.jpg

this doesnt make sense from the alcs matchup perspective but philly is totally the grumpy old man team

also obv the national league sux

I was shown that after observing that the Phillies ARE like Biden: "qualified" assholes.

philly is way too negative to be biden - biden is an upbeat boston style asshole all the way

but Phillies = Citizens Bank
Joe = Bank of America nee MBNA

however Manny does have more foreign policy exp than Palin.

mccain is always losing/crashing his plane but keeps coming back for more

so the mets are john edwards

haha yes!

no, Mets are more like Gore

clinton/gore is yankees

Giuliani = Yankees

Fuck them both

"Hughes/Kennedy will get us to the playoffs" = "I don't need to campaign in Florida."

not the women, the Rays. can they beat phillie? seems like there's gonna be a lot of balls flying out of the park.

reply hazy -- try again later

xpost: fauxhawks are what won them the series!

best thing about Tampa: cool cat old Cuban dudes playing cards in the cigar district.

props to joseph sixpack for that Rays = Obama post. that shit was hot, and almost true at this point.

Isn't Philly like the 4th largest TV market? So the ratings won't be *that* bad ...

Surprised it's Garza and not Upton, but it's tough to argue. He pitched great.

garza <3s tupac

ffs Chip -- no need to wax Boston's pole w/ that "classy" slobber

"class act"

Garza would have been my pick too.

good job rays

not sure who i'll be rooting for in the WS if anyone

seriously?

I still love the fact there is a pool full of real devil rays in the outfield, I wanted TBS to cut to them at the end of each inning:

http://assets.espn.go.com/media/apphoto/c00eaf8f-e01c-4b3e-9076-8ae738bce9d3.jpg

how could anyone not from philadelphia (city of douchebags) root for the phillies? a team that still employs brett myers, the guy who publicly beat the shit out of his tiny ass wife -versus- lovable underdog rays - basically rooting for the phillies makes you nothing less than a turd of a human being

imho

yeah but on the other end the cowbells are really annoying

^^ deserves a Buck / McCarver broadcast team

i'm rooting for whoever's the first to hit a home run into the ray tank

Michael, that's not a devil ray insofar as there isn't an actual species of ray called "devil rays." The TB Devil Rays were named after a nickname for the manta, which that fellow in your pic certainly isn't.

Errr, there are actual devil rays, you moran.

Yeah, I think the Rays are the least hateable WS team since forever. They don't even have some kind of old Todd Jones-ish loser on the roster. And even the manager is great.

9 = 2

how could anyone not from philadelphia (city of douchebags) root for the phillies?

bears repeating. go rays.

BASEBALL

Gotta love the intangibles of having your catcher strike out with RISP late in a one-run game.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Sunday, October 19, 2008 10:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

One of your THREE catchers!

http://d.yimg.com/a/p/sp/getty/df/fullj.c729c527bf383230ec35a464f34226c0/c729c527bf383230ec35a464f34226c0-getty-83143926cp036_boston_red_so.jpg

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/7316/untitled1dg2.jpg

yay Rays... tho really, I like Francona, can't quite work up total Sox hatred. Someone plz let me know how the Lupica-Fatcesa-Kay triad chokes back their "hehse sissies can't beat the greatest klutch team EVAH" meme.

Also TB, don't celebrate HRs in the dugout too much or the Phillbitches will be PO'd.

Oh fuck, Sutcliffe's only on the mlb international feed.

you traitors deserve no less.

ball-strike calls were pretty crappy last night btw.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

(that is all)

“There are two positions on the field where you can have a positive impact without hitting. Catcher and shortstop.”

Now, I don’t really want to delve into the logic of this statement, in large part because I fear that it will be like some inescapable language maze*** and I’ll end up wandering the dark forever. I’m assuming that Buck was simply repeating one of those baseball chestnuts about how catchers and shortstops (and ONLY catchers and shortstops) offer so much value as defenders and leaders and role models and good-will ambassadors and scrappers that they don’t even have to hit baseballs with bats in order to help the ballclub. They can beat you with their minds. And their power to turn invisible.

No, what struck me about it was how utterly confident Buck sounded saying this — he said it like he was simply reciting a fact he had picked up. The last president to not graduate from college was Harry Truman. … The theme songs from Diff’rent Strokes and Facts of LIfe were composed by Alan Thicke … The emperor penguin can grow to almost four feet tall … There are two positions on the field where you can have a positive impact without hitting — catcher and shortstop.

http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2008/10/20/big-game-garza-and-other-thoughts/

i can think of a third such position

pitcher

I'm sorry, I just wanted to see what 'literal, non-proportional text' meant.

no problemo

Between the past-junior's-bedtime starting times, the stunning mediocrity of the announcers (at the national level at least), and the barrage of ads devoted to male plumbing dysfunctions, it's a wonder that TV hasn't succeeded in killing baseball yet.

