ALDS Game 1: Mood for Trouble

ALDS Game 1: Boston Red Sox 0, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 5

Dedicated to Robin, who knows why.

Last night was all about trouble. Take the sterling effort by the defense, for example. Normally you'd write it off as first-time playoff jitters, except that every man, infield and outfield, behind the plate and on the mound, had been to the post-season before. Yet somehow, these experienced fielders who'd played together for half a season couldn't execute three times, chalking up three errors over the course of the game...

Oh wait. At least one of those "errors" was the fault of this guy. Poor execution doesn't help keep the pitch count low, but neither does blindness by the officiating. Maybe tonight they'll relegate Bucknor to one of the outfield positions where he won't do as much damage. So the defense was trouble, but the umpires were trouble, too.

The offense generally looked like the hacks they were taking, but that's to be expected: Lester might have pitched decently, but Lackey was generally on fire and with the exception of one jam that the Sox managed to waste by looking like Bucknor flailing in the wind, was pretty much unhittable. I distinctly remember one pitch to Ortiz where the bottom fell out of the ball right as he swung and while it broke my heart, it really was a beautiful pitch to see. You'll notice the pattern continues: the offense was trouble. Lester was trouble, because he gave up four walks.

There was trouble from all sides then in Game 1. Tonight they'll come back out and try things again and just maybe they'll look like they belong in the post-season. Because otherwise, we're in trouble.

Game 85: The Evening After

Final Score: Boston Red Sox 2, Detroit Tigers 9

One thing I've noticed about blowouts is that unless the offense delivering the beating - a.k.a The Beater - is "go get a bucket of water they're burning up" hot (a standard of offensive prowess measured not in wins, but in sweeps, plural), they'll always come back to Earth in the worst way the next day. We're talking full on post-beating hangover, with a couple of runs scored if you're lucky. In fact, if The Beater is really unlucky, they'll immediately go into a four or five game slump because they're so worn out from punishing The Beatee.
A sidebar: determining the crossing-over point from offensive explosion to blowout seems to be something in the range of a ten run advantage, where The Beater's starting pitcher goes six or seven (or more) innings without surrendering more than a few runs. Number of at-bats might also be a factor; if The Beaters come to the plate five times and start sending in the scrubs in the seventh inning, you know a blowout is taking place.

The Sox suffered the expected post-blowout hangover today, coming up wretched against the Tigers right from the start. Tavarez went from the crazy-eyed psycho with the surprisingly low (for a fifth starter) ERA of 3.48 over ten starts to a shell of man shelled for eight runs (including a grand slam to Marcus Thames) over four and two-thirds. My guess is that Comerica Park doesn't have a clubhouse conducive to blood sacrifice and JT Killer missed his regular "contribution" to the baseball gods.

Meanwhile, the already tired offense went into a bit of a super scrub mode. With Papi benched (but only for tonight; he has to make sure Manny gets to San Fran) and Youkilis in some kind of quadriceps limbo, Francona did the lineup shuffle, mixing in career minor leaguer Jeff Bailey (Jeff who?) to play first in place of the (now) over-worked Hinske. Bailey, described by Francona as someone who "looked to me like he could hit someone who’s throwing decent" ("You're gonna like him. He's a good kid.) turned out to be just as stymied by Tigers rookie Andrew Miller (Andrew who?) as the rest of the crew, but he's got working-class hero vibe written all over him, so the papers love his story. I have no doubt we'll hear all about the virtues of never giving up on your dreams over the next two games and then, unless he hits something fierce, we'll probably never hear of Bailey again.

Anywho, moral of the story: you always pay the Piper for a blowout, Detroit needed to win this game far more than Boston needed to avoid losing it, everyone's in break mode and we'll now be lucky to win one game this weekend. Go Sox!