http://www.mcall.com/sports/baseball/all-game.7070312oct30,0,3387181.story

The Morning Call in Allentown, PA

Surprisingly, my local Boston papers didn’t go with it.

The Mercury (Potstown, PA) The Asbury Park Press (New Jersey), The Post Star (upstate NY)...  Okay, I’m cherry picking.  I suggest that any bonus points go to one who finds “A New Hope” headlines following the Cliff Lee game.

Am I the only person who didn’t think the line-out DP started by Howard wasn’t obviously a blown call? Buck and McCarver called it as if it were open and shut, but I never saw an angle that I thought gave definitive evidence—to the contrary, the best I could determine was that the ball did just get into Howard’s glove on the fly.

@Levi Stahl - It looked to me like it was the wrong call, but it wasn’t of the same magnitude as the Cuzzi, McClelland, and Bucknor calls.  It was a close play, and I doubt we’d even be talking about it if not for the rash of blown calls earlier in the postseason.

But John, Cole Hamels is a Capricorn and Andy Pettitte is a Gemini—you clearly didn’t take that into your detailed analysis!

Levi,
It was a blown call - though an understandable one. The ball bounced in the dirt, but both announcers talked about it. I think they’re just hesitant to call out the umps for too long. They’ve probably been told not to.

It’s Turn Back the Clock week.  Two pitchers’ duels, a complete game, and even a reliever going two innings!  That’s how I like my baseball, too.

If only someone would explain how a low scoring 8 1/2 inning game with only two mid-inning pitching changes took 3 1/2 hours.  I know both teams are rather deliberate, but this is still grating on me.  And once again I will say that if one or both teams have a bad pitching night, the game will go four hours without extras.

Funzo, I seriously doubt Girardi told Jeter to bunt in that situation.  I’ve seen some Yankees fans posting this morning that Jeter will do that at his own discretion on occasion, which of course, is stupid.

Last night Fox gave some very interesting closeup views of Molina catching Burnett’s pitches, and suddenly I understand why Molina is and needs to be his catcher. His breaking ball that slips back over the outside edge of the plate to lefties was called a strike all night… but it was clear that almost none of them had any part of the ball over any part of the plate. Molina has amazingly soft hands, and he framed those pitches beautifully, never moving his glove and giving the ump an extra look. Since the ball is moving right to left from the pitcher’s perspective, by the time it settled in Molina’s glove it was now at least a little bit   “over” the plate as the ump looked down. He stole at least a dozen strikes that were simply not strikes. It was a brilliant catching display. (I’m a Seattle guy who spent the year frustrated that neither of their catchers could frame a pitch properly and probably cost the team more games with their lack of catching grace than they did with their lack of hitting.)

...Putting in Hairston for Swisher also paid off so Joe gets a break for one day at least.

But as Jason from IAATMS has said, just because a decision works out doesn’t make the decision the right one.

I’m really dreading the G5 in Philly went the bottom of the order is Cabrera, Molina, AJ.  Ugh