[OT] ALCS: Red Sox vs Yankees

[JordanCS]

Well, there you have it....there's the end of the baseball season for me.  I was so excited for this year's postseason...the thought of a Cubs / Red Sox WS was so cool.  Now, I don't give a flying crap about it.  Spring training anyone?  I was cheering for the Red Sox, just for the fact that we might have something a bit different this year.  I can pretty much guarantee I won't watch a single game of this year's world series (of course, the fact that I live in Europe and will not be around  a TV next week anyway could have something to do with it).

[dsr11]

One of my coworkers suggested the Cubs and Sox should play a consolation game.....that would REALLY get some good ratings....

[Adam]

LOL.  I'd even support that idea Dan.  That would be entertaining.

Although I imagine that Grady Little will have to skip the consolation game so that he can make it to his job interviews on time. :-)

[gtsully]

Well, that was about as painful as it gets.  Moreso than the Frozen Four, and I would say moreso than the 2002 ECAC's, if only because at Lake Placid I could just go out to the bars after the game and last night I had to drive home to Boston to go to work this morning...  ::yark::

Anyway, as awful as it was being in that stadium with all of those feelings-of-entitlement degenerates last night (don't get me wrong - there are plenty of Yankee fans that are great baseball fans and make the games enjoyable, but they were grossly outnumbered last night), and as much as I want to strangle Grady Little this morning for leaving Pedro and his pitch count in to start the 8th inning, I've gotta give it to the Yankees for coming back.  Great game - Instant Classic if there ever was one.

And the buildup as "the greatest game of my life" effect was obviously because of the magnitude of the rivalry, the fact that it was a Game 7, the pitching match-up, and the events of Game 3, not because of the perceived woe-is-me attitude of Red Sox Nation.  Get over yourself.

Thank god it's hockey season.

[CUlater 89]

It wasn't the pitch count at the start of the eighth that should have triggered the move to the pen, it was the events of the 7th and 8th leading up to Matsui's at bat.  At that point, the Yankees had begun hitting the ball solidly, stretching back to the end of the 7th, showing that despite Pedro hitting 93 or 94 mph, somehow he wasn't fooling them anymore.

I'm sympathetic to Grady's desire to keep his best pitcher in the game, given the lack of trust he has for the bullpen, but once Pedro got into trouble, the safer move would have been to go to Embree, particularly given how well he pitched the other day.

[RichS]

Last year's WS was "different", right?

[ugarte]

CUlater '89 wrote:

It wasn't the pitch count at the start of the eighth that should have triggered the move to the pen, it was the events of the 7th and 8th leading up to Matsui's at bat.  At that point, the Yankees had begun hitting the ball solidly, stretching back to the end of the 7th, showing that despite Pedro hitting 93 or 94 mph, somehow he wasn't fooling them anymore.

I'm sympathetic to Grady's desire to keep his best pitcher in the game, given the lack of trust he has for the bullpen, but once Pedro got into trouble, the safer move would have been to go to Embree, particularly given how well he pitched the other day.

Actually, Pedro throwing at 94 was a sign itself.  He wasn't getting the movement he wanted, so he tried to replace it with gas.

This was an amazing pair of League Championship Series.  Most amazing was that BOTH game 6's and BOTH game 7's were won by the team that had the worse of the pitching matchup.  (Prior v. Pavano; Wood v. Redman; Pettitte v. Burkett; you know who v. you know who).  And in three of those games, the winning team lost because the manager didn't trust his bullpen and tried to squeeze an extra inning out of a starter pitching on short rest.  (Do you think Dusty Baker regrets letting Prior throw 116 pitches in game 2 after getting an early 11-0 lead? Or that he should have learned his lesson in game 6 before Wood blew up in game 7?)

I empathize, Sully, et al.  Joy from watching the Yankees win is the brave face I put up after watching the Pirates lose year after year.  And the 1992 NLCS was the single most painful sports-related thing I have ever gone through. (There is probably still a hole in an apartment wall on Blair Street from when Sid slid.)

You have a very good team in Boston, and are probably only a couple of role players (not superstars, role players) from being completely unstoppable.

