Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick: World Series Champs Edition!

Thunderstick: Well, we counted down the magic number every time it changed from the beginning of April until we clinched the AL East and we counted down the wins for the past few weeks until the number went from 11 to 0, and we finally rolled to the World Series title. Sweet. What a game last night. And while there's no doubt that there was much less relief this time than in 2004, it was pretty f'in great none the less. You can go straight down this entire lineup and see where almost every guy on this roster had a hand in something over the past couple weeks. What a great feel good story last night to see Lester come in and go 5+ and not give up any runs.

There's a lot to go through and to rehash but for today, let's just bask in the idea that we were able to have a fun playoff run to a world title and not have to listen to the 1918 nonsense and all that stuff. As was quoted so many times during 2004, people wondered if Sox fans would be the same without having the curse attached to us and I think it's shown that we aren't the same. We're a much happier bunch that was really able to enjoy this run this year rather than in 2004 where as we've said many times, it was great, incredible, awesome, etc., but would we really call it fun? It was fun this time around.

Props to Mikey Lowell for getting the MVP. I love the guy. He's a throw in, so we eat his salary in the Beckett trade, but he comes through like this for the last two seasons. I know there are ARod rumors swirling and everything, but give me a high- character guy like Lowell who is central in the clubhouse and plays his heart out first to play third. I still think Pap should have won MVP--the story in game 2 was he and Okajima locking down that win (recall Pap came in with two guys on base and the Sox up 1 and he didn't let it get away). His part in game 3 was kind of minimalized, but he got the out that stopped the Rockies' late rally. And last night, with Delcarmen, Timlin and especially Okie looking shaky, he came in and locked things down in another one-run game. But these are arguments that are fun to have because you won. There's an offseason to talk about how well this team is set up for the long haul and what needs to be done in free agency and such, but we can spend a few days really relishing this and then we can throw ourselves into the C's opener, BC/Florida State and Pats/Colts. What a great time to be a Boston sports fan.

[Written a little while later] It is just so much better to be World Series champs than to not be World Series champs. I literally had no time to read the articles on ESPN or CNNSI or even in the Globe this morning until about lunch time and even then I read them hurriedly, but they were great to see. They are all variations on the same themes--sure the team spends money, but look at what the rooks did, how the Sox spent money wisely, how this is no longer a culture of fearing the worst and my favorite, how well the Sox are set up to make a good run at things the next several years.

Throw on that all the ARod stuff and it's a fun sports day. The ARod thing has me a bit perplexed I have to admit. All year I've always been of the mind that as much as I hate ARod, it'd be ridiculous to not sign him and I could instantly love him if he was in the Sox uniform. That said, I think if there's one thing we have learned from 2004 and 2007 is that team chemistry does count for something. It might not count for as much as a lot of people want you to believe, but I think it counts for something and it might be that little something that gets you over the hill in a 7 game series as opposed to losing in 6. And I'm wondering if it's worth signing ARod, particularly from the standpoint that we've learned that what isn't necessarily important is to have a guy that can hit dingers in the middle of your lineup--what is more important is that you have 9 guys that go deep into count and are just relentless at making pitchers pitch and I'm concerned that if you spend $30 million a year on ARod you can't get those 8 or 9 guys that batter pitchers, not to mention that even more important than all that is pitching and I'd much rather spend $12 million per year apiece on two stud pitchers than $30 million on ARod. It has been enteraining if only because everyone within the Yanks organization has bungled everything since the end of the season--from how they let Torre go, to Torre's whole "insult" thing after it was shown that he had incentives in his other contracts, to some of the statements by the younger Steinbrenner [Hank], to now this and the flak ARod is catching for making his announcement during the World Series, not to mention doing it on a day when he said previous committments kept him from coming to the game to get that award from Hank Aaron. This is more of the Yankees team that I know and love. It'll be really interesting to see how all this plays out over the next couple months.

dcat: Let's not worry about ARod or the Yankees or Boras or even the future. One of the big transitions after 2004 is that it has become too easy as a fan not just of the Sox but of Boston sports generally not to be able to appreciate what we have. We've been really lucky. And Sox fans are going to have to make a transition too: While the Sox will always be vitally important to us, to the rest of the world we are just another really successful sports team who they are coming to hate, and whose fans can make that hatred easy to cultivate. Sure, the Sox hold a vital place in the history of baseball. And the fan base is huge and loyal and devoted, far moreso than those of most teams. But the reality is that where 2004 was a great story, my guess is that most of the rest of the world is going to get really weary of the Red Sox. And I'm ok with that -- if people hate you, it means you're relevant.

I too believe Paps deserved the World Series MVP, though Lowell had a hell of a series, and in addition to his obvious numbers, he also scored a lot of runs, played great D, and made some brilliant baseruning decisions. But what I like about it is that it reminds me of 2004: When you sweep a World Series in such convincing fashion, inevitably everyone contributes. Had Dusty or Ellsbury or Paps on the MVP it also would have made sense. I felt that it should have gone to Foulke in 2004 and to paps this time, but the glory of it is that the MVP goes to someone on the winning team, and I doubt anyone on that roster cared in the end who won the MVP except to feel good for their teammate.

The Red Sox are the champions. Again. Looks like I'll happily be spending a lot of money in the next few weeks. And I slept last night with Sportscenter on a permanent loop on the tv in the background. You'll have to report to us from the victory parade. The Red Sox are just another team celebrating just another championship, something that happens every year in baseball, and many times a year in lots of sports. Isn't it glorious?

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick: Game Four, Let's Get It Done Tonight, Edition

My hope is that while we'll be able to write about the Sox in the next few days, this will be the last game preview of the 2007 season. Thunderstick kept his remarks brief and to the point:

Thunderstick: I think there was one big message in the game last night which was the Sox jumped out early and took control of the game, which is what champion teams do, and then when Colorado mounted a serious threat, not only did they not ever give up the lead, but when things got tense, they responded big and took their heart and finished the game with a big inning--another thing that champions do. We can go into the heroics of Ellsbury and Dusty and Lowell and Pap, but the big story here was that the Sox looked like the world champions last night. You go through the scenario--Colorado has a good shot to beat Lester tonight and then maybe if they can get by Beckett somehow and get back to Boston and maybe they catch bad outings from Schil and Dice, they could pull it off. But clearly these first three games couldn't have gone much better as the Sox have shown they can win a blowout, they can win a low scoring game and they can win one that is kind of wild.

dcat: Do you remember what we were like at this point in 2004? It was a combination of anticipation and disbelief and, frankly, fear. It seemed too good to be true and while we had seen the Pats win and can even remember the C's winning, and you had Duke basketball, we were entering uncharted territory with the Sox.

This feels different. It just feels good. Now as you say, we are not out of the woods yet. The Lester story is a great one, and there is something wonderful about him getting his shot to close out the World Series given the cancer scare from the offseason. But realistically he is also our weakest link. If there is any chance for the Rockies to snag a win and get that elusive (and maybe fictive) momentum going, it's tonight. But acknowledging that there is still important baseball to be played does not change the reality that we have controlled this series in every imaginable way so far. The lineup has been outstanding. Losing Youks and Papi for half a game each did not end up mattering. Dice was better-than-solid for five innings. The end of the bullpen faltered but did not fail. And when they closed the gap, we awoke and put the game out of reach again, with Paps closing the door yet again, and putting himself in the lead for the MVP discussion.

Get one more win. Do it tonight. This has been fun. I have no interest in drama of any kind. In this case, I am happy to win what I'm sure the rest of the country sees as a boring World Series rather than get caught up in an exciting one.

Go Sox!!!

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick: On To Colorado Edition

Well, it was another damned good night to be a Boston sports fan, especially if you root for BC, as I do (and many in Boston do not, though the bandwagon is filling up fast). The Boston College comeback was beyond improbable and keeps them in the hunt for a BCS bowl and maybe, just maybe a national title. But as great as the win over Virginia Tech was in Blacksburg, it pales next to the Sox taking a 2-0 lead in the World Series over the Rockies. So let's hear what the Thunderstick has to say.

Thunderstick: Great win last night. Really they are all great at this time of year because they get you one victory closer to winning the whole thing, but everyone in the world was predicting a high scoring affair and the Sox were able to win a pitcher's duel. Schil did what he had to and Tito once again showed that he's a master at managing the pitching in the playoffs by knowing exactly when Schill had had enough and exactly how long he could go with Okie and Pap. Hell of a performance by those guys. Jimenez was better than I expected. He walked too many guys and that ultimately led to him not getting out of the 5th, but his stuff was either in the strike zone and nasty or out of the strike zone (and still nasty), so the Sox couldn't get a lot of good hits on him to drive in those walked batters. But they got it done and go up 2-0 heading to Colorado.

Two things after this game--one looking back, one looking forward. We've spent many emails and text messages the last 4 years discussing Schilling, talking about how we wished he'd shut up from time to time and discussing a lot of non-baseball-related items about him. But I hope that was his last start at Fenway because it was the perfect way to go out. Despite the extra stuff that comes along with Schilling, he's had a huge effect on this organization and region. When he came in 2004, it was his presence that kept Sox fans up after the Yanks got ARod in an offseason that came off of that brutal game 7 loss to the Yanks in the 2003 ALCS. And his attitude was huge as one of the personalities to drive that 2004 team. His heroics led to him never being quite right again, with two years where he really wasn't very good at all. But this year, he hasn't been overpowering and he hasn't been dominant, but he's gotten it done when he needed to--in game 3 against Anaheim and game 6 against Cleveland and again last night and his approach has typified this Sox team where he's just doing what he can, doing it intelligently and doing it effectively and he just keeps at it. You heard them talk about him and Ortiz leading that players-only meeting during the series with the Tribe and you see his thoughts echoed in the post-game interviews that are conducted with other players. I won't miss some of the stuff that goes along with Schill if this was his last start, but I will very much miss watching him pitch, particularly in October, even if it is this version of him that rarely goes over 90 and can only throw 80+ pitches a game and while it becomes fashionable to bash on Schilling for some of the stuff he says, it'll be nice to see the full appreciation of Red Sox Nation for him after he passes out of town when people tend to forget the non-game related nonsense and remember his performances.

