Boston is nothing if not a verbose town. We’ve got a raft of writers, a posse of intellectuals, and Ted Kennedy. And our ballclub’s seven-game ALCS victory has only made this affliction worse.

Our baseball men are getting metaphorical (and even Classical):

“He was like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs out there,” Timlin said of Beckett [in the bullpen]. “He didn’t know what to do or when to throw. But he found a way to keep himself occupied.”

“He doesn’t back down to anyone or any situation,” Epstein said [of Dustin Pedroia]. “That’s what makes him good. He walks around like he’s an Adonis instead of 5-foot-6.”

The gauntlet had then been down for our sportswriters, who rose to the challenge admirably.

Kevin Paul DuPont: “Had it not been for that huge Coke bottle strapped to the light stanchion above the Green Monster, the ball Kevin Youkilis hit in the eight inning last night might have imperiled Mass. Pike motorists, skipped across the Charles River, and slowly come to a roll on this side of the Canadian border.”

 

Dan Shaughnessy: “The game was played on the 32d anniversary of Carlton Fisk’s World Series walkoff homer and though the score indicated little drama, the final play was no less spectacular.

 

At 11:56 last night, Casey Blake hit a towering shot toward the 420 (foot) sign in the deepest part of center field at Fenway Park. The ball descended from the October sky and settled into the outstretched mitt of a galloping Coco Crisp, who crashed into the bullpen fence and dropped to the ground holding the American League pennant in his hand.”

Unfortunately, then Bob Ryan got into the act. Maybe Ryan’s been putting too much effort into his new blog or his new show. Because this is the best he could do:

Forget the score.

 

Omigawd was that tense!

At least until the little guy unloaded.

But then it got tense again.

Until the Wild Thing Closer got out of the eighth.

And then things got real comfy when the little guy unloaded again in the six-run eighth.

Omigawd, what a ballgame, what a glorious night at Fenway, what a way to enter the World Series.

The Red Sox did it. They beat the Cleveland Indians, 11-2, last night.

Yikes. Can blogging be dangerous to your writing voice? (I hope not.) Is Bob Ryan trying to sound like a contestant on My Super Sweet Sixteen? (Yes.) Why?? (No idea.)

So I think it’s time for a new kind of contest. Yeah, we have trivia and write-your-own-caption. How about write-your-own lead paragraph? I’ll go first (in the comments). Extra points for wild metaphors!

So when Manny made his famous it’s-not-the-end-of-the-world-if-we-lose comment, I defended him then and there. In fact, I even said “Who Cares?” would make a great 2007 postseason rallying cry and hoped for some entrepreneurial spirit to silk-screen it on some t-shirts.

And now that the Red Sox have come back from their 3-1 ALCS deficit and are headed to the World Series, the rest of the baseball writing world is agreeing with me. Now that the games have been played. Now it’s “safe.”

Among the perps? One of my favorite writers, Charles Pierce over at Slate. He posted an article today at noon, beginning:

All right, then, be it resolved: Manny Ramirez knows more about baseball than you do.

And be it further resolved: Manny Ramirez knows more about baseball than anyone else does.

Say it ain’t so, Charlie! Please tell me you wanted to write this column days ago, but your killjoy editor made you wait! Because what you write is true, but it would have been true even if the Red Sox had lost Game 7.

Also today, Eric Pfahler at Scripps Howard chimed in with the following paragraphs:

Manny Ramirez did the right thing — whether he knew it or not — by making his comments prior to Game 5 of the ALCS about how life will move on if the Red Sox don’t make the World Series. Everyone was bashing the Red Sox for playing tight, so Manny becomes Manny and says something silly all the while bashing the ball as if he’s playing with an aluminum bat.

Regardless of what people might think, it was exactly what the Red Sox needed. The team needed to loosen up and it showed in Game 5. No one is better at creating a fun distraction than Ramirez. We in the media are the silly ones who lap it up.

Lap for yourself, Eric!

Now, not everyone recapping Game 7 today mentioned Manny’s comments. But almost everyone talked about the team “staying loose.” And of course, no one was looser than one Manuel Aristides Ramirez. That was true several days ago. Without the benefit of hindsight. When it wasn’t “safe” to say it.

First, tonight’s Metro GameDay column: a game of millimeters.

