I don’t have ESPN so I will read the photons on this site intently for balls and strikes and insight. Or just for the funny. Sorry I am late, comment away.
Part The Thirdist: This Time It’s Personal: Yanks-Sox Sunday Gamer
Next post: Is the Rivalry Dead?
Previous post: Part Deux: Yanks-Sox Saturday Gamer
Garcia did a great job wiggling off a bases loaded, no outs jam.
Garcia walks lead off hitter for the 2d straight inning.
I was worried about making Beckett wait…..
They started hitting liners off him in the third, hope it isn’t a trend
1-0 Sox still. Jeter with a couple of good plays that inning to cut down lead runners.
Beckett seemed to throw more fastballs last inning. maybe needs to throw some more offspeed stuff again.
Granderson walks to lead off.
Sigh…..
Josh looks a bit shaky on command, Gonzo bails him out.
2 away
And Joshie lucks out with a deep fly to the triangle.
Homer anywhere else in Fenway, and anywhere else on the Eastern seaboard. for that matter.
I’ll take it……
Where the hell is krueg?
He should see Freddy do fairly well, all things considered.
Also lucky as hell.
Beckett looks like the island of Krakatoa in August 1883……..
Nice assist by Reddick after being totally dissed…
And Nunez of all people, ties it up.
Oh well would have been 2-1 without Reddicks ‘weak arm’
And Krakatoa goes………
No it doesn’t, Josh is saved by a weak fly ball from CI
And CI turns in a good play tagging out DP.
Better than catching Gonzo on that jump throw, IMHO.
Crap
And as soon as I leave for a sec (to finish refinishing my kitchen table), I see Joshie has lost all command.
Gets a fly ball out of Swisher, though.
Ball one to Chavez….
Ball three…..
Beauty!
Not watching dude…we’re going to lose and I don’t want to be all pissed off to start my week.
On the bright side though, I did read that Posada may be done so at least SOMETHING good will come out of this season. :)
Enjoy winning another World Series dude. I’ll be watching football and hockey.
I am not nearly as sanguine as you, k.
Freddy did damn well, and I’ll take your pen tonight over ours…..
Logan walks Papi.
Might have been jobbed on ball 3, but ball 4 wasn’t close.
No excuse.
And OUR CC singles to left……
Varitek will NEVER learn not to swing at that damn pitch.
Third time is the charm, Jacoby?
3 and 0…….jeez
Sh*t.
Ells must have matched his LOB for the past week in this game
Gardner HR after being struck out, maybe twice.
krueg is missing a goodie for a YF.
And now comes the white flag.
Morales in, and my morale is out.
Looks like good Wheeler tonight, but too late.
Still 2-1
I get home from wathing the new Planet of the Apes movie (fun stuff) to see that Nunez (who actually does have good pop but just doesn’t get much playin gtime) and Gardner (who has very little pop) have hit solo HRs. This series has been typical of these two teams: throw out what you would expect from looking at the starting pitcher line-ups and pop the No-Doz. Wheeler just looked great there d*&n him.
Err…starting pitching “matchups” not lineups…
That was a clear strike, no?? Just because martin was crossed up doesn’t mean it wasnt’t right over the plate. Crawford scares me right now — this seems to be his breakthrough series
Crawford got beaten up for not running in the 9th of the first game. Gotta assume he’ll be off real early here.
I hate pitchouts.
Robertson K’s Reddick while Crawford takes 2nd. Here’s Varitek.
Varitek down 0-2. Then ball in the dirt gets away and Crawford goes to third. Makes it pretty tough to call that pitch again with the tying run on third now that Martin has failed to block it the last two times it was thrown.
Varitek pops out to foul territory. Big exhale. Robertson and Wheeler just both put on late-inning pen clinics. To the 9th…
Gardner singles despite a strong effort by Ellsbury. Gotta run Brett. Now.
Wow does Jeter look outmatched by Papelbon’s high FB now.
2-1 to Jeter…Gardner just beating two snap-throws by Papelbon.
Gardner takes 2nd as Salty bobbles the transfer. Come on Jeter, poke one to right…
Sorry, that was Varitek, not Salty. And Jeter grounds out to 3rd.
Granderson flies out to right. Mo with 1-run lead in Fenway. We’ve all been here before.
I was sure that was a HR off th ebat. double for Scutaro and now the dangerous hitters come up. Big big big trouble.
No one covering third?
Mo looked as pissed as he can look. Pedroia with man on 3rd. Crap.
*sigh*
Game tied on sac fly. Drama.
Yanks have tomorrow off. Curious to see what move Girardi makes here.
BS for Mariano
And Jacoby redeems himself (partly) after a horrific night at the plate.
Still not optimistic.
Is that Mo’s 3rd blown save against Boston this year?
IH, so am I.
Ayala? Hughes?
Valentine: “The way Phil Hughes’ leg is shaking, the drenaline is going, so he’s probably the next in the game.” Lord.
I asked you, not Valentine!
I get HIS opinion whether I like it or not.