Lastly, looking ahead--I mean, we can't get too overconfident, but I said after game 1 that game 2 was pretty damned important to the Rox if only because they had to figure that they aren't going to beat Beckett so if they lost game 2, it basically meant they had no margin of error in the 4 upcoming games that Beckett wasn't pitching because even though you might not know what you are going to get from Schill, Dice and Lester in these other four possible games, you have to think the Sox would win at least one of them, so by losing game 2, they might have doomed themselves. But we'll see. I'm interested to see how much the lineups are evened out with the loss of the DH. I'm also interested to see how Dice, who relies on a lot of ball movement, pitches in the thin air. The Rox will have a chance to get back in this, tomorrow night and Sunday night before seeing Beckett again, but I think if the Rox don't win both of these, the Sox will be popping champagne on Monday night. I have a feeling the Rox win one, if only because they are good enough, a young, upstart team that will get carried through one game by the emotion of being at home in the World Series, but I also think they win one because the stars of the 2007 playoffs have clearly been Beckett (for his masterful performance) and Pap (for his pitching, but also for his personality) and it seems like it's only fitting that it end with Beckett getting a win and Pap closing it down for him.

dcat: I wrote the following before Game One:

One factor in this series, I think, is that there will be at least two games when the winner will simply have to outscore the other team, and I don't mean that in the obvious way that teams to win always have to outscore the other. But given that we are talking about a World Series being played in Fenway Park and Coors Field, there are going to be times when the winner is going to have to put up 8-9-10 runs. I am not certain that the Rockies can beat us in a lot of those games. There will also be at least a couple of games when the winner is simply going to have to out-pitch the other team. I am confident that the Sox can win those games.

We know how these sorts of predictions usually work, but I think I had that one right. We've had two very different games, one a laugher, one a nail biter, and in both cases the Sox played better baseball and emerged on top. In the first game Beckett was spectacular, but he did not even have to be, as the lineup pounded the Rockies. In Game Two, runs were going to be scarce. We got what we needed and let Schill do his work, and then he handed the ball to Oki and Paps, who were simply astounding. In the NBA postseason, the ideal approach is to shorten the rotation. In the NHL playoffs coaches change the way they manage shifts. Well, in baseball, you do everything you can to maximize the time the ball is in the hands of the guys at the end of the bullpen rotation. In a game seven that might go out the window, but it is clear that in this series Tito is going to let Oki and Pap go multiple innings. These are the highest leverage situations, so we are going to maximize how we utilize those guys. They came through last night. Thankfully, we have the off day today. Still, we need some innings from Dice tomorrow.

I agree wholeheartedly with you about Schill, though there is a part of me that would love to see him close out his career with the Sox if the price is right. I don't care what Curt Schilling, or any of these guys, thinks about politics. But at this time of year I want a wily Curt Schilling both on the mound and in the clubhouse. If he wants to get bank for one last contract, I think we wish him well and cheer like mad when he returns to Fenway. But if he simply wants another year or two, is interested in being a mentor, and is not worried about being a number one guy, I'd be happy to have him back. There is, as we have seen year after year after year, no such thing as too much starting pitching.

Game Three will be the Rocks' last best chance to get back into this thing. And while Dice had been sporadic, I still maintain that he has not been bad, and the last game he was quite good. So far the Rockies have not been as patient as the Indians, have not seen as many pitches, have not shown the ability to wear our guys down. If we assume that Dice is going to have that one tough inning, and if it is likely to be the fourth, we have to hope that Dice can get to the 4th having thrown as few pitches as possible. We are going to get our runs. The question is if they can get to Dice and ride what will likely be a crazy home crowd thrilled to see their team in a World Series game.

I'm going to enjoy the off day. We have everything to be happy about. Two games down, two wins, and in very different fashion. Let's enjoy a Friday night without being glued to the television, and get back at it tomorrow.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick: Game Two of the World Series Edition

Thunderstick: I think that first game confirmed a lot about what we thought might happen in this series. Beckett was awesome. Sox lineup is hot. Rockies look to be cooled off from the layoff. I think the talent is better on the Sox. I also think experience mattered last night--the Sox went in cool and collected and did what they had to. The Rockies couldn't get the last out when they had the Sox at 2 outs all night. Hell, in that 5th inning, that dude had 2 outs and nobody on and the next thing you knew the Sox had batted around and scored 7 runs and there were still 2 outs on the board. So clearly, if you want to draw up a way that game 1 should start that was it--decisive and demoralizing.

That said, it is still one game. It doesn't matter if you win 13-1 and then lose 1-0, you are still going to Denver tied at a game a piece. I still feel like I don't know this Rockies team at all. Helton is the only guy that comes up that I think gives the Rox a good chance to get a hit. I know Holliday was great all year, but I didn't watch the Rox and my only impressions were that he looked overmatched last night (granted it was against Beckett). I guess if you were an NL person and heard all year how great ARod or Haffner were and then you saw them in the playoffs with the performances they had lately, you'd also think "I don't get it--what's the big deal."

I'm always the kind of person that says a series really doesn't start until the home team loses, although I've abandonded that in the days of the 2-3-2 format because it's so hard for the home team to win those three games at home in the middle that I don't think it's the end of the world for the home team to geek one of the first two. So normally I wouldn't think tonight would be that big for the Rox, but now I think it is. They can't afford to lose tonight. Some might say "well if they lose 4-3, it'll show they are on their way back, have shaken off the rust, etc..." I don't buy that at all because Beckett is now 4-0 in this postseason and shows no signs of letting up. I think you have to assume that game 5 is a Sox win at this point, which means that if the Rox lose this one tonight, knowing they'll likely lose game 5, you might as well consider them down 3-0 and it'll be all but over. I know an older Schilling, Dice and LEster aren't the most intimidating pitchers to come to the mound, but you have to think the Sox win at least 2 of the 5 games with them on the mound, which means if the Rox want to win, they better start trying to avoid those two losses tonight.

I think if the Sox win tonight, you have two potential outcomes for the Rox. The best the Rox can hope for is to get that one home win a la the Mets in 2000 against the Yanks to make their home fans feel good that after waiting to see a world series game, they could also see one world series game wins. The other scenario is a 4 game sweep that they are never in like the Cards in 04 or the Padres when they played the Yanks that one year. The Sox had great pitching, worked counts and got big hits. The Rox have to show they can counter that tonight with something. It'll be interesting to see if this Ubaldo dude is up to the task--from what I understand about him, he's got a cannon but doesn't exactly have great command. He better hope to find his command tonight because the Sox pummel guys that don't have great command.

dcat: Not much to disagree with in your assessment of last night's game one. That was one of the dullest Sox blowouts I have ever watched. They made it clear that they were the better team, at least last night, and now I hope they have forgotten all about last night as they prepare for the second game. We saw that stat last night -- before the Sox' blowout, the largest game one margin of victory in World Series history had been 11 runs. Both teams went on to lose the series. That actually means nothing, except to say that there is no real momentum involved in even the most overwhelming win.

But where we might have momentum is with the bats. Our offense has been astounding the last four games. We have put double digits up in the run column and have been winning games by huge margins. Basically, in the last few games we have been running roughshod in a leave-no-doubts-who-is-the-best-team sort of way. If that keeps up it will take pressure off the pitching staff.

But none of that means anything tonight if we lose game two, and I know that enough guys in that locker room are aware of this fact. What i loved about last night's game, and what I have loved about the last four games, is that we have not had to rely on Manny and Papi to carry us. Dusty has come up big the last few games, and Youkilis has probably been as much of a postseason MVP as Beckett on a day-to-day basis. This is partially why I am not going to let myself get too concerned about the fact that we will lose one of the Lowell-Youk-Papi troika during the games in Colorado. Tito will make sure they all are worked into the lineup, but we don't rely on one guy to get it done. I'd love all three to be in the games. But if you were to tell me that rather than lose one to the absence of the DH we'd, God forbid, lose one to injury, would you wring your hands in despair? Me neither.

At this time of year there is not much new that we ask for from game to game. I'd like to see us continue our hitting streak. I hope Schill is in his postseason form, I hope the bullpen has made something of the rest they've gotten. Rinse, wash repeat. This is what I'll want on Saturday and Sunday too. What I think we lack right now is the sense of moral crusade or historical comeuppance. This is the brave new post-2004 world in which we live. We want the Red Sox to win it all because any fan wants their team to win it all, and we love the Sox unconditionally. But there is little subtext or metanarrative within which to couch this postseason run. And that's good. It is nice for the angst in this series to be the same sort of angst we would feel for the Celtics or Pats, if, because it's the Red Sox, a bit more intense.

I see no need to reconsider my belief that the Red Sox are going to win this series comfortably, if not easily. Schill will give us six strong and we'll score our share of runs. That will be enough. Sox 8 Rockies 4.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick: Game One of the World Series Edition

Time for "Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick: Game One of the World Series Edition." (I really need to speak to my headline writers.)

Thunderstick: Greetings from a rainy Massachusetts, site of game 1 of the World Series tonight!! God I love the World Series. Give me this championship over any other. The Super Bowl may be the biggest one-day event, but it's gotten much to corporate as compared to the World Series which still seems pretty pure. It's warm but rainy this morning, but that should all change by gametime. From what I understand, there may be some showers at the start of the game, but nothing that would delay things. But this rain is a result of the cold front coming through, so the temps will drop. In fact it was 61 when I came in this morning, but the news said that that was the warmest it was going to be all day.

