That is about how many times I’ve been disappointed with the Red Sox this season. There won’t be any more of them until next year though, as last night, as they have done most of all of September, they managed to grasp defeat from the jaws of victory in the late innings to a team they should have beaten.
While on a short trip to top off the Emperor’s tank for a weekend trip, it passed through the 122,000 mile mark.
Right now, from where I’m sitting the FRS have really earned their F. They have lost the first of two against the Yankees today and Tampa Bay has won their game, so what once was a 9-1/2 game lead in the AL Wild Card 3 weeks ago is now just a 1/2 game. If the Red Sox lose the evening game they’ll be tied for the last playoff spot with just three games to go. And what with the way they are playing, I’m looking at my evenings being free after Wednesday.
The Sox are playing the Texas Rangers in Texas tonight and ESPN2 is kind enough to be showing the ball game. I have complained here before about the length of the Red Sox games, but tonight is one for the ages. Josh Beckett is on the mound for the FRS and he is what the announcers politely call deliberate, but you and I would call it slow, a lot slower than the other Sox pitchers.
The game has been going for just a little under 2 hours and we are exactly midway through at 4-/2 innings. May be looking at a 4 hour game. Because it is in Texas the normal start time was to be 8:10 Eastern, but was moved up to 7:10 for TV. Good thing too or I’d already be thinking shower and bed, now I’ll probably get to see another inning and a half…
5-1/2 innings or only 61% of tonight’s game and it has taken 2 hours and 20 minutes to play. The score? One to one. This puppy is going to be over around midnight or approximately 1 hour after I’m in bed because I’m taking a shower as soon as this half inning is over.
As noted yesterday, FOX did show the Phillies – Giants game here locally. I can understand it though, as the “local” MLB team of interest is the Atlanta Braves and they are in the same division as the Phillies, so the Braves fans could watch and root against them (they better root hard as the Braves trail the Phils by 9 games in the standings.)
So I listened to the game on the radio, all except for an inning of the Sox – Yankees game that FOX broadcast as bonus coverage. That bonus coverage was due to the difference in the style of play in the two different leagues, the National League tangos and the American League waltzes. The Phillies and Giants are in the NL and those guys play like they have someplace that they want to go to after the game. Their game was finished in 2 hours and 14 minutes. The Yankees & Red Sox play are in the AL where it seems like they have no place they would rather be than on the baseball diamond, so it took them 3 hours and 25 minutes to play those same nine innings.
The FRS scored first, 2 runs in the bottom of the third inning. The MFY came right back and scored 2 in the top of the fourth to tie the game. I almost turned off the broadcast because because I had a feeling that the Red Sox were going to lose this game too. Lucky for me their attitude was better than mine as the Sox then answered back in the bottom of the 4th with 5 runs. The Yankees never got close again and lost 10-4.
Donna and I along with friend Joan went for a 4-1/2 mile walk in Hitchcock Woods this morning. We were in the Woods for a little over two hours and saw 2 different people walking 2 dogs each, three high school cross country runners and three folks on horseback. Busy day.
Its a showdown at the Fenway Corral and I can’t stand it. We went grocery shopping tonight and when I got home the Sox were up 2 to 0 on the Yankees. My wife said, “Your team is winning, you should be happy.” But as a lifelong Red Sox fan I know that doom is just around the corner and sure enough, the very next inning the the MFY scored three runs and are now in the lead.
I gave up on the FRS last night when they were down by three with three chances to make it up against the Indians. I’ll hang on tonight with three innings left because they are down by one and because it is the Yankees, but I don’t know if I can stand it much longer. The pitching is killing me. They just walked the number 9 hitter after getting two outs. Come on, the #9 batter is in that part of the order for a reason, he’s the weakest hitter in the line-up, quit nibbling the corners and throw the ball in there. The offense isn’t helping matters either, in the fifth inning they had the bases loaded and the “best” hitter in the American League, Adrian Gonzales, struck out. In the sixth the tying run was left on second base and in the seven they went down one – two – three.
After tonight’s audible torture, I’m in for some visual tormenting the next two days as the games will be on TV, FOX on Saturday afternoon and* because the game will be ESPN on Sunday night.
* Just checked the TV Listings online and it looks like the local FOX affiliate will be showing the Phillies – Giants game. Maybe it will be raining in San Francisco tomorrow afternoon.
Ever since, like the end of the first two weeks of the season, whenever you visit the home page of your favorite Major League Baseball(R) team there has been a section dedicated for voting for the All Star Game. This is long before you know if anyone is going to have a good year or not, but anyway it might shake out, great, good, average or sucky, they want you to vote a straight ticket of hometown players.
About 2 weeks ago they added this little image to the background of the home page. So not only do they want you to vote for everyone on your favorite team, whether they suck or not, they now want you to vote for everyone on some other team in the other league no matter their worth too. And how did they determine the pairings? Red Sox & Giants? I checked about another half dozen teams homepages and no others have this banner aligning them with an opposite league team. Is this an experiment to see if has any appreciable difference in the voting for either team’s players?
Well, for the first time in recent memory, I decided to vote for the players to go to the All Star game. I did not vote the straight Red Sox ticket (although 3 FRS players did make the cut), nor did I vote the straight Giants ticket (I voted the No Giant ticket.)
