Alright, blatant homerism aside, tonight’s one-game playoff between the Twins and White Sox is by far the cure for the common AL Central Boring Pennant Race. Don’t tell me that as a baseball fan you wouldn’t want the outcome of this thing to be decided this way (poll!!) because I wouldn’t believe you. Not only did we get extra baseball yesterday, we get over-time season baseball. So, in the spirit of the 163d game for both Twinkies and Palehose (which I will live-blog tonight), a little game I like to call: he said, he said (or she said, in this case – thanks melissa):

–

This is it.  This is for October.  One final contest with the world of baseball watching to see who comes out the victor.  Oh, and if you were asking yourself:  “Why are the Twins in Chicago for this game instead of the other way around?”, you’re not the only one.  The Twins are in Chicago because of a coin flip.  Apparently head-to-head results matter nothing–huzzah.

Jesse at Twinkietown

Now the Piranhas must leave the Dome of Doom and attempt to win at Cellblock field. Game 163, the tie-breaker will go to the pale hose.

Frequent UmpBump commenter (and occasional contributor) melissa.

The game was sold out within a hour. It will be the most hostile environment many Twins players will have experienced to this point in their careers. I have NOT forgotten the 2003 All-Star Game in Chicago, when fans booed Eddie Guardado mercilessly during introductions.

La Velle E. Neal III at the Star Tribune’s Twins’ Insider blog.

”The work we do in November to get in shape during the offseason until now is all for this,” veteran reliever Scott Linebrink said. ”Everybody works all year to get to where we are right now. We need to take advantage of it.”

Veteran reliever Scott Linebrink.

“I’ll take my chance against him if he pitches the way he pitched last time,” Guillen said Monday.

“He didn’t pitch well. When you’ve got the bullpen warming up in the second inning … we just didn’t approach him the right way.”

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen on Twins pitcher Nick Blackburn, the scheduled starter for tonight’s game.

–

Poll? Poll!!

 Loading …

7:10 pm Josh Beckett takes the hill and promptly retires the first three Rays’ batters without much effort. His last outing was great (7 K’s, no walks, no runs in five innings in his first start since missing time with tingling/numbness in his fingers), but he hasn’t been very Beckettian this season (4.20 ERA). If the Red Sox are going to advance at all this October, they need Beckett to be Beckett.

7:15 Paul favorite Andy Sonnanstine’s pitching for the Rays. He gets the speedy Ellsbury leading off, but super-gutty gamer Pedroia hustles to first and gets there just in time! The throw from Bartlett was high–they just charged him with an error–but that was a nice bit of running from Pedroia. He’s not known for his speed, and yet he has 17 steals this season and just one caught stealing. I think that says just as much about his brain as his legs.

7:20 Sonnanstine gets Papi to strike out and then Kevin Youkilis flies out. I run into the kitchen to check on my peach cobbler. It’s bubblin’!

7:23 Dang! Ultimate gutty infielder Pedroia takes a bad hop off the chest and Floyd is on base. Because the official scorer likes him better than Bartlett, it’s a basehit. And this is followed up by a triple from Aybar–and the Rays send Floyd home! That’s nice, aggressive baserunning. Rays up, 1-0.

7:27 And I feel the need for a glass of rose. That “e” needs an accent aigue, but I don’t know how to do that in html. And while I was trying to look it up, Beckett broke off a beautiful curveball and struck out Hinske!

7:28 Gabe Gross at the plate. He looks constipated. Gross.

Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, sure, that would have been a more compelling headline 24 hours ago, when the Red Sox could’ve taken the lead in the AL East by beating the Rays last night–but of course, 24 hours ago UmpBump was catatonic because of the extreme jackassery of a company called Siteground. (Apparently, we were gettin’ too big for our britches. Or rather, their servers.) Now, the best the 1.5-games-back Sox can hope for is to come out of this series in the Fens just a half-game behind (and the best Umpbump can hope for is to limp into the future, bloodied but unbowed…okay, maybe a little bit bowed).

Watching last night’s game, I was struck by just how evenly matched the two teams really are. Like the Red Sox-Yankee contests of the past couple of years (though not so much this year), this game dragged on for hours. It was parry, thrust, parry, thrust, right up until the last out.

