The 2007 Major League Baseball Thread

[Spacey]

The Rockies run has been amazing. This extended break they are going to have might cool them off. Don\'t think they had more than a day off during this run. They are playing great baseball and always finding a way to win.

[ChrisPitch]

Well, Matsuzaka certainly hasn\'t distinguished himself this postseason.

If you\'re Terry Francona, and you start Tim Wakefield instead of Josh Beckett tonight, please consider a career in the sale of aluminum siding.

[tyzack]

Wakefield Uber Alles

[Spacey]

Well, Matsuzaka certainly hasn\'t distinguished himself this postseason.

He hasn\'t been as great as I thought he would be. Did he have more time off between games in Japan or wherever?

If you\'re Terry Francona, and you start Tim Wakefield instead of Josh Beckett tonight, please consider a career in the sale of aluminum siding.

It is a must win game unless they want to make it a challenge but they still are the Red Sox and are capable of having Wakefield come in and throw and Cleveland hit nothing but ground balls. Cleveland though has been great offensively early in the games.

[Wolfman]

The Sox are cooked.  Oh well.  I should be way more upset than I am, but I\'m really not taking it too hard.  Having the Pats and Celtics and BC Eagles around has me too excited to get upset.  Sprinkle in a little 2004 grace period and this is going to be the easiest-to-swallow Red Sox playoff loss of my liftetime.  Sometimes its harder than others, and this is about as unhard as it gets.  They didn\'t blow it horiffically like the Padres or Mets, they didn\'t underachieve like the Yankees, they didn\'t flat-out suck like the Royals or Pirates.  They just played right up to the max of their potential, which is the ALCS and no further.  Hard to get too upset about that.

Plus I\'m finding it hard to totally love a team that does so much stupid stuff.  If Jacoby Ellsbury plays last night, the Sox win.  First, he easily catches Lofton\'s home run.  That ball landed about 4 inches back on the 6-foot ledge, where any major league outfielder easily grabs it provided that he\'s there.  Drew just didn\'t get there in time.  Ellsbury would have been there a full 1-2 seconds early with a timed jump.  Then he would have driven in Manny from second with two out in the 4th inning, a spot in which Drew would never, ever get a hit and obviously didn\'t.  Drew is a franchise-killer and Dice-K still has franchise-killer potential, and it\'s hard to get into a team when they blow so much money on stiffs.  Now you\'ve got the season riding on Wakefield making his first start in 3 weeks coming off injury.  I wouldn\'t mind seeing him in this game if healthy, but first start coming back from injury?  I hope we can at least get back to Fenway for a game, Beckett can probably steer us through Game 5, but it\'s Indians in 5 or 6.  

Average Nielson rating for each game of Rockies/Indians: .01

[leith]

The Sox are cooked.  Oh well.  I should be way more upset than I am, but I\'m really not taking it too hard.  Having the Pats and Celtics and BC Eagles around has me too excited to get upset.  Sprinkle in a little 2004 grace period and this is going to be the easiest-to-swallow Red Sox playoff loss of my liftetime.  Sometimes its harder than others, and this is about as unhard as it gets.

Plus I\'m finding it hard to totally love a team that does so much stupid stuff.  If Jacoby Ellsbury plays last night, the Sox win.  First, he easily catches Lofton\'s home run.  That ball landed about 4 inches back on the 6-foot ledge, where any major league outfielder easily grabs it provided that he\'s there.  Drew just didn\'t get there in time.  Ellsbury would have been there a full 1-2 seconds early with a timed jump.  Then he would have driven in Manny from second with two out in the 4th inning, a spot in which Drew would never, ever get a hit and obviously didn\'t.  Drew is a franchise-killer and Dice-K still has franchise-killer potential, and it\'s hard to get into a team when they blow so much money on stiffs.  Now you\'ve got the season riding on Wakefield making his first start in 3 weeks coming off injury.  I wouldn\'t mind seeing him in this game if healthy, but first start coming back from injury?  I hope we can at least get back to Fenway for a game, Beckett can probably steer us through Game 5, but it\'s Indians in 5 or 6.  

Average Nielson rating for each game of Rockies/Indians: .01

I always knew you were a front runner fan. Down 2-1 and throwing in the towel. You suck as a fan. Really.

[Yoda]

Oh boy, Wolf, he\'s calling you out.

The Sox are cooked.  Oh well.  I should be way more upset than I am, but I\'m really not taking it too hard.  Having the Pats and Celtics and BC Eagles around has me too excited to get upset.  Sprinkle in a little 2004 grace period and this is going to be the easiest-to-swallow Red Sox playoff loss of my liftetime.  Sometimes its harder than others, and this is about as unhard as it gets.

Plus I\'m finding it hard to totally love a team that does so much stupid stuff.  If Jacoby Ellsbury plays last night, the Sox win.  First, he easily catches Lofton\'s home run.  That ball landed about 4 inches back on the 6-foot ledge, where any major league outfielder easily grabs it provided that he\'s there.  Drew just didn\'t get there in time.  Ellsbury would have been there a full 1-2 seconds early with a timed jump.  Then he would have driven in Manny from second with two out in the 4th inning, a spot in which Drew would never, ever get a hit and obviously didn\'t.  Drew is a franchise-killer and Dice-K still has franchise-killer potential, and it\'s hard to get into a team when they blow so much money on stiffs.  Now you\'ve got the season riding on Wakefield making his first start in 3 weeks coming off injury.  I wouldn\'t mind seeing him in this game if healthy, but first start coming back from injury?  I hope we can at least get back to Fenway for a game, Beckett can probably steer us through Game 5, but it\'s Indians in 5 or 6.  

