Boston Red Sox 3, Minnesota Twins 7
I had a thought two nights ago, a nightmare vision that only a Red Sox fan could have the arrogance of seeing and the greater arrogance of claiming as his own: who’s going to stop the Yankees in the playoffs, now that the Red Sox are out of it? Because the Yankees are a game away from clinching the AL East, so they’re going unless something very, very odd happens or there are a few extra games tucked away that I haven’t heard about.
Who does anyone see doing it? The Tigers? They’re not exactly hot stuff against New York (or the Athletics either, really – they might be in trouble). Chicago? The Twins? Chicago has to get there first and neither team has a winning record against the Yankees. I’d say my money is on Oakland, but they always seem to fall apart in the post-season…and they could always end up playing Detroit first. If the Angels were the AL West champions, things might be brighter, but all I can think about right now is the Yankees winning the pennant and going on to face the Mets (yes, I said it: the Mets. No other division in the NL is going to produce a team worth anything in the playoffs, unless Philly grabs the wildcard and even then, when does a pitching staff led by Jon Lieber and Jamie Moyer really dominate?) and winning it all just to spite me. Sure, I’d love to see a World Series parade here in New York (did I mention how I want the Mets to win?), but not with guys in pinstripes on the floats.
So I had this vision and then I thought about how nice it would be to play spoiler some more, after Boston spent the weekend getting some revenge for August and how the Twins were there, ready and waiting for some spoilage. And then tonight happened. Timmy Knuckles may be back, but his pitches aren’t yet; maybe not surprising for a guy who never gets hurt coming off a ribcage fracture and certainly not unexpected, given how this season has gone, but still disappointing. Who doesn’t want Tim Wakefield to do well?
Speaking of wanting to do well, congrats to ‘Tek on getting the award for catching more games than anyone else in Red Sox history. 1,000 starts behind the plate is pretty hard to put into perspective, but how about this one: the Red Sox acquired Varitek (and Derek Lowe) for Heathcliff Slocum from Seattle ten years ago and I’m still laughing all the way to the bank on that one.
So no spoilage for tonight, but tomorrow…tomorrow man, Schilling’s back. Or the probable pitchers thing on redsox.com isn’t working properly, but it appears that the Ace will get his shot at win number 15 tomorrow night against Boof Bonser, who might have the best name in professional sports. Certainly not the best stat line, though. GO SOX!!!
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