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Why is Boston's CF named after a breakfast cereal?
It probably didn't have to do with personal bias did it? jesus christ. just tell me this is a shtick.
Why is Boston's CF named after a breakfast cereal?
nope just boston with manny 4.2 runs a game
without manny 6.2 runs a game
upton has 3 homeruns
manny 3 homeruns
bay 3 homeruns this post season
this series in the playoffs
manny is batting .375
left 3 people on base when batting has 4 rbi
bay has left 4 on base
got the key walk in game one and scored the winning run
4 rbi batting .571
he is 3-4 so far
in the 8 he walked
he might get another at bat
Last edited by ducks; 10-11-2008 at 10:55 PM.
lol, wheeler
2 wild pitch all year
why did the catch throw the ball underhand
he had plenty of time
bottom of the 9th.....
Is this going to extra innings?
with manny boston averaged 4.2 runs
They are better with him, are you kidding me?
Give it a rest dumbass.
without manny 6.2 runs a game!
boston loses!
way to go upton!
Weren't you just slobbing Bay's knob? Now it's excitement when he loses? Make up your mind.
actually i picked rays and phillies to sweep
so far phillies can sweep
I only want bay to do well for boston
also upton is justin upton's brother that is older that plays for the d-backs
Upton, 24, hit his fourth home run of the postseason
I guess it is now now 4 huh!
The youngest Rays make a difference
T. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The alternative, Cliff Floyd said, was not something he wished to contemplate.
“We go down 0-2 and going to Boston, I think you can start getting some wardrobe boxes,” he said. “I mean, let’s be real.”
No need to line up the U-Hauls just yet. The Tampa Bay Rays, who have been rewriting the laws of probability all season, refuse to close the book on a saga that never seems to run out of new characters thrusting themselves in featured roles.
Saturday night and into Sunday morning, the Rays withstood four Boston Red Sox home runs, answered with three of their own against October legend-turned-enigma Josh Beckett, then outlasted Boston 9-8 in 11 innings, to even their best-of-seven American League Championship Series at a game apiece.
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The kids were in the middle of much of it.
The winning run was scored by rookie Fernando Perez, the first-ever Ivy Leaguer of Latin descent to make the majors, the Columbia University grad racing home on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by B.J. Upton. Perez scored at 1:35 a.m. ET, an hour that may have violated blue laws in Boston but one not unfamiliar to the 25-year-old Perez.
“I don’t sleep too well,” Perez said, “especially during all this. It’s still cool to me to watch our games on SportsCenter.
“Cliff’s seen himself on [television] a trillion times, But it’s still cool for me to like, stay up and watch the scores and see our team doing it.”
The winning pitcher was 23-year-old David Price, one year removed from the Vanderbilt campus from which he was plucked by the Rays as the No. 1 pick in the 2007 draft. Price, who made his big-league debut less than a month ago in Yankee Stadium, got the last two outs in the 11th inning.
“It was the kid’s first win, but he’s going to have a lot more in this uniform,” said Rays reliever Trever Miller. “I watched him throw in the bullpen, watched his demeanor. He comes from a good background. His family raised him right. He’s an exceptional talent. I’m going to enjoy watching him pitch for a long, long time.”
Upton, 24, hit his fourth home run of the postseason, walked and scored a run, and hit a fly ball in the 11th off Mike Timlin just deep enough for Perez to beat J.D. Drew’s desultory throw.
“With B.J., it’s just a matter of time,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “He just needs the appropriate stage and a little more salt and pepper.”
And the Rays’ biggest bopper was third baseman Evan Longoria, who turned 23 a few days ago and broke out of a mini-slump with a two-run home run off Beckett in the first, scored after his double in the third, and doubled home a run and scored another in the fifth.
“I’m exhausted, physically and mentally,” Longoria said after a game that lasted 5 hours, 27 minutes. “It was an exhausting game, but this was big. It’s all about the moment, and in the postseason you’ve got to perform when it matters. We’re playing for our playoff life here.”
That’s the way Maddon managed it, too. He brought in his setup man, Grant Balfour, in the fifth, after Kevin Youkilis hit Boston’s third home run off starter Scott Kazmir, the first two coming off the bat of Dustin Pedroia, his first-ever two-homer game.