Now, the keys to tonight’s game:

For the Red Sox

1. Daisuke Matsuzaka must go big or the Red Sox will go home. He can’t afford to make mistakes—he must locate his fastball, and his breaking stuff must break. It won’t matter if he can’t get out of the 5^th inning again (the Red Sox bullpen now includes starters Lester, Wakefield, and Beckett, as well as a rested Papelbon, Timlin, and Okajima) as long as he can keep the Indians from having a big inning.
2. The Sox offense needs to solve Jake Westbrook. They’ve been on a tear since the late innings of Game 5 in Cleveland, and with the Sox back in the friendly confines of Fenway Park, that momentum has only gathered steam. But they can’t wait until Westbrook leaves the game to score—Rafael Betancourt has just been too good.
3. Terry Francona needs to choose his relievers carefully. Eric Gagne will no doubt stay on the bench after working last night (and after being so dreadful in Game 2). Nonetheless, Manny Delcarmen has been knocked around by the Indians both times he’s appeared in this series, and I would be very surprised (and, let’s be honest, completely infuriated) if Tito tapped him again.

For the Indians

1. Westbrook’s sinker needs to sink as well as it did during Game 3. He needs to keep the Red Sox offense off-balance—and keep them hitting into those double plays. This is no less important for being glaringly obvious.
2. The Indians offense must be patient with Daisuke. Even with his high strikeout rate, he has walked about one batter for every two strikeouts. Plus, opponents’ OBP on full counts is almost .500—in other words, if the Indians can work the count full, they have about a 50-50 chance of reaching base.
3. The Indians need to score first. The Red Sox showed at the Jake on Thursday what can happen to a great home crowd when the enemy team strikes first. If the Indians can do the same thing at Fenway, they might be able to take the crowd out of the equation.

For the record, I just have to say, it is unjust to lambaste Manny for a) that weirdo 390 foot single in Game 5 or for b) not sliding into home plate in the same game.

First, I flew into a rage Friday morning en route to work when I was listening to Boston’s sports radio station, WEEI, and the announcers not only criticized Manny, saying they “hadn’t even noticed it until a Tom Verducci article” that mentioned the non-slide. Then they also slammed a caller who criticized Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. It is hard to overstate the robustness of the Boston radio team’s defense of Buck and McCarver. It was as if they were literally watering at the mouth over how “excellent” they supposedly are. “Excellent.” Yes. They actually used that word. They even said they learned from listening to them!

[Sputter, fume, seethe, sputter.]

But as I was saying:

1. Re: the homer that wasn’t, the eggheads at BP have already said they thought it was a home run. I, for one, accept Cleveland’s crazy-ass ground rules but I still think that any ball that hits “the top” of the wall is “over” the wall and hence ought to be called a “home run.” Nonetheless, I think it’s transparent that Manny wasn’t running hard on that ball because he thought it was caught, not because he assumed it was out. If he’d assumed it was out, he would have stood at the plate with his hands in the air. Yes, he should have made it to second on that play, but it was understandably confusing. If that happens to David Ortiz, I guarantee you nobody mentions it.

2. Re: the slide that wasn’t, what the heck was Manny supposed to do? Kill Victor Martinez to make him drop the ball? Slide the 3.7 miles to home plate? If there’s one person to be blamed for that play, it’s clearly Demarlo Hale, the Red Sox third base coach. Maybe Jacoby Ellsbury can score from second on a shallow liner to right, but Manny Ramirez can’t.

So, yeah. There you have it. The only people who think otherwise are the kind of people who actually learn from Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Do you want to be that kind of person? Be honest. No, no you don’t.

“There’s a much different feeling when he takes the mound than any other guy. I admire it. I don’t know how to explain it. But I’m really glad he’s on my team.” —Josh Beckett’s longtime third baseman (and bodyguard) Mike Lowell.

“When you say stuff to Kenny, he’s going to say stuff back.” —Kenny Lofton on his fifth inning, benches-clearing shouting match with Sox ace Josh Beckett.

“I don’t get paid to make those [expletive] decisions. She’s a friend of mine, so it doesn’t bother me at all. Thanks for flying one of my friends to the game so that she could watch it for free.” —Josh Beckett on the Indians having ex-girlfriend Danielle Peck sing the national anthem.

“When we get the little guys on base, it’s a totally different situation.” —Big Papi, who, since he was talking about Pedroia (generously listed at 5′9″) and Lugo (generously listed at 175 lbs), we can only assume is being extremely literal.

“I’m trying to take this tie to Colorado.” —Manny being Manny, in the clubhouse after the game, in a garish purple tie.