Tampa seemed to have the Red Sox beat until Jason Bay hit his third roundtripper in as many games, putting the Red Sox on top with a two-run shot over the left field wall. But then the Rays rallied off of Papelbon in the 9th, tying the game on a solo homer and going ahead on back-to-back doubles. But even so, the Red Sox threatened again in the bottom of the ninth, with pinch runner Jacoby Ellsbury stealing second and then scrambling to third when Dioner Navarro’s throw went flying into the outfield.

In such a well-matched contest, managerial decisions often seem to tip the scales one way or the other. And last night was no exception.

So why Terry Francona wasted an out earlier in the ninth by trying to have Jason Varitek bunt Mark Kotsay, who’d walked, over to second is beyond me. First, if by some crazy chance it works and Kotsay does get to second, what do you think the chances are that the next batter, David Ortiz, would be intentionally walked? Somewhere between 99.95% and 99.98 %, I’d say. And second, why sacrifice at all? Why not put in Ellsbury as your PH right away, have him steal second, and then let him either a) stay there, when Varitek strikes out, or b) advance to third when Varitek grounds out, or c) have him tag and run to third when Varitek flies out? But it makes no sense to me, when you’re down to your last three outs, to waste one on trying to get your slow-footed catcher to bunt a guy to second base. I mean, I know Varitek’s odds of making an out are pretty high anyway, but at least when you let him swing the bat you have about a 31% chance that he’ll won’t make an out. Asking him to bunt gives you almost a 100% chance that he will.

The sacrifice wasn’t a play I’d grown used to seeing the Red Sox make, but it seems (unofficially, to my inconstant and subjective eye) to be making something of a comeback lately. About a month ago, I vented my spleen to the UmpBump staff:

Enraged Sarah: sox are up 2-1 against the other sox. jacoby ellsbury on first, no outs. terry francona calls for crisp to lay down a bunt to move ellsbury to second. tell me why, why you wouldn’t just have jacoby steal?! he’s one of the fastest players in the league!! why waste an out that way?!?!!! uuuugh.

Reasonable Paul: because to do otherwise is unconventional. and doing something unconventional means you’re going to get fired. saying things like you don’t want your big hitters walking because they clog the bases means you’re “experienced”.

Irrationally Infuriated Sarah: but the red sox almost never sacrifice! the red sox are steeped in moneyball ways!!!

To make matters worse, as Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo noted last night, if I heard them right, the Rays have sacrificed less than any other team in baseball this year. Damn you, Joe Maddon, and your hardball savvy and your trendy glasses!

I’ll try to liveblog/open thread/be here tonight. That is, if UmpBump is still here a couple of hours from now.

The White Sox held off the sweep yesterday. It was a picture-perfect late summer day in Boston, but the Red Sox managed only 2 runs despite notching 8 hits, 5 walks, and 5 steals (and one call of defensive indifference). We rose to our feet with two out in the bottom of the ninth when David Ortiz strode to the plate as the tying run, but the Large Father (as he’s been occasionally called by his closer) drew an anticlimactic walk. Then Dustin Pedroia, who was 8-for-8 with five runs scored in the previous two games, stepped in—batting cleanup. The Fenway Faithful roared their approval, greeting the second baseman with a lusty chant of “EM VEE PEE!” But alas, Dustin popped weakly to left.

So in this round, at least, Alejandro was completely right, and I was completely wrong. In the game where they staked an early lead—Jim Thome hit a two-run homer off of Wakefield in the first yesterday—the White Sox won. And contrary to my dismal expectation heading into the weekend, the Red Sox bullpen only gave up one run over three games. I tip my hat to you, Leal.

The Chicaco Sox are now a half-game over the Twins, and the Red Sox are now five and a half back from the unstoppbable Rays. The Palehose are two behind the Red Sox in the loss column, and the Red Sox are 2.5 games ahead of theh Twins in the wild card. So, after this big series in the Fens, everything is basically as it was before.

At least both Sox can breathe a bit easier now; the ChiSox are now facing off against one of the year’s great disappointments, the Cleveland Indians, while the BoSox are taking on that perennial bottom-feeder, the Baltimore Orioles.

Earlier today, Alejandro and I previewed the weekend’s Sox-Sox series. I said that the White Sox could win by being patient,drawing walks, and tiring out the Red Sox starters. Get to the bullpen, I advised, and then let ‘er rip. Alejandro argued that the Red Sox could win by staking an early lead.

In Game 1, the Red Sox did manage to stake a reasonably early lead, scoring once in the first, twice in the fifth, four times in the sixth, and once in the eighth. But the White Sox only managed two walks and two hits, while striking out eight times in all and scoring no runs. Not only did Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch well, he also gave Boston 8 full innings of work.

