If Jon Lester were any more of a force physicists would try to unify him.Lester decided all those lopsided anaheim regular season wins were irrelevant. Ellsbury decided only the guy who hit .360 in last year's postseason would show up, adding 3 hits, 2 steals, an RBI, and one amazing clutch 8th inning catch.
I wondered yesterday about which out of all the past patterns that could possibly project would make that holiest of transitions from possible to actual. And frankly, I couldn't be much happier with the selection.
Ah, winning in the playoffs. It provokes heartfelt interjections, the 'take thats!' and 'eff yeahs' of my lexicon. So much fun. The air is crisp, the pitches are subtle, and the Sox are winning. Good times.
But I'll be nit picky anyway. Lowell looked awful; he's hurt. He had no drive from his back leg, and he swung it around on each full-hearted but half-assed (more literally than figuratively meant) cut in an attempt to ease the pressure. Drew was late on fastballs all night. Pedroia came up 4 times with runners in scoring position, and only managed a walk. Ortiz missed a couple hittable pitches, and didn't hit anything hard. Francona didn't sub Cora for defense after Lowell batted in the 7th, though he did acknowledge Tek can't hit, twice calling for the sac bunt (once successfully.)
Bay, though, pulled another bomb on an outside fastball; he just loves to hook those. Youkilis' recovery on the bloop in the 8th was heads-up; rather than field the ball and look up to see if Guerrero was running, he came up firing first and asked questions... subsequently. And Papelbon buried two nasty splitters to Aybar.
The Angels hit only 1 or two balls hard all night, and only mustered one unearned run. They've squandered home field advantage, and with Beckett and then Lester due to pitch in Fenway if necessary, that should be sufficient to send the Angels on another October vacation.
Yes, one win performs the alchemy of changing pessimism to... something else.
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5 comments:
The Angels did not do a lot offensively, but I do worry about their 3-4-5 guys. Every sinlg etime they came through the order, 2 of them reached base. That is a tough threesome and they are bound to score a few runs.
That said, Friday is as close to must-win as you can get. If they lose, they face Beckett in Boston with the series on the line! No one want to do that!
yeah, that middle of the order is pretty decent; texeira has something like a 1.030 OPS since the trade.
but they didn't hit many balls hard off lester; anderson's first ab was impressive, stepping away (in the bucket) and lining an inside fastball, but i'm confident he can handle all those guys again... if they don't get swept first.
Jonah,
How did you add RSS to your site?
cartman's-
sorry for the late reply; i've been out of town.
the rss- you mean the thingee that lets people subscribe? (notice my technical jargon.) one can edit layout and 'add a gadget', as they seem to be called, and an rss subscription thing is one of the options.
Thanks Jonah -- the RSS thing is for a friend's blog.
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