At this point, this week’s Boston Metro column seems a bit like piling on–after all, what else is there to do on the off-day after three consecutive losses but rip the manager? But I promise you, gentle UmpBump readers, that when I wrote it at the crack of dawn Tuesday morning, I was a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

Now, however, there’s a new mini-scandal in the Boston papers this morning concerning (who else?) Manny Ramirez. Yes, he actually talked to reporters! And though he said he would trade his individual records for another World Series in a heartbeat, this is the phrase that raised eyebrows today:

“It doesn’t happen, so who cares? There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

Asked about that comment this morning on WEEI, Boston’s sports talk station, Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino said the only thing that made sense: that such “calmness” is what makes Manny Ramirez such a great hitter (and, I might add, such a dangerous hitter with two strikes against him).

I’d like to go one step further with that comment, however. In 2003, Red Sox Nation turned an offhand comment by Kevin Millar into the postseason slogan, “Cowboy up.” In 2004, it was Curt Schilling’s rhetorical question, “Why not us?” Clearly, what was lacking from the 2005 playoffs was a catchphrase. Let’s not make that mistake again, Sox fans. I submit for your approval, the 2007 postseason mantra, courtesy Manny Ramirez:

“Who cares?”

It’s bold. It’s shocking. It’s completely counterintuitive. I like it.

1. I wasn’t one of the folks itching for Beckett to start that game, and I felt vindicated by Wakefield’s no-hit performance through 4.2 innings. Even after Peralta doubled with 2 down in the fourth, Wakefield got Lofton to ground out and end the inning. I even thought Francona pulled Wakefield out at the right time; with Peralta coming up again, two men on, and three runs already in. You don’t want to yank Wakefield earlier, because how many times have we seen Tim Wakefield throw a couple of wild knuckleballs (hey, it’s a wild and crazy pitch!) and then get out of the jam? And he’d already amassed seven strikeouts! If the Sox are up in the series, maybe you let Wakefield work through that inning. But with the Sox trailing and an off day today, you pull him.

2. There must be the evil demons plaguing that infield. The night before, it was Ortiz running into a batted ball. Last night, it was when Tim Wakefield got his glove on an Asdrubal Cabrera comebacker in the fifth, only to deflect it uselessly into the ground. The ball appeared headed straight for Pedroia, and if Wake hadn’t touched it at all, Dustin could easily have turned it into a 4-6-3 double play to be out of the inning with only one run scored. If Wakefield had either held onto it or only nicked it a bit, we at least would have gotten the second out of the inning (and Travis Hafner struck out in the next at-bat). But instead, it was the worst of all possible worlds. Still don’t believe in the demons? Cabrera only hit that ball because the normally-sure-handed Youkilis couldn’t hang on to his earlier foul pop.

3. Manny Delcarmen? Really? After the Indians smacked him around in Game 2? So last night he comes in with two out and two on, and the first thing he does is give up a three-run blast to Peralta. Then it’s single, stolen base, single, walk before he can finally strike out Kelly Shoppach. I mean, you’ve got Mike Timlin in the bullpen. He’s as old as the hills, he has icewater in his veins, and he’s used to pitching in the playoffs. You need ONE OUT. I know he worked the night before, but on the other hand, he was perfect the night before–two K’s in an inning and a third, no hits no runs no walks no nothing. Is it really just too obvious to go with what works?

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1. Daisuke Matsuzaka wasn’t actually that bad. Today in the Boston Herald, the main sports headline is “Sox, Dice-K hit the skids.” In my own Boston Metro, the front-page headline is “Dice-K gets rolled.” Only one paper, the Boston Globe, got the headline right: “Cuffed in Cleveland; Sox trail in series, 2-1, as bats stay quiet.” Matsuzaka’s stuff last night was actually pretty filthy. No, he couldn’t get out of the 5th, which is a black mark against him. But he had 6 strikeouts in 4.2 innings, including one beautiful whiff in which he got Victor Martinez to wave foolishly, stranding two runners. And except for just a few mistakes—two walks and one home run—his breaking balls broke and his fastball fooled ‘em. When the wheels came off in the fifth, it was a dangerous combination of wildness (a single, a wild pitch, and a walk) and bad luck (the ground ball that Dice-K induced found a hole and became a single instead of a double play).