So I’d say Alejandro wins this round. Except that, as a White Sox fan, I’m sure he’d rather have lost.

And a slight change of plan for tomorrow: no longer is Triple-A hurler David Pauley Boston’s penciled-in starter. Nope. Top prospect Michael Bowden will be making his major league debut instead. That doesn’t really change much, strategically—Bowden isn’t likely to go deeper into the game than Pauley would’ve—but it does make this game a heckuvalot more exciting for Red Sox fans.

One of the most pleasing things about having a blog is the ability to use Google and Nexis to remind MSM of all the things they’ve been wrong about. Hifalutin types like to call this “holding the mainstream media accountable.” After all, making predictions is a big part of journalism (though we’re not really sure what it’s supposed to add to the conversation) and an even bigger part of sports journalism (where at least it does no harm). But where’s the fun in predicting things without snarky bloggers to rub your mistakes in your face? One of the bigger gaffes this season has to be the many voices that declared the Yankees dead in the water before June. Now, of course, the Yankees have shaved 10.5 games off their previous deficit and are within an easy four-game striking distance of the first-place Boston Red Sox.

Coley has already called out ESPN’s Jayson Stark for writing that the Yankees were done. On May 31, Stark wrote:

ARE THE YANKEES DEAD?

This is another dangerous question, considering the Yankees are “only” 7½ out in the wild-card race.

[...]

One thing we know, however, is this: They’re not catching the Red Sox. No team in history ever has been 14½ games out before June and come back to finish first. And only the Miracle Braves were that far back at any point and wound up playing in October.

And today in ESPN’s Page 2, Jeff Pearlman formally retracts his column of May 18 stating that Joe Torre should be fired. In that column, Pearlman wrote, ironically now, that calling for the men’s soccer coach at his college to be fired was “remains my greatest journalistic regret.” Yet forging brazenly ahead, Pearlman continued:

I bring this up because today, for only the second time as a writer, I am recommending a person be fired.

This time, however, I am right.

The New York Yankees need to rid themselves of Joe Torre. Now.

[...]

“[The Yankees] are a flat tire, with nary a jack for miles. Here is a team in dire need of pizzazz, of intensity, of spirit, of soul.

Oddly, Pearlman called Torre’s first championship in New York “one of the great managerial achievements in Yankees history,” but then attributed most of Torre’s success in those years to his talented coaching staff and the front office, which supplied him with “mature, self-motivated men in their early-to-mid 30s who didn’t need to be pumped up by their manager before a big game. ” That hardly sounds like a managerial achievement to me—in fact, it sounds like Pearlman’s argument was basically, “Joe Torre was a good manager because he doesn’t manage.” He should have retracted this column whether or not the Yankees started closing in on the division title.

But why pick on ESPN? They were hardly the only scribes to write off New York. Over at SI.com, John Donovan wrote of the Yankees on July 24:

Their string of nine straight American League East titles is toast. The 12 straight postseason appearances? Well, I can’t be completely sure, but I think I smell that burning, too. It’s almost unfathomable to think that the Red Sox, who own a 10-game cushion on both the Yankees and Blue Jays, can choke away the division lead. The Sox simply have too much pitching, both starting and in relief, to blow it. And the Yankees’ possibilities for landing the wild card look nearly as bad. They’re down 8 1/2 games in that race and have a ton of good teams to pass — Cleveland, Seattle, Minnesota and Oakland, not to mention current division leaders Detroit and the Angels. It’s just too much to ask, even for a team that’s second in the league in scoring (5.4 runs a game).

And of course, there were some blowhards in the Boston area making the same claims. “This race is already over,” wrote Bill Reynolds in the Providence Journal of the AL East pennant. “Finis. Kaput. Done. Over…Write it down.” In the Lowell Sun, Teddy Panos advised, “After Labor Day, the Sox will be exactly where they are now—comfortably ahead of the Yankees and setting up the rotation for the playoffs.”

Then, of course, there was all the moaning by the New York papers—scathing disdain on the back page of the Post and restrained despair within the New York Times. Most recently, for instance, Cashman was castigated for letting the Sox get Eric Gagne. But that’s a subject for another day.

I, of course, never made such foolish predictions because I, of course, am a Red Sox fan. I believe in my team–with a capital B, in certain instances–but I never, ever trust them.