I'm kinda surprised Sheehan is the only guy I've read so far to mention this (I'm sure a Boston scribe or 2 musta)....

Price was the story in the late innings, and I don't want to take away from that. However, you can't write about this game and not at least acknowledge that the decision pitches to Drew and Kotsay were both outside. Not on the black or the corner or any place else; they were outside. Until and unless we get a strike zone that is 17 inches wide all the time, shaped like a rectangle all the time, and located in the same place all the time, baseball will always be a little less than it should be.

PLEASE SAVE US, QUESTEC

ump rubs up ball

http://fusionanomaly.net/sleeperwoodyallenholdingorb.jpg

but really, if I was a Sawx fan I'da kicked the TV.

I'm not a Braves or a Marlins fan, but it's embarrassing (for baseball) that the first thing most people remember about the 1997 NLCS is Eric Gregg's strike zone.

aha, Goldman:

The postseason strike zone has been all over the place, not that that is too different from the regular season. We really don't need any more travesties like games settled by an Eric Gregg "I have a bus to catch so every pitch is a strike" approach, not that I thought the Price pitch to Drew was THAT much of a travesty. I think we're on the way to some kind of robot umpire, but it will come slowly, haltingly, and with much gnashing of teeth.

Is he talking about the Price pitch to Drew where Drew's bat went around? I don't remember the strike zone being any more ridiculous than usual last night.

Make no mistake about it.

The Curse of Babe Ruth is gone.

Kaput.

Vamoose.

See ya.

That albatross was vanquished in the autumnal glow of Yankee Stadium in 2004, along with the Yankee mystique, which no longer matters.

Twenty-six 20th century World Series titles? Yesterday's news. Put away the history books, fellas. Welcome to the 21st century, guys. It's 2-0 Boston in this century.

Catching up won't be so easy.

Or will it?

Yesterday's defeat of Boston by the Tampa Bay Rays was like a warning shot across the bow. A team that at one time brushed off 3-1 and 3-0 postseason series deficits like they were mere annoyances couldn't close the deal after a 3-3 series tie.

One word for it.

Curse.

For the first time in a long time, Boston lost a series it should have won. And for the first time in a long time, Boston was without someone who would have given opposing pitchers fits, who would have protected David Ortiz in the lineup, who would have done more than Jason Bay could ever dream of doing.

Do I need to spell it out for you?

M-A-N-N-Y

The trade that shook Boston might have done more than that. It might have cost Boston the division title (imagine if he put up those eye-popping numbers in Boston instead of L.A.) and therefore cost Boston home-field advantage. And therefore the AL Championship.

Worse still, it might have unleashed a curse far worse than Ruth's. At least Ruth was a part-time utility player at the time of the trade and not the superstar first baseman he would become. Manny is a grade-A superstar, a team player, a bonafied clutch gritter.

And we betrayed him.

This curse might be unkillable.

Make your move, New York. Looks like the AL East is yours for the taking now.

Regarding the umpiring, it was kind of sickening to listen to the TBS people being all "OH NOES HOW WILL THE PITCHERS ADJUST" when Derryl Cousins got hurt in game 6. If it matters at all, something's fucked up!

That strike zone that Morbs is complaining about was de riguer in the MLB for how many decades? /GMaddux

can someone hook up a gif of garza spitting

convex tongued Garza

we all can't love what's de rigueur as thou so pash'nately dost

http://www.opelproductions.com/archives/misc_pics/071206-syd_barrett.jpg

The strike zone wasn't worse than usual last night. What DID make me want to have a TV to kick (unfortunately they were all suspended high above us) was the HP umpire calling Drew's check on strike three as a swing without an appeal to third. That was a very borderline "swing" from the side reply and totally smacks of the HP ump wanting to make a big call and insert himself into a dramatic moment.

just looked up eric gregg's entry on wikipedia, wherein I found:

On December 31, 1974, he married Ramona Camilo, with whom he had four children; his hobbies included viewing soap operas.

NEW YORK -- Game 7 of the AL Championship Series drew the most viewers ever for a baseball game on cable television.

Nearly 13.4 million people watched the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Boston Red Sox 3-1 on Sunday night on TBS, the network said Monday. That broke the mark set by the 1998 Chicago Cubs-St. Louis Cardinals game on ESPN in which Mark McGwire hit his 61st home run to tie the single-season record.

Game 7 earned a 7.9 rating, with the series averaging a 4.6. That's up 64 percent from last year's NLCS on TBS, the Colorado Rockies' sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks in a series that lacked the large market and national appeal that the Red Sox bring.