It's a bummer that Wake is out of the rotation. But the nice thing (in a sense) was that I saw his interview last night and he basically said he was going to pitch a side session and then another session the following day and he couldn't even throw the ball. They thought he might be able to get through one start, but they said if he did he absolutely wouldn't be able to throw again in the series. Wake was pretty clear that this was the right decision so at least it's not like there is any question about this and you've got a player that is sitting there mad because he got left off.

As for tonight, I'm psyched, but I also am not all that concerned if only because I don't see it is a critical game. If we win, well, we were supposed to with Beckett. If we lose, well, we already know this team can come back from large deficits. I think the only way either team leaves Boston worried is if they are down 0-2. But I don't think that's a huge risk for the Sox. I put it the odds like this--45% that we leave Boston up 2-0, 45% that we leave 1-1, 10% that we leave down 0-2.

dcat: I'll keep mine short. One factor in this series, I think, is that there will be at least two games when the winner will simply have to outscore the other team, and I don't mean that in the obvious way that teams to win always have to outscore the other. But given that we are talking about a World Series being played in Fenway Park and Coors Field, there are going to be times when the winner is going to have to put up 8-9-10 runs. I am not certain that the Rockies can beat us in a lot of those games. There will also be at least a couple of games when the winner is simply going to have to out-pitch the other team. I am confident that the Sox can win those games.

We have our rotation set up perfectly, with the exception of the Wakefield situation, which is unfortunate given all he has done for the franchise, but which also won't be the deciding factor in these games. We have had a couple of days of rest, but not too much. the Rockies have not gone this long without playing baseball since pitchers and catchers reported. That is going to be a factor. Facing live pitching is a matter of having finely honed timing. That, as much as anything, makes these guys world class athletes. Now after nine days, the Rockies are going to come in and play an ALCS-tempered Sox team with Josh Beckett on the mound? I hardly can be accused of wishful thinking or of being a homer (ok, maybe of being a homer) when I am skeptical of whether the layoff won't play a role, at least the first time the Rockies go through their lineup to face Beckett.

This is what these last eight-plus months have been all about. The Red Sox are in the World Series. I have only been able to say that three other times in my life, once when I was four. It always feels good. Hell yeah, we believe.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick, WORLD SERIES EDITION

After an often-taut seven-game series against the Indians, the Red Sox are returning to the World Series where they'll face the Rockies, which will now be lots of people's new favorite team. Boston, whether everyone who doesn't root for the Sox-Pats-Celtics-BC Eagles-or-hell-even-the-surprising-Bruins likes it or not (and I assume the answer is "not,") is the epicenter of the sporting universe, and that universe revolves around the sun that is Fenway Park. So now that I am back from San Antonio, let's have the first Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick WORLD SERIES EDITION.

Thunderstick: Hell of a ballgame. Obviously anyone who watched the game knows the game was much closer than the final score indicated. It was pretty gut wrenching for the first 7.5 innings. Even when Dusty's home run opened things up in the bottom of 7, Okie put those first two guys on and there were three guys coming up that had a chance to tie the score with one swing of the bat. But Pap knocked it down and the Sox blasted it open in the bottom of 8 and made the 9th pretty easy to breathe. But for 7.5 innings, my stomach was turning.

I'm hearing a lot this morning about how it was the experienced Sox team that won this thing because when the moments got big, they knew how to handle it. I certainly think that was the case in game 5 with Beckett being brilliant and in game 6 with Schilling getting through some early trouble to settle in and go 7 strong. But look at the key players last night--Dice, Okie, Pap, Dusty, Ellsbury, Youk. None of these guys other than Youk has any playoff experience and his is limited to sitting on the bench during the 2004 run and going out three straight to the White Sox in 2005. Not exactly a ton of experience from those guys, but they all came up big in their own way last night. Cleveland on the other side had a few guys play well--most notably Victor Martinez. But the story of this series for them is that Carmona, Sebathia, Hafner and Sizemore didn't really show up at all. You can win a couple games with your big guns not doing much (Papi and Manny barely got a hit between them in games 6 and 7) but it's tough to win an ALCS. I think the Tribe was flying high after game 4, but Beckett came in in game 5 and shut them down and all off a sudden they looked up and they were at Fenway and they were thinking "uh oh" and with everyone run the Sox scored and every out they made, that stage got bigger and bigger and the Tribe didn't have guys who were quite ready to handle that yet.

dcat: As always seems to be the case with the Sox, there were lots of tense moments last night, including an excruciating fifth-through-seventh before we broke it open. But in those last three games we outscored the Indians by, I believe, 30-5, which reveals both an ability to turn it on and the strength of our rotation and bullpen. All props to the Indians, they played a great series, and they have a great few years ahead when I hope we can beat them some more. My suspicion is that these were the two best teams in baseball this year, which will be confirmed if the Sox take care of the Rockies in the manner that I expect them to.

I would disagree with you on the experience argument to at least some degree. Yes, our productivity last night was not only predominantly from guys who were not there in 2004, but disproportionately came from our rookie troika of Dice-Dusty-Okie-Jacoby. But I think that experience helps in more ways than simply having been there before and knowing what to do. I also believe that the experience factor especially permeates the clubhouse. So while those guys had never been there in any meaningful way, Youks' getting to watch in 2004 notwithstanding, they got to draw their example from Schill and Papi and Manny and Tek and Waker and Timlin.

As for the Rockies, of course they provide a formidable challenge, and 21 of 22 is awesome, and they have made a run so far through the postseason unlike any team in the Wild-Card era. And of course they are capable of beating the Red Sox. And naturally the guys will take them seriously. And blah blah blah. But I still believe that the Sox are the best team in baseball, I believe that after the series with Cleveland the Sox are playoff tempered. I believe the Sox are much more talented. Naturally that could be setting myself up for a fall, but to hell with it -- Sox in five. And if it does go five, the odds are that I might take a crazy, whirlwind, epic road trip to Denver even though I have to be back by Tuesday and head to the DC area Wednesaday for a conference.

Go Sox!!!

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick, Postseason Edition

I was away last weekend and did not get back until Monday evening. Then I left for San Antonio on Friday. This, not the mini-swoon the Sox undertook in games 2-4, explains the lack of Sox Talk the last few days. But we have a game seven upon us in a matter of just over three hours, and the Thunderstick has things to say:

Thunderstick: Sox stuff--first last night--obviously there are two big stories. First was Drew getting redemption for his whole season in one at bat, crushing that grand slam. Sox load the bases and you can hear the buzz, but after Manny and Lowell went down, you could hear the air come out of the place with such low expectations for Drew. It was dead silent. Then he cranks that grannie and the place didn't let up the rest of the game. Second big story was Schil coming through again in a game where they were on the ropes. He had to fight a bit in the third, but he fight he did and got through it and gave us just what we wanted--we got 7 innings from him and we got to use the two relievers we don't want to see at all in tonight to finish it up.

So we move on to Game 7 (cliche alert), the two most exciting words in sports. Here's why I like the Sox chances--they have the momentum, they have everyone in the pen rested and ready to go and I have trouble seeing us use anyone out of the pen other than Beckett, Delcarmen, Timlin. Okie and Pap unless we have to. If we do, we can use Lester and Waker. We should only see Gagne and Lopez if this game goes 16 innings. So it'll be (cliche alert #2) all hands on deck today and I like the hands we have ready to go.

I also think that you made a very astute observation last night--after Victor Martinez hit that home run in the 2nd and took about 12 minutes to circle the bases, I texted you and said "I don't mind him taking forever, but I better not hear anyone else on the Tribe whining about what Manny did after that display" to which you responded something to the effect of "yeah, that's why we're going to win, because we don't let shit like this get into our heads." In the 2nd inning of a game 6 yesterday with a chance to go to the World Series, but down 4-0, it was more important for Martinez to do something in response to a perceived slight from Manny than it was to circle the bases and pump his team up.

That said, here's why I don't like the Sox today--one word: Dice. I'm scared to death about him today. He's the one guy on this team that does seem to let things get into his head. I have no idea what his mental state is coming in to tonight. I have no idea what will happen if he gets touched for a run in the first. But it'll be a short leash tonight. I think if you see Dice give up 2 runs in an inning, he'll be out. So my prediction, we tag Westbrook for a few in the early innings. Dice probably gives up a few as well, but Beckett comes in in the fourth and calms things down and it's the 3 innings he pitches in the middle of the game that are the difference tonight--not quite as heroic as Pedro coming in in game 5 with an injury and throwing 6 innings of no hit ball, but it'll be remembered equally as fondly. That said, I'm praying that Dice finds it in himself to give us 6 innings of 1 run ball and that Westbrook doesn't continue this run that he is on. He's got a bit of the Derek Lowe in the 2004 playoffs going on where nobody expects much of him but he is very, very solid with some spectacular moments.

dcat: As long as we're praising one another's brilliance, and since you mention Lowe, I'll also point out that you were spot-on last night when you texted me that this is the situation where we really miss Derek Lowe. I am more aware than most that the sabermetrics types (from whom I borrow, but whose work I am incapable of replicating because of the whole math thing) deny that there is such a thing as clutch, but I think they are wrong. Clutch may not be a predictable thing, but it exists as something we can identify after the fact. We've seen it with Papi, and we saw it when DLowe came up big for us just days after being left off the ALDS roster in 2004. People forget that Lowe's name at the end of the 2004 regular season was, if not in a league with Gagne's right now, at least comparable to the way Sox fans have felt before last night about JD Drew. But when it mattered, when it truly counted, he came up huge. So my hope is that Dice, who has not been awful, but has been sporadic in a way that we cannot afford in the playoffs, will come though tonight in a DLowe sort of way. I'd love 8 innings of one hit ball. But really what we want is for him to come out, give 6-7 innings, and to avoid that three or four run inning. As we saw with Drew last night, ill fortune can turn quickly. I want Dice to come up big enough to keep us in the game into the fourth time around their order. If he does that, I think we'll win.

