Final Score: Boston Red Sox 3, Seattle Mariners 4The title of this post went through several iterations, from "I can't believe we're being shut out by Miguel Batista" to some version of "blue colored spheres" - a thinly-disguised innuendo, with a reference to the eight base runners that somehow only turned into three runs against a pitchers who gives up at least a run more on a regular basis - to "Angel Hernandez Is A Douchebag" - because what other umpire ejects a fielder for making a comment about a checked swing call, then throws out the fielder's manager because he can't understand why the umpire won't explain his reasoning. But in the end I settled for the present title, because if there's anything more disheartening than losing on a walk off to a bad team, it's doing so at 1:30 in the morning.
Why have West Coast games start so stupidly late, anyway, particularly against teams based on the East Coast? I realize the time difference means that it's now only 10:30 PM out there, allowing all of those happy Seattle fans to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but you know what? Make a compromise and start things early. There's no reason why the productivity of companies in cities from Boston to Cleveland to New York to Miami needs to suffer the day after a West Coast night game just because of an irrational refusal to start games at 8:30 or 9:00 PM Eastern. It would certainly make these losses a lot more bearable.
One silver lining: Manny moon shot number 499 couldn't have come at a better time. The boys on the offense may have blown an opportunity to score in the eighth, but at least they opened up the possibility for a comeback by capitalizing on an error and setting up Manny for a no-doubter in the sixth. I just realized the home run had an interesting secondary effect, too: Matsuzaka may not have been in line for the win, but by erasing the deficit he created, the Sox managed to keep his artificially-induced lossless streak intact. See, I'm just full of happy thoughts tonight. Now let's get game three out of the way so we can escape the land of midnight baseball.
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