2. What is up with the silent bats last night, guys? This Red Sox lineup has no business being so mystified by the likes of Jake Westbrook. Yet this morning on Boston’s sports radio station, everyone was talking about pitching. (Do you start Beckett on short rest tonight, or do you go with Wakefield? Will we ever see Gagne get the ball again?) But Boston’s only runs of the night came when Jason Varitek awoke from his long slumber to crack that two-run homer. Otherwise, Boston couldn’t get any timely hits. Kevin Youkilis got on base twice, but those hitting after him (the big three of Ortiz, Ramirez, and Lowell) could not drive him in. The Sox loaded the bases with no outs in the second, but couldn’t push a run across. And in a bizarre play in the 4th, Papi’s leadoff double was wasted when, during the next at-bat, Ortiz ran into Manny’s batted ball. (When was the last time you saw that, sports fans? Never mind in the playoffs!) That was a particularly disastrous play for several reasons: it made an out; it stopped the ball from reaching the outfield, snatching away potential extra bases from Ramirez; it almost certainly cost the Red Sox a run, even with Ortiz running; and it completely extinguished whatever momentum the Sox offense had managed to build. Also last night, I noticed that Dustin Pedroia struck out twice. He’d also struck out twice in Game 2. Curious, I looked back to see when he’d last had more than one K in back-to-back games. The answer? He’s never done that before. Not once in the major leagues. Not even in April when he was hitting .182! I have just one thing to say. Dag, yo.

3. The home plate umpire, Brian Gorman, had a very inconsistent strike zone. Buck and McCarver harped on this a bit, but not as much as was warranted. The top-to-bottom was consistent, but the side-to-side never was. It hurt the lineups of both ballclubs at different moments, but the cumulative impact has to affect the strikeout pitcher (Matsuzaka) more than the sinkerballer (Westbrook).

4. I never thought the Sox were going to sweep Cleveland, but after Schilling’s dismal performance in Game 2, they really needed to win Game 3. I mean, Game 2 was a hard loss, but until the 11th (when, as I’ve previously noted, the wheels not only came off, but the entire vehicle vanished and the road disappeared) it could have gone either way. But if your team scores 6 runs, chases Fausto Carmona, and has Curt Schilling on the mound, that’s a game your team ought to win. Nonetheless, having lost that game, you must win the next game, especially when, in that next game, your pitchers limit the opposition to four runs and the pitcher you’re facing got eaten up by New York in his previous outing.

5. It necessarily follows that the Sox absolutely have to win tonight. They just have to. Tim Wakefield has to come up big. And if he doesn’t, Terry Francona has to be quick with the hook, and bring Jon Lester in early (but not, please, in the middle of an inning). And the Sox bats have got to get hot again. I wouldn’t be upset if Ellsbury came in for Drew, either. I want to see the Red Sox stealing and bunting and swinging the bats. And it probably wouldn’t hurt for Manny to take Pedroia aside and ply him with Mannyisms on hitting patiently in the postseason.

The Sox/Indians ALCS Game 2 just went from extra-innings-edge-of-your-seat tense to offensive-free-for-all (well, for the Indians anyway—from the Sox side, it was utter-bullpen-suckage). Too despondent (or maybe just too tired after this preposterously long game) to actually write anything, reproduced below is part of my end-of-game g-chat with Nick:

[Ed. Note: Trot Nixon sends a bloop into shallow center, scoring the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th]

Nick: well, that pitching change didn’t work out!

And to think, Trot was a career .214 batter vs. lefties…

me: I can’t believe Lopez is sucking this much

of course, it was Gagne who let all those runners on…

Nick: I can. Lopez was always pretty sucky

I still don’t know why the Red Sox love him so much

me: but he is the loogy!

Nick: yeah, he’s a “lefty specialist” who actually allows a HIGHER batting average to lefties!

feeding him to Trot was a stupid idea

me: yeah I was surprised, I thought they would let Gagne face Trot

then bring in Lopez to face Victor Martinez if necessary

Nick: yeah, I guess they really don’t have faith in Gagne!

me: and then just throw Lester out there for the rest of it…

wait, where is Kyle Snyder???

Nick: Snyder’s not on the roster

me: no Snyder

no Tavarez

poop

Leave Gagne off the World Series roster, dude

I would rather have Tavarez frankly

Nick: I still think the Sox should have kept JC Romero and dumped Lopez when they had that roster crunch…

Romero actually had the lower ERA at the time, and performed well for the Phillies down the stretch

[Ed. Note: Indians continue to score an appalling number of runs]

Nick: Well, the wheels are all off now

me: the wheels?

there are no wheels!!

Nick: yup

me: the wheels are gone

goodbye wheels!

Nick: they’ve all gone rolling away into the autumn grass

Nick: oh look, the Sox have Crisp, Lugo, and THE MIGHTY ALEX CORA up next inning…

[Ed. Note: Indians cap big inning with a three-run homer.]

me: OH MY GOD

THIS IS RETARDED

THE WHEELS ARE NOT ONLY GONE

THE ENTIRE CAR IS GONE

Nick: um, pretty much

me: THE ROAD IS GONE

I AM IN A MEANINGLESS, FEATURELESS VOID

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