A few words about the Indians. They are a good team. They are, I suspect, one of the two best teams in baseball. I know that now is the time when everyone is jumping on the Rockies' bandwagon, and they have had a spectacular run, but I don't think they are all that good, and I believe that whichever team escapes from tonight will pummel them. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. There have been some annoyances in the series, of course, as will always be the case in any seven game series between closely matched teams, and I do believe that they have been less good at blocking out the extracurriculars and the distractions than we have. This should be a team that will make noise for a long time in the Central and the AL. Who knows, maybe we are even startinga new rivalry along the lines of the one that started to gain traction between the Sox and Indians in the second half of the 1990s.

But back to tonight. I think we win. I think Tito knows how to handle the bullpen in games such as this. I think we have the bullpen lined up perfectly, as you say, and that we are ready for any sort of game. I think that we now are back to where we want to be with the bats. I think we are the better team, if only slightly. If I'm wrong, I'll tip my hat to Indians fans, will mourn for a few days, and will enjoy the Patriots and BC and the start of the new NBA season. I'll rue at least four more games of hearing that insipid, invidious "Cleveland Rocks" song during inning breaks. But it does not feel like today marks the end of the 2007 Red Sox season.

Oh, what the hell -- just for old times' sake: We Believe.

Enjoy the game.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick, Postseason Edition

Thunderstick thought we ought to post a preview of the ALCS clash between the Red Sox and the Indians. Who am I to deny what the Thunderstick, and surely the people, want?

Thunderstick: There's no doubt that as this week has gone on I've gotten more and more nervous about this series. There was kind of a period of, I'm not sure what to call it, not relief because I think we could have beaten them, but more like calm because no matter who we were playing and how good they were, it was nice to know that it wouldn't be the circus that Sox/Yanks would have been. I'm sure baseball fans of other teams that haven't been as successful as the Sox and Yanks have been the last several years would read that and toss a "you should be happy you root for a big market team that can compete every year and has such a great rivalry" my way. I have to say, I really, really am.

There are a lot of good rivalries in sports, but only a handful of really great ones and I feel very privileged to be involved with two of them--not just having grown up and currently living in the Boston area, but also having gotten to do my undergrad work at Duke and witnessing Duke/UNC first hand in Cameron. But it's like we've talked about several times--as great as the 2004 ALCS was, could you really call it fun? I don't really think I enjoyed myself during that until the last few innings of game 7. Sox/Yanks is so all-encompassing during the regular season that I just don't know if I was up for another 7 game series there at this time. To draw a Duke/UNC analogy, in 1991, both Duke and UNC made the final 4. UNC lost to Kansas in the first national semifinal that night and Duke upset UNLV and in the postgame press conference, Coack K was asked a question something along the lines of "how great would it have been for UNC to have won and to have had a Duke/UNC national title game?" to which Coach K responded something to the effect that "it would be the worst thing to happen to the rivalry, the losing side would never live it down and it would create a hostile rivalry instead of the great, respectful rivalry it is now". You see that with Duke and Maryland which was a pretty good rivalry before 2001 but after they met in the national semi and Duke came back to win the game, that rivalry has become more hostile than good-natured. Of course, Maryland fans are troglodytes, so maybe that was destined to happen anyway. I think that's what these ALCS's between the Sox and Yanks have done--not that it was the most civil rivalry in the world before that, but it's gotten downright hostile in the wake of the ALCS meetings and I don't think I was ready to go through that again and amp it up even farther.

My point in telling all that is to address the Cleveland fans. I know dcat's friends Tom and Don are big Cleveland guys and I guess there's the possibility that one of the other 12 people that read this site are as well, so I wanted to let them know, I got nothing but love for you guys! Should the Sox lose this series I will be on board the Tribe's bandwagon in the World Series hoping they can pull out a win over whichever of the Johnny-Come-Latelys comes out of the NL. My dad spent a good part of his youth in Cleveland. In our attic, he still keeps a pennant from the parade for the 1954 Cleveland Indians that won 111 games I think it was but got swept in the World Series that he ripped off one of the vehicles that was passing by during the parade and that he later got signed by Early Wynn. While spending the last 30 years in the Boston area has made my dad a Sox fan, I know there's a part of him that is hoping to see Cleveland go all the way and if the Sox should bow out, it would make me very happy to see him have a chance to see the Tribe win it all.

As for the matchups--I mean, what can you say. As I said earlier, I wasn't nervous in the beginning of the week, but I've got those playoff jitters now and they have to do with two guys--Sabathia and Carmona. Those guys are sick. But the Sox will counter with Beckett and Schil. We could have four games that match up the 3 best pitchers in the AL this year and the best postseason pitcher of all time. The other 3 games will be pitched on both sides with Westbrook, Byrd, Dice and Waker, guys that the teams really don't know what they are going to get out of them. I think the pens are pretty much even. I think you have to give the Sox an edge in the lineup, although not a big one and I think you have to give the Sox a big checkmark in the closer category. I wouldn't be surprised to see either team win in 5 or to see it go the distance, but I'll take the Sox in 6, if only because I have bad visions of Dice opening up game 7 and what that might lead to, so I'm hoping it's over before that.

dcat: Not even a decade ago, I couldn't stand Cleveland. The 1995 team beat the Red Sox in the postseason, as did the 1998 team. By 1998 I was in Ohio for grad school and of course found Cleveland fans to be insufferable, which is generally the case any time you have to deal with ardent fans of a team that isn't yours. But then Tom and I became buddies, I reconnected with Don, and the Sox and Pats went on their recent runs. So I've no ill will toward the Indians, and unless something happens to make me hate them this series, I'll be thrilled for those guys if the Indians can win it all.

But right now this is business, not personal. So in that spirit: Fuck the Indians. They have intimidating frontline starting pitching, but I think our starters go deeper. Their middle relief is tough, but their closer is heart-failure inducing, and that usually haunts teams in the postseason. We have quite good middle relief and a lights-out closer. And while I'm sure I'll get nasty phone calls from Tom and Don, I'm not certain that the Indians have three guys who would start for this year's Red Sox team. Hafner, of course, you'd have to find a place for (where, though?), and Sizemore too, though defensively I'm taking Coco right now. Victor Martinez had a better offensive year than Varitek but, please.

That said, this isn't fantasy baseball, and the Indians proved their mettle by beating the Yankees in every aspect of the game. As for what it means not to play the Yankees? It means the Yankees weren't good enough to get this far. I agree -- it's not always fun to play them in these series, but more importantly, on the field the Indians earned their way here. They tied for us for the best record in baseball this season. I firmly believe that these are the two best teams in the game right now. So it's the Indians I want to play. First pitch cannot get here quickly enough. Sox in five.

(And then tomorrow, I head to Dallas, as I have tickets to the Pats-Cowboys clash in Irving. We'll catch Game 2 somewhere fun tomorrow night and then will get ready for the clash of the undefeateds on Sunday. It's a great time to be a Boston sports fan. Pats 34 Cowboys 24.)

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick, Postseason Edition

I've no idea if all of the baseball playoff talk will cost readers or gain readers. But this is the most wonderful time of the year, and my personal hope is that we'll be doing these installments of "Dirty Water" through the end of October.

Thunderstick: Great ball game today. You know, you talk about momentum coming in to the playoffs and all those things, but the bottom line is that teams get hot and cold during the course of the season and it usually happens all of a sudden. We fretted about how this team played down the stretch and really for the better part of the last 3 months. But it looks like they've gotten to the playoffs and are on a roll. I know Anaheim is not really healthy and running at top speed, but as we say so many times during the regular season, whenever you take 2 of 3, even if it's against the DRays, that's about all you can expect. So to sweep anyone, especially in the playoffs, it's a solid performance and we look like we've been able to turn it on and get on a hot streak.

Not much to complain about in this series--Schil looked great today. Not the great velocity he's had in past years, but he had pinpoint control and really moved the ball around well today in the strike zone to keep the hitters off balance. We got big blasts from Ortiz and Manny and then we teed off on the bullpen and that was all she wrote for this series. You have to have a positive assessment in most phases of the game from this series. Starting pitching was excellent two nights and passable the third. Bullpen (for the one game they pitched meaningful innings) was excellent. Manny and Papi are getting it done in the middle of the lineup and the rest of the lineup made pitchers work and got some runs in. Dice was worrisome as well, but the make up of this team is such that we can hopefully ride some great outings by Beckett and have a hot bullpen so that Dice, Schil and whoever goes in game 4 will just need to get through 5 with us in the game and let the pen take us the rest of the day.

We'll hang tight until the end of the other ALDS series to discuss the matchups. Obviously both teams present unique challenges, be it the Yanks lineup or the Tribe's top two pitchers. But we've got the luxury now of having 4 off days before game 1. The pitchers will be going on substantially extra rest. We can roll Beckett in game 1 rather than later in the series which is great because you know he'll go game 1 and 5 and be available for at least a few innings in game 7 if need be. And they'll be at home so there's not even any travel involved between now and Friday night. So it's set up about as well as we can hope. Tribe started out well tonight, but as I write this, Lebron's Yanks have taken an 8-3 lead and it looks like we'll see a game 4. But we can sit back and watch these teams slug it out for as long as this goes knowing that the Sox are home resting up to take on the winner.

dcat: The first step is done. We won the ALDS in convincing fashion and in the eyes of most probably set ourselves up as the team to beat. Now we have a few days to get guys rested and to get ready to start with a clean slate. What happened in the last few days literally means nothing in the next group of games, whether we face the Indians, which seems likely, or a Yankee team that remonded us tonight of how dangerous they can be.