This morning, the Red Sox were just six games ahead of the Yankees in the American League East. As it happens, New York and Boston have six contests left this year.

In 17 of their last 19 games, the Yankees have scored five or more runs (even in games they ended up losing). That span also includes some crazy football-type scores: pounding Tampa Bay 17-5 and 21-4, drubbing the White Sox 16-3, and battering the Royals 16-8. Not surprisingly, the still-aptly-named Bronx Bombers lead the AL in runs scored, homers, hits, average, RBI, OBP, SLG, and OPS.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox pitchers lead the league in ERA, have given up the fewest runs and earned runs, have the most strikeouts, and are tied for the lead in batting average against and shutouts.

So it would seem that the AL East pennant is going to come down to a classic baseball faceoff: good pitching vs. good hitting. The conventional wisdom says that in that matchup, good pitching always beats good hitting. But New York’s offensive juggernaut is even more impressive than ususal right now.

Yet so far, Boston has a slight advantage; as great as the Yankees’ offense has been, Boston’s has also been very good. Meanwhile, Boston’s superb pitching has far outstripped New York’s, which has been abysmal. The Yankees are consistently towards the bottom of the league in pitching stats, while the Red Sox are consistently in near the top in offensive numbers.

New York wants to change that. Gone is Joe Torre’s Binky (aka Scott Proctor). Likely headed for waivers is the out-of-favor Kyle Farnsworth. Designated for assignment is lefty-one-out-guy Mike Myers, bane of David Ortiz. And relegated to the remainder bin is Kei Igawa, touted at the beginning of the season as the Yankees’ Matsuzaka. All of this dumping makes room on the roster for hot, young, Yankee farmhands Jim Brower, Phil Hughes, and Joba Chamberlain. Phil Hughes had been on the DL since the Yankees panicked and called him up too early in the season. Brower, a reliever, had been in the minors, honing his 1.65 ERA. Chamberlain–who throws a 98 mph fastball and a 90 mph slider–had started the season in Single A. (Although Chamberlain has had nothing but success this year, I can’t help but point out that Farnsworth throws 97 and still hasn’t been able to get anybody out.)

A few miles up I-95, Boston decided they already had enough good, young pitching and instead went for a veteran arm in Eric Gagne. A few dissenting voices in Boston wished they’d added a bat instead–as I write, Julio Lugo is singlehandedly trying to ruin Boston’s chances of winning the division. This morning, the Boston Globe reported that Lugo was last in the league in RCAA (runs created against the average) with negative 27. Cutting to the chase, this means that though Lugo has created 40 runs for the Sox this season, an average shortstop would have created 67. (And that doesn’t even factor in all the damage he’s done with his leaden glove.)

Good pitching or good hitting? In the end, both Brian Cashman and Theo Epstein decided to stock up on good pitching. And I, for one, can’t wait to see what happens when good pitching and good hitting face off on August 28, when the Red Sox head to the Stadium. It could decide who gets the AL East pennant…and who gets stuck with the Wild Card. (We know Josh and Joba are already pretty psyched [see photos]. Either that or hungry.)

Now things are getting interesting. The Chicago White Sox swept the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers have now lost five in a row (though they are still 5.5 games ahead of the ChiSox in first). The top three teams in the AL Central have winning percentages of .650 (Detroit), .603 (Chicago) and .581 (Twins). I fear the AL Central.

For a study in contrasts, turn to the AL West, where a .556 winning percentage is enough to put Oakland is 4.5 games ahead in first. The NL West is even crappier—the Dodgers are first, playing .521 ball. No wonder the last-place Giants are just 6.5 games behind them. But it beats the NL Central, where there are just two teams (out of six) over .500. So you have some close races in those divisions, but if you’re a Twins fan it hardly seems fair.

While no team in the AL East can match Chicago or Detroit, the Red Sox (yay!) are back within a game of the Yankees. Today at the Fens, a cheer went up from the crowd when the number “9″ was removed from the inning slot in the manual scoreboard, signifying the end of the Angels-Yankees game and, thus, New York’s loss to Anaheim. So pennant fever rages pretty consistently across the entire United States, with virulent outbreaks near the Great Lakes and New England. Lingering pennant sniffles hover over the West coast.

In fact, the only place there doesn’t seem to be a scorching case is Queens. The Mets, of course, are running away with the NL East title. They’re 15 games ahead and the only team over .500. Yawn.