Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Monday, October 12, 2009

And That Happened: Division Series


Angels 7, Red Sox 6: Over at NBC on Saturday I wrote a post about how the Sox will go with Lester on short rest in Game 4 if, indeed, there was a Game 4. I went on to talk about Beckett on short rest in a Game 5. Some commenter called me an idiot because (a) if Beckett did pitch in Game 5 it would have been on regular rest, not short rest; and (b) because I as assuming that "the Red Sox going on a two-game winning streak" was such a daunting task. Hey partner, let's just agree that we were both right about something and both wrong about something an bury the hatchet, OK?

Yankees 4, Twins 1: Best Facebook message I've gotten in a long time came in last night. From our own Steve Treder's brother Mike: "I hear that when Nick Punto was a kid, his favorite player was Lonnie Smith." In other news, baseball announcers and writers everywhere are going to have a conference call at 2PM this afternoon to determine whether the Twins still do, in fact, do things "the right way."

Phillies 6, Rockies 5: The AP game story says that Brad Lidge "erased a season of frustration" when he "stranded runners at first and second" to get the save in the ninth inning. I suppose he may not be frustrated anymore, but how much credit do you really get when you're the guy who put the runners on first and second in the first place? Mitch Williams was rather famous for that kind of thing. He too got saves most of the time. Shut someone down, Brad, and we'll talk about your frustration truly ending.

Oh, and yet another blown call this post season. Because a lot of you were probably asleep for it, here's how it went down: Ninth inning, game tied, Rollins singles, moves to second on a Victorino sacrifice, moves to third on Chase Utley's infield hit, and then scores the winning run on a Ryan Howard sacrifice fly. Except Utley's hit shouldn't have been a hit, because it bounced up and hit him on the leg in the batter's box. Home plate umpire Jerry Meals didn't call the ball dead. Meals admitted after the game that he blew it, blaming a tough angle -- which is true -- and the fact that Utley didn't react: "Chase Utley took off like it was nothing," Meals added. "He gave no indication to us that it hit him. Whatever percent of the time, you're going to get a guy that's going to stop if it hits him." I guess "whatever percent of the time" criminals turn themselves in for their crimes too, but I don't think we should base law enforcement strategy on it.

I'm kind of pulling for the Phillies in this series (a) because they're a more interesting team to watch; and (b) I really don't want to see more winter ball. That said, if the Phillies take care of business today, we'll have two nights off of baseball. So let's go Rockies today, and let's go Phillies tomorrow, cool?
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:53am (27) Comments