I echo your sentiments. It all starts with the rotation, and the starters are looking fine right now. I know you are nervous about DiceK, but I think he is going to be fine. he is incredibly inconsistent, and I expect one of these times he will show that flash of brilliance. He will give us seven innings and give up one run and take stress off the bullpen. If we get that from our number two (and after today de facto number three) we are going to win a lot of series. I also love the way Papi and Manny are taking over the games when they ahve to and how the rest of the guys are following their lead. I'd love to see us score more runs early, but if that is our biggest complaint after a three-game sweep, I guess we'll survive.

I also think it worth echoing something we've written back and forth about before: Tito seems to have the magic touch in the postseason. What I have always liked about him is that he always has a reason for what he does. And if it does not work he gets up and says "here is what I was thinking," and even if it did not work, you can feel assured that this isn't Jimy Williams' Jimywocky or Grady Little's Bubba Gump routine.

It is going to be weird having four days between Sox appearances. I do not really worry about rust. Unless we lay an egg on Friday, at which point we'll inevitably lament the four days off. Still, this is as great a position as we can ask to be in, and while it is an impossibility for me to root for the Yankees, after the fact I can say that I am not broken hearted that the Yankees showed signs of life tonight. In the end, though, we have to beat whoever gets to the next round. Neither of those teams is going to be easy. Let's enjoy the time off and the fact that they have a lot of work to do before one of them gets through to face us in Fenway on Friday night.

And as always, Go Sox!!!

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick, Postseason Edition

Here is a post-Manny home run version of Dirty Water, postseason Sox Talk with the Thunderstick.

Thunderstick: What to say that hasn't been said in the last 12 hours about this game? Dice was dicey (HA!). Bullpen was stellar. Tito managed it fantastically. And we've said it about a hundred times, but even with Ortiz's late game heroics, it just doesn't seem like a good idea to walk the guy in order to get to a sure-fire Hall of Famer like Manny.

What a win. We were texting during the game and felt differently about this, but I felt throughout that game that the pressure was mounting on LA, That they needed to win in order have a realistic shot in this series. I felt like the Sox had to be thinking "we've got one and we've got Beckett going for one more--all we need to do is win one of these other ones and if we lose this one, we've got two more shots." But as that game got later and later, you could feel the excitement building knowing that if they could get this win, it would be the heartbreaker that might finish off Anaheim.

So we stand here now the day before game 3 knowing that we are in great shape. Is it a done deal? Well I think we all know that after the Sox pulled off the greatest postseason comeback in sports history in 2004 (or if want to look at it as the Yanks pulling off the biggest choke job), we know anything is possible. Schil in game 3 and Dice in game 5 are no sure things and you can always steal one from Beckett. But we know we've got at worst a stud pitcher in game 4 to give us a chance to win and Anaheim has seen our pen and knows that it doesn't give up runs easily. Nothing to not like about this situation.

The Yanks-Indians game was pretty incredible too. Unbelievably tense and the bugs things was phenomenal to see. While I know a long, 5-game series with lots of extra inning affairs between the Tribe and the Yanks is best for the Sox, I just can't bring myself to physically root for the Yanks once the game is on, so I'll be rooting for the Tribe to take down future Knick (or very possibly Brooklyn Net) Lebron's Yanks as soon as possible. I think a fitting way for Clemens to end his career would be to get lit up a la Tom Glavine in the last game of the season for the Mets. Sure he was a great pitcher, but he's also a douchebag.

dcat: You said it. What's not to feel good about? Barring something we do not even want to begin to consider, we should be lining up our pitching for the ALCS pretty soon. The offense has not been great, but it has been good enough, and it has been timely. Dice did not give us a whole lot, but he did enough to keep us in the game. The fact that the guys are able to play from behind, that they could win in walk off fashion, that we can get four outs from Paps, that we have another legitimate postseason clutch guy like Manny -- that is all the sort of thing that you want to see in October.

Oh -- and as far as "clutch" goes, I realize that there is no metric that shows that "clutch" actually exists. But I think of it this way -- it appears true that Sabrmetrically there is no such thing as clutch in terms of the predictive power to determine if someone will perform in tight situations. But there certainly is a descriptive thing known as clutch -- we may not have been able reliably to predict that Manny would hit a bomb (I do not recall seeing anyone crush a ball like that in some time. It was gone instantly, and everyone in fenway knew it from first contact, including Manny) but we are certain after the fact that he did. And I think we benefited from clutch in two ways -- the decision not to pitch to Papi was clearly the result of his history, and then Manny hit what by any definition was a clutch home run.

Tito always has these guys set to play, and while we have had a lot of turnover, we also have anough guys like Tek and Papi and Manny who were there in 2004. They will maintain the game-at-a-time mindset. Schill will be ready to go tomorrow night. Let's not even let this get back anywhere near fenway. The next time we see the Sox on Landsdowne I want it to be in the ALCS.

It certainly looks like we are going to face the Indians in a rematch of some of the late-90s contests. I know far too well not to count out the Yankees. But this team is a long way from those that knew how to come back from situations like this. They gave us a scare in the second half of the season. They are still very dangerous. But the Indians don't exactly look awed by the pinstripes. And like you I simply cannot root for the Yanks to win even if a five-game series might benefit us tremendously. I think we have to respect the Indians if they polish this off, but nothing about them frightens me except those damned bugs. It figures that Cleveland would have cooties.

As always: Go Sox. And I'd love for the Pats to give the Browns a foreshadowing of Cleveland pain at the hands of a Boston sports team tomorrow. That would be nice. The Browns are working toward respectability. I hope Brady and company go out early tomorrow and take care of business before the sons of Romeo can develop any ideas whatsoever about pulling off an upset.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick, Postseason Edition

During the playoffs the Thunderstick and I are going to try to provide day-after assessments of the Sox games. Thanks largely to yet another big-game performance by Beckett (in six postseason starts the guy has three complete game shutouts, good enough for a tie for second on history's all time list) the Sox got off on the right foot against Anaheim and BoSox whipping boy John Lackey.

Thunderstick: Quite the game tonight. We got some dingers from Papi and Youk. We got runs up on the board early. We played clean in the field. But the story was clearly Beckett who put on absolutely pitching clinic. That's how you throw down the opening shot in the playoffs. Establish that you have the best #1 starter left in these playoffs. He was efficient, in control and pretty much unhittable. He rolled through that lineup so fast that not only did he get a shutout, complete game win, but he did it in time for me to click over and barely miss any of Gossip Girl (the next great teen drama which I know DCat readers are fans of even if they won't admit it). Couldn't be happier with game 1.

Two quick points--First, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to spend an inordinate amount of time over these next 48 hours worrying about Dice-K. Second, I love the playoff schedule. Not only does this 6:30 start mean that kids in Boston can stay up and watch the game in its entirety, but it also means us working stiffs can see the whole game and not be zombies at work the next day. God bless TBS even if Jose Mota is a disaster as a "sideline" reporter and they occasionally miss the first pitch of an inning. And God bless Comcast for adding TBS-HD to my cable package the day before the baseball playoffs start. God bless everyone (except the Yankees and their fans because they suck eggs).

dcat: Glorious. What else can we say? I'm not even worried about Dice, and I think that we got started exactly as we would have hoped. The Indians have a killer 1-2 punch, but I do not see how anyone could seriously doubt that Beckett is the pitching alpha dog in this postseason after last night. Then we have Big Papi blasting one, Lowell continuing his rbi run, and Youks plopping one into the Monster Seats. This is how we hoped they would start the playoffs, and is a welcome change from 2005 when they laid an egg in that first game against the ChiSox and never recovered, and then some nimrod scheduled his wedding for the day of Game 3.

The old cliche is that momentum is today's starting pitcher. I know Dice has been sporadic and it seems that he has that one inning in which he implodes every time around. But I just feel confident in the way that this team is playing right now, especially knowing how Theo and company have constructed recent Sox teams to perform in the postseason. I am really looking forward not only to the remaining games, but also to seeing how those dastards from the Bronx perform against the team with the racist mascot. Basically, I want five 15-inning games and a few injuries that look like they could have been drawn from the old SNL steroid Olympics. (OK -- I don't want catastrophic injuries, but let's just say that if Clemens' hemorhoids acted up a la George Brett or Jeter suffered a bizarre deep tissue bruise while removing Tim McCarver's lips from his ass cheeks it would not bother me).

And I'm happy to see Colorado and Arizona both win their first games, bringing me a step closer to seeing a World Series game this year. The traditionalist in me is appalled of course, but screw that guy, because selfish dcat is winning the argument. Oh -- and thanks for sending me a porn link, telling me it was "something funny," and not making it clear that the something funny was that you would find my wife being pissed at me for opening it on her laptop to be high comedy. I appreciate that.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick, Postseason Edition

Baseball has the longest season of any American team sport that matters, with the most games, and thus the ups and downs can cloud the average fan's judgment. I look at this past season and there seemed like a great deal of regular season angst. And yet when all was said and done, the Sox finished tied for the best record in baseball and won the tiebreaker. They won the division over the Yankees and are the top seed going into the postseason. The Red Sox had a pretty damned good year, and yet looking back over the last six months, I feel as if we were constantly bitching about them. But now the slate is wiped clean and we face a race to win eleven games. First team to do so is crowned champion. So without further intro, let's get down to the first postseason installment of Dirty Water, in which the Thunderstick and I talk Sox.

Thunderstick: Well, it's the eve of the ALDS and we're patiently waiting to see the AL East champion Boston Red Sox take the field. We've had several discussions about this the last week as winning the AL East clearly meant more to you than it did to me. I'm glad they were able to do it. I'm glad we're able not to have to listen to all the AL East titles in a row that the Yanks have won. But really I'm not sure it means all that much anymore. It's a nice achievement but as I think Bob Ryan said last week, what seemed acutely important last week really doesn't mean much now at all. So let's get to playoff time.