Balfour promptly gave up Boston’s fourth home run, by Jason Bay, forcing Maddon to go to his left-handed setup man, J.P. Howell, in the same inning. He used his right-handed submariner, Chad Bradford, against left-handed hitters with runners on base, and squeezed 3 1/3 gritty innings out of his closer, Dan Wheeler, whose only mistake was to uncork a wild pitch that allowed Pedroia to score the tying run in the eighth.
Maddon also pinch-hit for Floyd, who had homered off Beckett in the fourth, an inning later.
“When you have to win you do things you don’t normally do,” Floyd said. “The bottom line is it’s playoff baseball. I’ve been in it a little bit, not a lot, but I’ve seen teams go for the jugular early. You have to, especially when you’re down.”
Wheeler hadn’t pitched three innings in a game all season but did an impressive reprise of the three scoreless innings he gave Houston when the Astros clinched their division series in an 18-inning marathon against the Braves.
“One kind of quirky thing,” Miller said. “In the fifth inning we looked over at Dan and said, ‘It looks like you’re going to go three innings tonight.’ We were just joking around.
“He said, ‘OK, I’ll do that. I got you guys.’ Sure enough, he overachieves and goes 3 1/3. He’s a hero for me tonight.”
The Rays, whom David Ortiz detected as being tight in Game 1, made a point of trying to lighten the mood before Saturday’s game. “Caps backward, shirts on, shirts off, guys eating and drinking different things,” Miller said.
Unspoken was what was at stake.
“Season saver? I don’t know about that,” Miller said. “This season has already taken us places we never expected to be. Playoff saver, series saver, yeah, it was that.”
The task ahead of the Rays remains formidable. Three games in Fenway Park, where they had not won a series since 1999 until taking two of three in September. An appointment with Boston left-hander Jon Lester, who has been everything Beckett has not this fall.
“But the more we win, the more we come back in situations like tonight, will just make this team grow up more than we have already,” Floyd said. “You never know who’s going to do it for this team. It’s been that type of year, a special year. It seems like everyone wants to step up. You see it with Boston, their young guys, and Mark Kotsay playing first.
“Now Fernando comes in, Price comes in. They’ve learned to step up, and quickly.”
With Francona, seeing is not believing
By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports 7 hours, 16 minutes ago
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ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – When Josh Beckett is pitching these days, Terry Francona puts on his special glasses. They allow the Boston Red Sox manager to see the world as if it’s 2007, when Beckett was a dominant pitcher and not an injured slouch.
Were Francona to have removed his specs sometime before Beckett blew up on Saturday night, the Red Sox could be heading back to Fenway Park with the American League Championship Series in their pocket. Instead, he kept staring through them, pitch after sad pitch, the 2008 Beckett a s of himself who blew three leads in Tampa Bay’s thrilling 9-8 victory in 11 innings that evened the series 1-1.
Before this goes any further: Francona has two World Series rings and is seven wins this postseason away from guaranteeing himself a spot in the Hall of Fame. He is Joe Torre redux, a man with a deft enough touch to manage all of the egos that permeate a team as talented as the Red Sox. He is the perfect manager for Boston.
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That said, Game 2 was Francona’s “Waterworld.”
The Red Sox could have buried Tampa Bay. If the Rays – the young, haven’t-been-here, can’t-quite-grasp-this-yet Rays – lost the series’ first two games at Tropicana Field, their regular-season Valhalla, they might as well have traveled to Boston in caskets.
When Francona chose to send Beckett back out for the bottom of the fifth inning, after the Red Sox had taken a 6-5 lead, he strapped the Red Sox to the pitcher he considered his 18-wheeler – only it happened to have a busted headlight, spider-webbed windshield, cracked fender and empty gas tank.
“We wanted Beckett to get through that fifth and set up our bullpen,” Francona said, “and it didn’t work.”
The strategy, grand in theory, failed in practice because Francona should have seen all the signs. Particularly with Beckett’s fastball velocity.
During the regular season, Beckett threw 1,485 fastballs. They averaged 95.48 mph. Eight were in the 91-mph range. One clocked in at 90 mph.
On Saturday night, 56 of Beckett’s 93 pitches were fastballs. Four came in at 91 mph, two at 90 mph.
“I don’t pay attention to that [expletive],” Beckett said.