I never should have turned the game on…my bad guys. I turned it on in the bottom of the 7th.
I’m going to bed. I cannot stomach the inevitable Sox walk off.
At least we didn’t get swept I guess. Yay Wild Card. Not.
Krueg: Mo has blown t vs. Baltimore, 1 vs. Toronto, and one vs. the Mets. And now one vs. Boston.
Looks like Hughes is coming in. Funny how that whole “are you going to a 6-man rotation thing” figurs itself out, huh? Hughes goes tonight, Nova takes his slot rather than a “6th” slot.
That’s “2” vs. Baltimore…all 4 BS were away games.
I thought for sure he blew at least one other game against Boston…guess not.
This one is on me. I jinxed it by turning it on late.
The Sox are clearly the better team. There is no question.
2-11.
Period.
Here comes Hughes. This is interesting. As much as i would have wanted this game to end 10 minutes ago, I am very curious to see how Hughes handles this very sudden high-pressure duty.
Valentine the adrenalin poet:
“…..the oceanic effect of the crowd noise on the pitcher’s body”
or some such thing.
Reminds me of the end of “Darkness at Noon”
Ha. I think that might have been Orel Hersheiser talking about the impact of crowd noise on the pitcher dabize, but good point. QUick flyout by Youk, now Ortiz. This lineup is really pretty crazy good. The one guy that doesn’t scare me is the guywho just doubled and then scored the tying run…
Ground rule double for Papi
A comedown!
I’m a little spoiled………
Ground rule double by Ortiz, pinch runner in. Now Crawford. This guy is 9 for his last 10 and the script is just perfect for him to hit the game winner. So they IBB him…
And that’s the game. Well, at least it was quick! Congrats SFs. Good night
Thats it
krueg was right
Bad for him but good for me….
Night all
And yes, IH, I suppose it could have been Hershiser. Just as ridiculous…..
Also, CC must enjoy getting an IBB as much as Reddick enjoys the walkoff.
Right, then. That was almost as much fun as sticking needles in my eyes.
I went to bed after the Sox failed to score in the 8th. Ugh, I’m really regretting that decision now!
That felt like a postseason series. One blowout, and two extremely close games that could have gone either way. It could have easily been a Sox sweep, and the Yanks could have easily won the series.
“Yanks could have easily won the series.”
But we didn’t. Because we don’t have it this year. The Sox do.
That series could have been the series where we proved we we Championship caliber but it was the opposite. The Sox made the plays, we didn’t.
I don’t even think ARod would have made a difference.
Sums it up nicely…
http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/6843228/new-york-yankees-aging-core-jorge-posada-derek-jeter-mariano-rivera-comes-fore-fenway
That article is enough to make any Sox fan (or any other kind of fan) who likes to take their baseball with a leavening of rationality either laugh or blush.
I thought the folks on RAB who were wingeing about the bias of the ESPN commentary last night were over the top and whiny.
Now I’m not so sure.
I think krueg has to mean that this article summarizes how it feels to him to lose to The Rival.
He’s right – I felt exactly this way about the Sox after that 2003 game that ended with Pedro’s meltdown.
But next day I also knew that the Sox could win (someday), just so long as we saw to the drawing and quartering of our idiot manager first.
K – you need to draw up an enemies list, sharpen some needles and make some dolls that contain toenail clippings from the right people (Levine maybe?).
You’ll feel much better – I know, because I did (metaphorically at least)!
To me that article just illustrates the end of an era. A great one.
Now I don’t know what to expect. Wild Cards and first round exits I guess?
Is Wally Matthews kidding? How dramatic…Listen I agree that Posada is a shell of what he used to be, but Jeter and Rivera are still very useful players (each to different degrees of course). When you are playing the best offensive team in the game, in a very offensive park, one pitch can change the game. I thought it was a great series and both sides should take some positives away from this battle for sure. Lackey was impressive when it wasn’t expected. Garcia was impressive when it wasn’t expected. What we continued to see is that neither team is afraid of the other teams big bad closer, but we already knew that. All in all not the ending the Yankees hoped for but not nearly as devastating as Matthews tries to make it.
This elderly core will be replaced by a new core, that’s life. There are a bunch of young players ready to step in, no need for violins and no need to feel pity for the Yankees. They just need to rip the band aid right off and keep the likes of Posada and Jones on the bench where they belong.
The Grady metaphor works for the Yanks just now because the one point of contact between the Matthews article and reality was the apparent inability of the NYY front office to say enough already to the old guard.
The Yanks have a great farm and great prospects to add to a crop of great younger players (Granderson, Cano, Gardner) that are already on the team.
As a Sox fan, I enjoy the inability of the Yanks front office to say no to ridiculous contracts to Jeter, Posada and ARod, but it has to be placed in perspective – much as I hate to say it, the Yanks are not going down for the third time anytime soon.
So to me, failing to rip the Band-Aid = failing to pull Pedro in the 2003 ALCS. Both could/can ruin things in the short term, but neither was/is a harbinger of Doom.