I like the matchup with Anaheim. We've played well against them this year and they aren't exactly coming in the most healthy they've been all year. Clearly there are concerns--it's not like any of our starters have been lights out. Pap gave up a save or two towards the end of the year. The hitting comes and goes. But if there's one thing we've learned from the last few years, the regular season goes out the window and all that really matter is getting hot. St. Louis won it all with 83 wins last year when they got hot. Detroit fell apart last year and lost the AL Central on the last day and yet made it to the World Series. We just gotta hope they are ready to go. There isn't one team in the playoffs that would surprise me if they win it all. But taking out the inevitability that someone gets hot, here are my predictions:

Sox/Angels--Beckett gets it done in game 1. Dice has one bad inning that sinks him in game 2 but Schil comes back with a big outing in Game 3 and Beckett sews it up in game 4 as the Angels are just too dinged up to hang the whole way through.

Cleveland/NY--I love Sabathia for two games. I love Carmona for one. I love the Tribe's chances of winning either game 3 or 4 against a hurting Clemens or an aging Mussina, as well as he's pitched lately. Cleveland gets it done here and loses to the Sox in the ALCS (the Tribe is still a young team and are a year away still from breaking Cleveland fans' hearts by losing in the World Series--that'll be in the next year or two).

Philly/Colorado, Zona/Cubs--I see Philly and the Cubs getting through. I have no reason for this. I know little about National League baseball. But I just foresee one of these tortured fan bases having a year where they get their hopes up--Philly to finally see a title in their city for the first time since Dr. J, or the Cubs to break that long streak. Someone's going to get a fun ride to the World Series before getting wiped out by Cleveland or the Sox in 5.

dcat: It's go time. Let's get ready to rumble. Play Ball! Whatever your cliche, it's all built up to this, and as always at this time of year when the Sox are involved, I'm gearing up for a month of my stomach churning, of anxiety, of nailbiting, of swearing unbelievably crass expletives at Tim McCarver, of anticipation. I love this time of year.

As you mentioned, I do believe that winning the division mattered. I do think that ending up with the best record mattered. I know that home field or winning the division has been far from a guarantee of long-range success, but I think it is too easy to confuse causation and correlation when it comes to the relative paucity of success of home teams and division winners. For a team built to win in the postseason, there is still a great deal to be gained from winning the division and from getting to play the extra game, and the last game, at home, and in our case in the Friendly Confines. And this year we had the added ability to set the schedule and thus the number of days off. With Waker apparently suffering from back woes and thus not good to go in this first series, I am glad we eked out the best record over the Indians.

Naturally I predict only good things for the Sox. If there is ever a time when one is allowed to choose heart over head, this is the year. We are going to beat the Angels, and then we are going to end up facing the Yankees. Because that's what God wants. I like the Indians, and for two years now have been saying that they are on the cusp. And their top two starters are as good as any in the league. But the Yankees are simply death on inexperienced postseason pitchers and teams. That lineup is going to take pitches and battle and foul balls off and go deep into counts. And I think they will be able to score enough that the Indians won't be able to match it. Hafner is dangerous and scary good (though I bet the Indians would like to see the Hafner from the first 2/3 of 2006 right now) but from top to bottom that might be the least scary lineup of the eight playoff teams. it certainly does not match up, at least on paper, to the rest of the AL clubs. I'd as soon be wrong -- I'd love to see the Indians take out the Yankees, but I also suspect that once again we are on a collision course with the crapweasels from the Bronx.

In the National League, I am selfish. easily the teams the rest of the country does not want to see are the Rockies and the D-Backs. But both Denver and Phoenix are within (long) driving range of Odessa. Chicago and Philly are not, and in any case, the odds of getting Cubbies World series tickets are about what they would be in Boston. I want to see the Sox this postseason. My odds increase substantially if Arizona and Colorado meet in the NLCS. (My head thinks the somewhat more rested Phillies will be too much for a game Rockies team that gave its all last night and that the DBacks will break the hearts of Cubs fans.) But in any case, there is no interest like self interest: Sox-DBacks, and Jaime, if you're reading -- get ready, because dcat's coming to town.

Gloriously Dirty Water: Sox and Pats Talk With the Thunderstick

dcat's back, and charged up for one of the great periods on the sporting calendar. September and October offer baseball pennant races, the first half of the NFL season, and the bulk of college football's glorious march to its fraudulent conclusion (Watch out for Boston College, which could easily be 6-0 heading into the Catholic death match with Notre Dame, which BC has fairly dominated over the last decade and change). Golf even gave us the Fed Ex Cup (I love the idea, do not so much love the execution, even if the outcome was clearly the right one) and for some of you, the NASCAR Chase for the Cup (Hint: Go straight, turn left. Piss in your racing uniform when need be, inexplicably hate the best guy of the last fifteen years, and repeat several hundred times and one of you will win.)

From here on out, Sox Talk With the Thunderstick will be "Sox and Pats Talk With the Thunderstick." You love it and you know it. Here we go:

Thunderstick: First off, the Sox: Strangely I feel better about the Sox than I did about 10-14 days ago. I know they lost 2 of 3 to the Yanks, but I was actually encouraged by what I saw. It was a bummer to see Okie and Pap blow things on Friday night, but we can't expect them to always win and we can't get off their bandwagon because of this. Rivera's safe conversion percetage against the Sox is like 75%--but do we expect the Sox to beat him every time he comes out? Of course not, so I'm willing to write off the bullpen meltdown on Friday night as a case of one of those things that happens when the Sox and Yanks play from time to time. What I did like this weekend is that Beckett looked awesome. Schill looked great through 7 innings and never should have pitched to Jeter (better for Francona to learn that lesson now than in the playoffs) and Dice, while throwing a lot of pitches, showed some spunk in getting through as many innings as he did. And with one win this weekend and the lead at 4.5 (we'll assume it's 4 since the Yanks have one more game to play than the Sox) with only 12 games left, I think it's just a matter of time before it's sewn up--especially since those 12 games I believe break down as 3 against TB, 3 against Bal, 2 against Oakland and 4 against Minny. I don't even worry about the offense because Manny is supposed to be back on Wed and that'll help things a lot. We need to wrap things up here quickly and get some of these arms some rest through. That's priority #1.

As for the Pats--damn! That's all we can really say. That was an asskicking from kickoff to final gun and it couldn't have felt better. As you texted last night, the simple message for this team is that they are really good. I mean, there's not a weak spot on the field. And they not only beat, but they dismantled what is supposed to be one of the top 3 teams in football and they did it during a week of distractions and with Seymour and Harrison out. We're not even at full strength. This team is ridiculous and while I don't think the Colts have been as impressive, that's the only team that can stop us. I'd like to think the Pats won't trip up somewhere, but I'm sure they will. But at this point, I'm looking at one thing--that Pats/Colts game and
who is going to get homefield advantage.

Couple other points from this game though--obviously the taping thing brought this team together. Was listening to Mike and Mike in the morning this morning and Greenberg (who I really like) said this morning that by Belichick not addressing this to the media and stonewalling it, he's left the players holding the bag and they should be livid at him for doing things that call into the question the validity of their dominance. I don't know if that's true or not, but what I do know is true is that after the game it was clear that the players love this coach (suck it Tom Jackson and your whole "the new England Patriots hate their coach" even if it is 5 years old now). They outpouring of happiness for him after that game and the comments made to the media showed that they weren't mad at him and that they had his back. And as we talked about last week and that the national media picked up on later in the week, it was going to be tough for this team to find something to give them the "us against the world" mentality but they found it and because this video deal will linger for a while, it's going to be easy to keep summoning it up. And I think if I'm a player on an opposing team, after what I saw last night, I just shut the fuck up about the whole thing. All those guys on the Chargers better shut their yap and those guys on the Steelers running their mouths and McNabb and his whole "maybe we can get our rings back" thing (yeah McNabb--first off you never had a ring to get back and second, maybe you would have if you could have controlled your on field vomiting when the game was on the line)-they had their week of fun, they got to take their shots and now they should realize, best not give any bulletin board material.

God I love this team.

dcat: Sox: While I loathe losing to the Yankees (and have lost yet another bet to Holmes, who managed to avoid bets early in the season but has taken it to me the last couple of series) the reality is that we will clinch this thing within a week or so, which will give us time to get the rotation set, rest some guys, but still play trough the finish. It was a great series and the Yankees showed why they will be dangerous. That ninth inning last night brought my first stomach churning of 2007, so I know that the postseason is nigh and I think we can expect that we will run into the Yankees again.

The key is to avoid a letdown. We have twelve games left. Go 9-3 and we do not have to worry about New York. Anything less and we are looking over our shoulders. Tonight in Toronto will be big. Flying there late will probably effect us, but this is a pennant race. Got to deal with what we got.

Pats: I feel that my argument about them has been consistent for a week, no matter how much some might brand me an apologist: They broke the rules. They got caught. They paid a stiff penalty. It's disappointing. But the overwrought hand wringing is just really annoying. We have allegations from two games, one in Green Bay last year and one in New York this year, which was caught well before we opened up the floodgates on them. The idea that this all somehow goes back to the Super Bowl years simply baffles the imagination. That is quite an intuitive leap. And if it is true, aren't folks like Mangini implicated anyway? As Sean Salisbury has said, anyone who tries to make this more than it is to discredit the run this team has had is simply an idiot. It was probably worth a week's coverage. It should be done now. It won't be, but it should be.