He should.
The difference between a 91-mph fastball and a 96-mph fastball is, oh, $50 million or so, not to mention a much better chance of recording outs. With his fastball velocity down, Beckett’s 87-mph changeup looked like a meatball to Evan Longoria, who mashed a first-inning home run.
Two innings later, B.J. Upton hit a 91-mph fastball out to left field, and Cliff Floyd followed in the fourth inning with a monster shot to center field off a 93-mph fastball.
By the fifth, Beckett was spent. Longoria doubled off his final pitch of the night, a 90-mph fastball, and Francona finally removed his glasses. Beckett returned to the dugout with a s -shocked look. He locked eyes with no one. He slipped on his jacket, sat down and stared ahead.
“Everybody knows that he’s got better stuff than what he showed tonight,” Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz said. “And when you go through what he’s been through, it’s hard, man. He’s trying to fight back and trying to help this ballclub. But there’s not too much he can do about it.”
Whether it’s tendinitis in his right elbow or a strained oblique that struck before the postseason, something has turned Beckett from one of the greatest postseason pitchers in history to a bum.
Following the game, he insisted: “I’m fine.” Really? Last year, he gave up four runs in 30 postseason innings. This postseason, Beckett has surrendered 12 runs in 9 1/3 innings.
“You can tell he’s not really himself,” Floyd said. “He’s not going to run away from the opportunity to go out there and give his team a chance to win the ballgame. I’ve played with him. I’ve seen him on TV when he’s done outstanding. But he doesn’t have all his pitches.
“I just know it’s not typical him. He’s usually 95, 96 with his yakker working and his changeup being devastating.”
The opponent could tell he wasn’t the same.
So why couldn’t Francona?
He’s guilty of the same thing that makes him such a great manager: having faith in his players. By insisting he’s healthy – his pride getting in the way of his team’s success – Beckett puts Francona in a difficult position. Can he really question someone with such a prolific postseason résumé?
“That’s a lot of confidence from his manager,” Floyd said, “believing ‘I’ve got a compe or out there on the mound, and he’s going to give me everything he has.’ I think anybody else comes out. Knowing Beckett and what he’s been through and what he’s done, you have to give him the opportunity.”
Francona did. And though the Red Sox tied the game after Beckett exited with an 8-6 deficit, only to lose on an Upton sacrifice fly that scored Fernando Perez, the sentiment afterward remained the same: Beckett had bombed bad and taken the Red Sox from sure thing to tenuous maybe.
“It’s frustrating whenever your team scores eight runs and you can’t win the [expletive] game,” Beckett said. “That’s the frustrating thing.”
His final line was 4 1/3 innings, nine hits, eight runs, one walk, five strikeouts, two F-bombs and enough scowls to make the Elias Sports Bureau’s official scowl counter earn time and a half.
He didn’t care to speculate on his next start, either, and what sorts of adjustments he can make to succeed. The Red Sox have plenty of time to figure it out, with Beckett’s next start not until Saturday. Whether it’s some sort of an injection – Beckett reportedly received a pain-killing shot before pitching in the AL Division Series – or a mechanical tweak, he needs something, because even with Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester dealing, Boston can’t afford this year’s Beckett.
Francona tried to stand up for his pitcher. He offered no excuses. Merely the truth.
“He made some mistakes and he paid for them,” Francona said.
Sounds a lot like Francona’s night, actually. He, too, made a mistake. The Red Sox paid for it.
Any of those articles say anything about how much better the Sox are without Manny?
fact this year they score more runs without him
Manny >>> Bay
End of discussion. STFU ducks. If I knew you in real life I'd come over to your house and smack the out of you. Seriously, I want to smack the out of you just reading your idiotic insane posts.
so, the sox are better without the best postseason hitter of all time? yes or no? Don't try to spin it any other way....just say yes or no.
Been busy haven't been able to post. Just gotta say Philly is tough. Props to them for showing up unlike the Cubs.
Lets go Dodgers!!!!!
Theres that horrible suck ass Manny ramirez driving in another run.
STFU you ing re Ducks.
And great game last night. Boston fans have been blessed lately. Props to Tampa for the tough win. Two great series.
Guess I didn't miss much other than everybody laughing at Ducks
wooo! 6-1!
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