[nyc94]

I wasn't trying to address the "Yankees always triumphing over the Sox" issue because Boston is not a small market team.  They can try to compete with Yankees in the free agency market - mainly because they now have their own cable channel and they jacked ticket prices.  And you're right that between the two teams they do cause salaries to skyrocket.  But the Yankees will always have the deeper pockets.  My sympathy is for the true small market teams that end up being a secondary farm system for the large market teams.  Keith correctly reminds me of how many Yankees in the 1990s were brought up through the farm system so at least they aren't the store bought 1997 Marlins but my point is that a) the Yankees could afford to keep increasing their salaries and b) they plugged the holes through free agency.  Teams like Montreal can't do that.   And with the explosion of cable TV money, they probably never will.

[gtsully]

big red apple wrote:
I empathize, Sully, et al.  Joy from watching the Yankees win is the brave face I put up after watching the Pirates lose year after year.  And the 1992 NLCS was the single most painful sports-related thing I have ever gone through. (There is probably still a hole in an apartment wall on Blair Street from when Sid slid.)

You have a very good team in Boston, and are probably only a couple of role players (not superstars, role players) from being completely unstoppable.

Thanks.  Don't take this personally, but that doesn't make me feel better - not by a long shot - even though it should.  A year or two or five from now I'll be able to tell people that I was at one of the best LCS games ever, but now I just don't see it that way.

As for the Sox, they have plenty of good role players - what they need is another starter or two and a few more reliable options in the 'pen.  Embree-Timlin-Williamson looked great at the back end in the playoffs, but if they could find some better middle-men (and a new manager), that alone would make them a much better team next year.

Argh.  I hate that I'm thinking about next year. ::pissed::

[dsr11]

I don't think they need a new manager.  Look what Little had to work with.  He did one hell of a job this year with a bunch on nobodies.  While I completely disagree with him leaving Pedro in last night, I think he's probably the best manager Boston has had in years.  I may be in the minority as far as Sox fans go, but I'm a Grady Little fan.

They do need better pitching next year though.  Pedro is getting old, and Wakefield, while he's a great pitcher, you just can't rely on the knuckleball to get you 6 innings a start.   Oh yeah, the should send Kim packing, he just sucks.

[dsr11]

You know what ruined the Sox? It was the SI (Sports Illustrated) curse.  Pedro was on the cover last week, so it was his fault, not Little's.  Forget the Curse of the Bambino bs.

[Keith K \'93]

Pedro is only 31, so he's not even old by baseball standards.  He can be a little bit fragile but he should be fine for several years to come.  But you'd like someone better than Burkett in the rotation come October.  As much as Wakefield killed the Yankees in Games 1 and 4 (several guys looked helpless against him), you'd probably like to upgrade the #3 hole too.

Given the number of impending free agents, the Sox may look very different next year.  We'll see.  I hope they can retain Nomar and Varitek and the other guys that I can't remember at the moment.

[Adam]

It's clear that Pedro has lost some of his stuff this year and he's not built (like Clemens) to be a starter forever.

Pedro's contract runs out after 2004, I believe.  I'd like to see the Yanks sign him as a closer; an heir apparent to Rivera, who can work in a set up roll until Rivera retires.

[Section A]

I'll respectfully disagree. If Little let Timlin or Embree (both of whom had been solid lately) start the 8th inning, Boston would be preparing to host the Marlins tomorrow night. It's Little's job, for god's sake, to "manage" his players, not let them be stubborn and hurt the team. If the Sox had won last night, maybe he'd let them make the WS Game 1 lineup all by themselves :-( , or maybe he'd let Nomar decide when to make a pitching change, or......

A new manager, one pitcher, and one more bat (maybe) makes this team one of the favorites for next year. Ugh. Next year.

(p.s. I used to live in Worcester, Mass., now just north of Cincinnatti, so obviously my two teams are the Red Sox and Reds. So I suppose if I had to pick ONE Yankee to hit that home run, it would have been Boone. I remember when he did the same in a meaningless game in Cincy early in the summer. Who would have thought.....)

[CowbellGuy]

Wouldn't mind seeing that either, but if he knew that was going to be his role going in, I think his ego would make him take less money to sign somewhere as a starter.