Why should it be? because it is evident that the last week's activities proved much more of a distraction to San Diego than to the Pats. The fact that they spent all sorts of time hermetically sealing themselves off from the rest of the world to avoid Patriot spies was great news for the Pats. And then when all the talk was done (well, the Chargers barked all game), when the rubber met the road and the cleats hit the turf, the Patriots absolutely dominated what by all accounts is a team that has realistic Super Bowl aspirations. What's your excuse now, Chargers? What excuse are you going to give for getting crushed on Sunday night on national television after not only a week of chatter but after an entire offseason? Shut. The. Hell. Up. Oh -- and play better.

Right now the Patriots look like the dominant force in the NFL, though as we always say: defending champs hold the reins until someone knocks them off. So I am happy to let the Colts be the number one team in football -- they've earned it -- and to hear our footsteps. Looking at the schedule, I don't see many games we should not win, but the NFL always throws challenges at even the best teams. We may stumble. But I think last night should reveal once and for all that when the whistle blows, the Pats are going to be there. As you say, the rest of the league has made what appears to be a huge mistake. They fueled the us-against-the-world mentality that has served New England so well. The Bills are in trouble this weekend. And the rest of the league should really just pipe down.

Oh -- and on December 16 the Patriots play the Jets at home. That one is going to be a bloodbath. Thank you, Eric Mangini.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

It's been a crazy week here in West Texas, so I am tardy in getting this week's edition of Dirty Water out. Thunderstick wrote his side of this a couple of nights ago, I wrote mine tonight, so there might be some disjunction.

Thunderstick: We're into the first week of September so we're into the final stretch and done with what was an up and down week. We start off by getting beat in three pretty exciting game against the Yanks. Those games were tough to watch as the difference between the teams was the Yanks' ability to get hits when they had an opportunity to score and to play clean, error-free (or at least more error-free than the Sox) baseball. Basically the Yanks played the way that championship teams play while the Sox played like a bunch of pretenders. Fortunately, we were able to cleanse our palates with 3 against Baltimore and the Labor Day game against Toronto where we went 3-1 while the Yanks were going 1-3 against Tampa and Seattle and all of a sudden that sweep NY needed to get to stay in things last week doesn't look as meaningful.

Bottom line is that there just doesn't look to be enough games for NY to catch us at this point. As we've emailed a hundred times, there's 24 games left. Even if the Sox go 12-12, the Yanks will need to go 18-6 just to catch us and given our schedule I have a hard time seeing us go 12-12 over these last 24. But the most important thing now is to get this done as quickly as possible. We've got Manny ailing, Dice looking like he's tired and general nicks and bruises that result from a long season. The sooner the Sox clinch this thing, the sooner guys can start getting rest to get ready for the playoffs. That's really all it comes down to now. Hopefully, unlike in the last three series with the Yanks, this team can finally show some killer instinct and get it done.

dcat: It's tough for Sox fans to shake off the past and make bold calls. At least it is for those Sox fans who have been around long enough to know better. The bandwagon folks tend to be louder and brasher and generally make the rest of us look even worse than we can already be. But the sweep against the Yanks last week looks more and more like the last gasp of a desperate team. They had to win those games. It would have been nice for us to win those games. And from outside appearances, anyway, the teams played in ways that reflected their sense of necessity. I think it is pretty safe to say that we are going to the postseason and that we are almost certainly going in as the Americal League East Champion and the team with the best record in the Majors.

As you noted, we have recovered pretty well, going 5-2 since that series ended and putting the Magic Number at what is now 16 after tonight's win against the O's. The Yanks were off, and any time we have a chance to gain a game when they are sitting we need to take advantage of it. You are right that the best thing we can do is put ourselves in a situation where the games at the end of the month are not must-wins so that we can set up the rotation, get some guys a bit of rest while playing some of the younger players on the 40-man roster. We are seeing Dice-K's rough adjustment to the longer and more intense season on this side of the Pacific, for example. And there is little doubt that if we are in a position to do so, Tito will give him rest in hopes that doing so will rejuvenate his arm. We need Manny back. Youks could use some time off. Basically, it would be nice not to be the team clawing to the end just to secure a berth in the postseason.

By the way, is there any doubt that September is one of the best months on the sports calendar when your baseball team is in contention? You get baseball that matters, the kickoff of the NFL and college football, and hell, even some significant tennis and golf, and perhaps somewhat more esoterically, at least for Americans, the Rugby World Cup, which kicks off tomorrow. Glory be.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

Thunderstick: What a great week. We roll 2-1 against TB and 4-0 over Chicago while the Yanks are going 1-2 against Anaheim and 1-2 against Detroit with one left today and that 4 game lead that had us back on the ledge a week ago has grown into a 7.5 game lead. This series with the Yanks that starts tomorrow has been looming for a while now, but this past weekend might have made it immaterial. The Sox will enter with at least a 7-game lead. The only thing that could really derail our train to the AL East title in these three games would be a sweep and even with that, it just gets us back to the ledge that we were on a week ago.

Like the Yanks did after the all-star break, we fattened up against some bad teams this past week, but you don't make apologies for who you beat, you just got out and beat them and improve that record. We got solid pitching all around and the bats were lively this past weekend and now we can get a day of rest (key given the doubleheader that had to be played on Friday after the rainout) and can roll into NY with Dice, Schill and Beckett lined up to go (although the way Waker is pitching right now, I'm not so sure I wouldn't rather see him in the rotation this week than Schil). It'd be nice if the Sox could go in and lay a beat down on and finish them off like the Yankees did when they came into Fenway late last year and laid down a 5 game hammer on the Sox. Bring on this series.

dcat: Bring on this series indeed. You hear that sound? That is the bluebird of happiness singing softly into our ears. Are you basking in that warmth on your skin, that sweet, fresh smell in the air, that indescribably blue sky? Those, my friend, are the heightened senses of victory.

Let us forget for a moment the historic whomping we just put on a team that will probably remove the last bit of shine from the Ozzie Guillen diamond on the South Side of Chicago. It's pretty clear that we got on a bit of a run, that ChiSox team is demoralized, and their middle relief is execrable. But while we were ringing up double digits in every game and keeping them to minimal runs, several of those scored in games that had long been decided, the Yankees were falling back to earth. They have finally reverted to their mean. Not as bad as they were in May, not as good as they were in July, the Yankees are revealing themselves for the sort of team that they are -- a mishmash of old and young, a fantasy team brought to life, with little coherent construction, a dangerous but weakened old animal capable of devastation if you corner them, but at the end of the day toothless when matched up against those who are emerging as the alpha dogs in the pack. They can forget the American League East. Once we take just one game in this series, that becomes a pipe dream for the Yankees. Right now Steinbrenner's lads are looking at a deficit that is becoming increasingly daunting in the Wild Card race. I for one cannot think of a better recruiting tool to get A-Rod than to have him watch us in the postseason while the inevitable Steinbrenner storm rages through the fall and into the winter and while the dullards who populate the Yankee City State point their errant, accusing fingers at their best player.

Naturally this series is important. But we have the pitching lined up nearly perfectly. (Though when your pitching staff goes six deep, you always have your pitching staff lined up -- Tim Wakefield is tied, with Beckett, for the ML lead in wins, and he has had a decision in every start, something that has not happened in a full season for something like 80 years. Let's also give a hat tip to what Tavarez has done for the Sox this year.) The bats are bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan. The Yankees will come in with the stink of desperation (which is only barely discernibly different from the stink that normally follows them like that which enveloped Pig Pen of the Peanuts) and our job will be to crap all over them. They need a sweep to have even a slight hope. That ain't happening.

Go Sox!!!

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

Thunderstick: We went into this weekend against the Angels saying "you know what, it'd be great to win 3, but the Angels are a very good team and in all likelihood we'll split and NY is playing well so it's very possible that we could exit this weekend up 4, having gone a respectable 2-2 over LA because the Yanks take 3 of 4 from Detroit." And that's exactly what happened and yet I still feel like we got kicked in the gut. You know, if you go 2-2, get good wins in the games Schil and Beckett start and you see Buckholz and Tavarez get lit up, you say "oh well--two guys not in our rotation that needed to make spot start got bombed--what can you do". We win Buckholz's game and come back from 5-0 down to win Schill's--both nice wins. But Gagne totally geeks Beckett's game and then on Sunday the bats don't even show up. So we went 2-2 which we kind of said before the weekend we'd be happy with, but the way it happened, obviously put us back on the ledge. Not good.

But then we get to face Tampa. God it's nice to knock two off the magic number. Seems like those days have been few and far between. I agree with what you have been saying for a while now, though, that the Yanks are finding out how hard it is to come back from that deficit, especially against a team like the Sox who aren't going to go on many long losing streaks. In fact, the ground that the Yanks have made up is largely because of them playing great, not us playing really poorly--it's more like when we've got 4-3 over 7 games, they've gone 6-1. It's tough to keep that up. Going in I was thinking it would be great if we could just get this lead back up to 5 games before the series with TB was done. now that it's there, I can't help but think that it would be nice if we could sweep the series and Anaheim could find a way to take one more and we could get this to 6 before the weekend series with Chicago. I'd feel comfortable going to NY with a 6 lead, less so with a 5 game and downright frightened with a 4 game lead.

By the way -- I heard on the radio this morning that game 1 of Sox/Yanks is shaping up to be Schil vs. Clemens. Geez--that's going to be nuts.

dcat: It's a good thing that I am used to climbing out onto and then back off of the ledge during the latter stages of every Red Sox season, because otherwise this last few weeks would be doing a lot more damage to my heart than it is. But I think this day-to-day emotional investment is what separates a baseball pennant race from anything else in sports. Americans are passionate about football, to be sure, but the nature of a football season is that with one game a week per team, it is all about anticipation, the buildup to that one game on Friday night or Saturday or Sunday (or Monday. Or Thursday night. Or Wednesday night. But you get the point.) In baseball, they play every day, or nearly so. And so a race ebbs and flows, crescendoes and decrescendoes. Every single day a scene of the drama plays out, thus capturing emotions with more sustained immediacy, I would argue, than any other sport.