Average Nielson rating for each game of Rockies/Indians: .01

I always knew you were a front runner fan. Down 2-1 and throwing in the towel. You suck as a fan. Really.

But really, if the soxs lose, they\'ll be in the same place as the Yanks, without a WS; they may have gone a little farther in the race, but ended up in the same place.  If you look at it from the Steinbrenner perspective, there\'s the WS winner and then there\'s everyone else.

[Spacey]

Sox fans always have an excuse.

[Gfunk]

Keep The Faith

[Spacey]

Keep The Faith

Keep telling yourself that.

[booztravlr]

They didn\'t blow it horiffically like the Padres or Mets

How can you possibly compare the Padres to the Mets? The Mets went 1-6 in their final 7 home games to close out the year. Even an awful 2-5 record would have gotten them into the playoffs. I didn\'t realize being in second place in your division and losing the play-in game in the 13th inning to the hottest team ever constitutes as blowing it horiffically. Thanks for clearing that up for me. And if you want to pin the Padres demise on one person, Hoffman, I have 5 letters for you.

G
A
G
N
E

I always knew you were a front runner fan. Down 2-1 and throwing in the towel. You suck as a fan. Really.

This.

My guess is you bought your first Red Sox hat after Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS. But on second thought, this still may have been too early. It must have been after Game 4 of the World Series.

You better start thinking up an excuse for the Patriots loss in Week 9.

[Wolfman]

Ummm...leith?  I can believe the Sox have reached their potential and won\'t go any further, it\'s ok.  Good fandom does not require blind faith that your team will always win.  Good fandom DOES require monogamy. You\'re a sports bigamist.  You root for multiple teams and as soon as one goes down you hop on the bandwagon of the other.  It\'s one of the ultimate ways to suck at being a fan.  I\'m not making this up, please read here it\'s rule #19.  http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020227 .  Also notice there is nothing wrong with believing that your team is going to lose sometimes.  Also notice the 5-year grace period in rule 12 that I cited.  

And Deblock (Yoda), you\'re saying that the Pirates, Yankees, Angles, Reds, and Diamondbacks all had the same season; not winning the World Series.  That\'s pretty dumb.  Hey you know what?  The Breakfast, Jurassic 5, Limp Bizkit, Maroon 5, Hubinger Street, and Clay Aiken have all had the same career: not selling out the Rose Bowl and going triple-platinum.  You\'re the guy who stopped seeing The Breakfast because it made your vag hurt.  You\'re that guy.  Don\'t even comment on anything involving fandom of of any type, ever.

My guess is you bought your first Red Sox hat after Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS.

Nope, put the Red Sox wallpaper up in my room at age 5, went to my first game with my dad and his dad (both dead now) in 1984 at age 4, still have my 1986 Sox team picture up in my room.  Maybe if you had been a Breakfast fan before 2004 you would have read the 2003, 2002, 2001, or 2000 baseball posts, in which I post about the Red Sox as well.  Next time go back and look through the threads before you make an ass out of yourself.  And tell us a little about what a Colts fan you were before Peyton while you\'re at it.

[ChrisPitch]

Ah, there\'s no better way to soothe the soul of a grieving Mets\' fan than to have the Phillies out, the Yankees out, the Sox in trouble, and everyone going at it. This is why I love October.

Though to be fair, as disgraceful as the Mets\' collapse was, I don\'t know if I\'d trade their fate for the Padres\'. After all, I\'m not sure if it gets much worse than being one strike from making the playoffs and then not making it. And to think that if Trevor Hoffman could have only gotten that last strike (against Tony Gywnn, Jr., ironically),  the Rockies wouldn\'t have even made the playoffs. That\'s one area where the Mets and Padres have common ground as neither closer ever got a big out in a tight spot in their life.

But back to the here and now: Sox on the brink of the brink. Oh baby.

[Gfunk]

I don\'t hear no fuckin fat lady yet!

[booztravlr]

Wolfman, If I dig up the 2004 MLB thread am I going to read the same "The Sox are cooked" after game 3 of the ALCS? Whether you made the same statement then or not doesn\'t matter. I can\'t believe you would ever make the same statement again after the outcome of that series. That\'s why I was busting your balls about being a true fan. So don\'t take it to heart as I\'m sure you\'ve been a fan a long time, but come on, they\'re only down 1 game. Where is your faith?

Before this becomes an NFL thread jack I\'ll have you know I\'ve been a Colts fan since Marvin Harrison graduated from Syracuse and was drafted by them. At the time I didn\'t have an NFL team and after watching Marvin light up the field in person I knew he would be on to bigger and better things. Peyton Manning and eventually Dwight Freeney going to the Colts didn\'t hurt either.

I don\'t think I can agree with you Chris. The Padres final 8 games (counting Rockies) were on the road. The Mets played their final 7 at home. The Pades lost to a team that is currently on a 21 for 22 tear to knock them out of the playoffs. The Mets lost their almost season long divisional lead to a team that got swept by the Rockies in the first round. At least the Rockies are showing they deserve to be there as they are in the World Series with a 7-0 playoff record.