Hmm...did not see that coming... I still stand by my original prediction though(not that I could change it at this point anyway). The Sox still have to face Wacha twice(barring a sweep unless they wanted to use him on short rest) and if the NLCS was any indication, he's not the type to fold under pressure. And the no-DH-for-three-games problem isn't going away for the Sox. Losing Beltran for any time at all would be an enormous blow to the Cards, however.
The thing that sucks is, after Middlebrooks falls over/gets slid into, obstruction is a foregone conclusion. Try to get up? Obstruction. Stay lying down? Obstruction. Get up while the baserunner runs around him? Obstruction. Mistake #1 was Salty throwing to third, mistake #2 was trying to field the throw instead of letting the left-fielder handle it. What a stupid fucking ending to a baseball game.
Yeah, that call fucking sucked. Base runner slammed into Middlebrooks and laid him out, then gets the obstruction call for tripping over the guy he just knocked over. If you watch it, Middlebrooks picking his feet up actually took them off the base path.
If you watch it, he looks at the balls and "starts" to put his feet up three times in order to interfere while trying to look like he wasn't.
Right, it's misguided to think about this from a punitive perspective. It's merely a question of did the runner have an unimpeded path, yes or no? Had Middlebrooks not been there the runner would have been in easily, probably standing up. The only thing worse than making that call would be not making that call.
Like I said, correct decision would have been to let the ball go by and let the left-fielder take care of it. Better still if Salty doesn't make that throw.
What I don't understand is why Farrell had Workman hit last night. Why not pinch hit Napoli and then put in Uehara? The ninth inning of a tied World Series game doesn't seem like the greatest time for a pitcher's first Major League at bat.
Playing for extra innings. Didn't do much good since he only got one out before Koji came in anyway. One of a couple of dumb decisions, the other being to pull Doubront when he was dominating the Cards hitters. The effect of having a diminished bench in an extended game like that was real trouble for the Sox.
Farrell learned his lesson about Doubront being dependable. The lesson about Breslow suddenly losing it, not so much. I wonder what happened to ALCS Breslow, I want that guy back. Pickoff for the last out. First time that's ever happened in a World Series.
I don't understand the whole "atrocious defense" point that people bring up. This isn't directed at dieformetal, but just NL fans in general. My co-worker is a huge Cards fan, and kept saying Boston was going to lose in 5 and that Ortiz playing the field was going to kill their chances. The Sox beat the Cards and the Rockies in '04 and '07, and Ortiz was on the team. It's not like playing NL rules is some surprise that they wait the entire season to spring on the AL team, I mean I'm sure it's not ideal, but I never felt like it was a nail in the coffin. I can't wait to see him at work when I get back home from my vacation. I might go in dressed to the nines in Sox gear. Also, a cool story, not related to the team - if you watched the game on Fox, they interviewed my old boss, Arthur D'angelo, and the home plate umpire actuall went over and talked to him. He owns the souvenir store on Yawkey Way across from the park. I worked there during college, from '04 to '06. If I ended up having to start over at a new job, I would go back up there and start selling jerseys again.
This is the first year I will ever buy any piece of championship gear for any of my teams. I watched in 2003, the 2004 and 2007 series, but this year was more special for me somehow - probably cause I'm older, I understand the rarity of it, the fact that we were goddamn terrible last year, I've been following closely since like June which I never do. I love this fucking team man. I'm getting the hat. Ortiz is playing first base too, it's not like they've got him out there at shortstop. What has he gotta do? Cover the bag, stretch for throws, field the occasional grounder and toss it to the guy covering first. Maaaaybe lay out for a line drive down the line. Neat, I remember that guy.