I wnat to take just a few minutes to discuss Tim Wakefield's performance this season. It is pretty stunning to realize that Waker has already accounted for 25 decisions this season. He has 15 wins. And yes, he has 10 losses. But what this tells me is that he is eating up innings, saving the pen, and that he is putting the Sox in a position to win when he takes the mound. He quietly might amass 20 wins and he is in many ways the anchor to this staff. Wins (and losses) are not really the greatest statistic to assess pitchers, but it is telling that when Wakefield goes out to the mound, he always sticks around long enough to get the win or get the loss. We have flashier guys. We always have. But Wakes is always there, always steady, and provides us with depth, but also with postseason options that few have, because we well know that he is capable of pitching on short rest, on the spur of the moment, in relief, as well as in the more familiar starting position. He threw another gem last night, something that has happened quite a lot regularly, and his shutout gave the Sox a serious boost.

We now get two more against Tampa while the Yanks have two more with the Angels, and we know how tough they can be. Let's hope for another two games to come off that magic number tonight. For most of the country, it is far too early to think about the Magic Number, but as we have been counting down since the first day of the season, we may as well let everyone know that according to the Thunderstick's infallible system, the Sox' Magic Number sits at 33. Or as you put it in an email this morning, "Larry Bird Says 'Go Sox!'"

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

dcat: Ugh. Two terrible losses in which we gave up comfortable leads and squandered good-to-great pitching performances has me just plain disgusted. we still have a four-game cushion and we still may be the best team in baseball, but I simply cannot talk about the red Sox right now without feeling sick to my stomach. You take it away . . .

Thunderstick: What a shitty weekend. We have the best bullpen in baseball and we absolutely waste stellar efforts by Dice (who really fought through some tough early innings and was up against it in a fantastic pitching duel on Friday which he left with the lead) and Schilling. I guess to some extent, things have to even out. Our pen has been so good all year and no doubt a lot of the reasons why we built such a big lead initially in the AL East was because we didn't blow and leads for 2+ months, so I guess eventually you have to blow your share, but what a completely demoralizing weekend to blow two games they should have won while the Tribe did their best "Cavs in the NBA finals" impression against the Yanks and the lead is at 4 which might as well be zero given that there are still 40+ games left to make that up.

Here's why I've got really bad vibes right now. The Sox have made a host of trade-deadline deals in the past--sometimes they don't seem like much, sometimes they seem like they are going to get us over the top. But the 2004 Nomar trade was a lot different--I remember reading that they traded Nomar for a less-talented shortstop in Orlando Cabrera and a late-inning first base defensive replacement in Minky and thinking "wow--this is a panic move". But it turned out to be great--Minky ended up making some big defensive plays late in games that Millar may have booted and Cabrera went on to have a fantastic end of the year and was a great catalyst to the offense hitting behind Damon in the 2 spot. That's the only deal I remember the Sox making where I thought "this is an awful deal" and then in turned out to be just what they needed. Well, the Gagne deal is the exact opposite of that. When they got him, all I thought was that "this is a great trade, the Sox didn't give up a lot and now we've got three great relievers at the end of the pen and we kept him away from the Yanks" and I had visions of the game being over after 6 innings when Okie would come in and lock down the 7th, Gagne in the 8th and Pap in the 9th. Now, I think Gagne has only gotten through one outing with the Sox without giving up a run and he was nothing short of disasterous this weekend. Anyway, this is like the opposite OC/Minky trade right now. Looked great and is proving to be disastrous. Things like this happen to teams that aren't meant to do much, if anything, come October. Hopefully TB provides us what we need in these next three games to feel better about the team.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

Thunderstick:Damn--would have liked to have knocked more off the magic number this weekend, but let's face it--the Yanks are smoking right now and while we are playing decent, they would be making up ground on anyone. Heck, in the time that they ate up the 7 game wild card edge, we've actually added 3 games to our lead over Cleveland and Detroit, but the Yanks have closed 4 games on us in that time.

Bummer of a loss last night. Weird how that one home run changed the perception of the game. If Schill gets through that inning and leaves, even if we lose, we're saying "OK, but at least Schill is back, going 7 and giving up 2." Instead we're saying "ehhh--he was OK, giving up 4 in 6". The bats continue to hibernate against starting pitching. Anyway, should be a stressful two nights as we'll be going with Wake and Lester. I'd feel a lot better if Dice or Beckett were going.

dcat: I'll tell you what's driving me nuts about a Red Sox team about which we should be gushing given that prior to last night's game they had been on a roll and had looked pretty good: Dropping the first game of these series. How many has it been in a row? Three series now where we've dropped the first game? Five of the last six, something along those lines? In the regular season that is bad enough. But in the playoffs, and especially in the ALDS, not coming out ready to roll against a new team can be deadly. I'm still convinced that we could have beaten Chicago in 2005 had Game 1 not gone so badly (and had you not scheduled your wedding for the middle of the playoffs. Good going.)

The Yankees are simply on fire. And yet had someone said in February that we'd have a 6-game cushion in early August we would have been thrilled. But the way the Yanks have run through the last month or two is frightening. Still -- six games is a nice lead, and the Yankees have seen how hard it is to get over this hump. Like you, I wish that we could place a bit more faith in Lester or Wake to close out this series, but those guys have shown an ability to come through, especially Wakefield, so that I bet he has a good game because we need him to. I know that comment is practically the sort of voodoo I usually disavow, but I'm actually pretty comfortable with Wake coming down the stretch.

I hope also that Manny (and Ortiz) learned a lesson last night: Moss came to bat in our last hopes in what was Manny's spot in the ninth because Ramirez had gotten himself run for arguing balls and strikes. I don't want to be melodramatic and say that his ouster cost us the game, but it sure did make things that much tougher against a really good team. You never win when you argue balls and strikes. And I think that some umps are frankly sick and tired of the histrionics from the Sox' Big Two. Ortiz bitches the most, but Manny isn't far behind, and this is not a case where being right matters. We simply cannot afford to have Manny out of the game if he is not scheduled for a rest, especially for something as self-inflicted as getting tossed for arguing pitch location.

Looking ahead we have these two games against the Greater-Southern-California-Los Angeles-Anaheim-San Diego-Orange County-Angels-of-the-West-Coast, a day off, and then three at Baltimore and three at home against Tampa. We need to find a way to get one or both of these games out west and then get back to beating on teams we should be pummeling. At this point, all the Sox can do is take care of what is front of them and not worry about what is behind them.

Dirty Water: Sox Talk With the Thunderstick

dcat: In our last installment I wrote that we would be happy with a 5-2 week. But we had the chance yesterday to pull off the sweep against the Rays and to cap off a 6-1 week and what would have been a 9-1 run and the bats just did not show up. Still, let's assume for a minute that we have hit and survived the worst rough patch of the season. And let's assume that the trade deadline will come and go without a blockbuster. I know there are rumors that we might get Jermaine Dye, a nice acquisition if the price is right, but I am going to assume there is not a race-shifting trade coming down the pike. What that means is that we remain in the catbird seat, we are back to having the best rotation in the league, and the Yankees will appear larger in the rear view mirror than they actually are until they actually do recede and even the most paranoid among us can cease to concern ourselves with them.

Look: I'd like to hit more. I'd like to see us make a couple of comebacks in the late innings. But the reality is that we have lost twice in the last ten games. Once was a 1-0 shutout loss to the Indians the day after we had shut them out by the same score. Such a defeat may augment the worries about hitting, but it reaffirms our pitching capability. The other loss was to a Tampa team we had swamped this year, and realistically they were probably more desperate than we were needy, and the odds were that we were not running an 18-0 on them in 2007.

The week that follows will provide an interesting, and if we handle it well, perhaps decisive, test. The Orioles are decidedly not the same team that they were in April and May and they appear set to play the role of spoiler for the remainder of the season. We get them at home for three games. Then we have Seattle and the Angels out west. Seattle sadly swept us when I was in the Emerald City and in attendance back at the end of June. Anaheim is a chic choice to win the whole damned thing. This homestand followed by an immediate west coast trek should tell us a great deal about whether or not the remainder of the summer will be nail-biting time or a coronation for a team that, choppy as it has played from our blinkered myopic perspective, has spent a good hunk of the season with the best record in baseball.

Thunderstick: Well, despite a pretty lousy loss yesterday where the Sox got shut down again by their nemesis Scott Kazmir (nice trade there Mets fans!) the Sox are 8-2 in their last ten and have established an 8 game lead over NY. It's funny how the season twists and turns. At the beginning of the year we circled August as the toughest month of the year with a lot of games on the road, a west coast trip and teams like Anaheim and the White Sox on the schedule. About a month ago we said "doesn't look too bad with the ChiSox not really showing up this year". Today, it looks a lot tougher because rather than rolling over, the O's are playing good baseball and we've got a ton with them. So clearly, this is the month that will decide whether going into September we can start thinking about getting the rotation set and getting guys some rest, or if we are going to let the Yanks in and give them a chance.

The one big thing this week is obviously the trade deadline. I keep seeing Teixeira going to Atlanta (that's fine--move him to the NL rather than an AL contender) but it looks like there aren't a lot of players of any kind of caliber that are going to move. Thus, the most important acquisitions in the AL likely belong to the Sox and the Yanks with Schilling and Hughes coming back. I'd be more than happy to see most teams stand pat as we go through the deadline--we have the best record in baseball through a bit over 100 games, so if everyone stands pat, no reason to think that that would change over the last 60. Then we can see what Schill's got for us for the rest of the year. Hopefully it's enough bury the Yanks once and for all for the year.