(AP Photo/Al Behrman/ESPN.com)
Well, well, well, Mr. Hyde. I've been wondering if and when you were going to show up.
Once again, Daisuke couldn't get out of the fifth. He has at this point officially earned the "mediocre to bad" designation for the postseason. And yes, that is a problem.
But honestly? I thought that Kenny Lofton home run could've been a spectacular catch with just a little bit of luck for JD Drew. And four runs is not an insurmountable deficit (not like, say, seven).
More important, in my mind, is the fact that just before Daisuke surrendered the homer to Lofton (btw, give me a break with the curtain call, guys, how Yankee-like), the Red Sox loaded the bases.
Then they stranded all of the runners.
That's what really set the tone. Once Cleveland had gotten its jollies with Lofton's homer, you could feel the momentum and the energy shift in that stadium. You could see how the Cleveland players were getting off on it, too, jumping around and dancing and generally feeling great about themselves as the crowd roared on.
The Sox had the chance to take the wind completely out of those sails before the Lofton homer even happened. They could easily have started things off with two runs of their own, or even maintained a lead after Lofton's moon shot, with a nice base hit. All it would've taken would have been for one bat to wake up, and the entire complexion of the thing would've changed.
But Coco Crisp grounded into a double play, and that was the moment I knew two things: 1) Mr. Hyde had followed us to Cleveland and 2) The Sox were probably not going to win this game.
I'm also feeling considerably less sanguine about the series overall now that the other shoe has dropped and this infuriating, offense-less, lifeless June-July version of the team has shown up (a similar chicken-and-egg relationship exists between the mediocrity of the extra-innings pitching and the lifelessness of the offense in clutch situations during Game 2). These are two incredibly evenly matched teams, but that only magnifies the little things. And so far, most of the little things are going in Cleveland's favor.
Like the homer, of course, but take the bugs, for another example. It's the butt of jokes mostly now, but that "bug game" was huge for the Indians in this postseason. Meanwhile Eric Wedge was quoted last night as saying that the "bug game" was the result of a perfect storm--an unseasonably warm night in October, the Indians playing at home, at a park which happens to be near a large body of water, and on top of all those coincidences, a very rare event indeed, apparently: the Fourth Hatching of the Midges. (I swear I am not making this up.)
In other words, there's not much other explanation for the swarms last week than that it was a special curse visited specifically on the Yankees.
And that, friends, is the kind of thing that gets my superstitious mind a-crankin.'
One of the only wise and true things I think Dan Shaughnessy has ever said was his comment on the Patriots' first Super Bowl team in 2001-2002. He said after the "Tuck Rule" call pushed the Snow Bowl game in their favor that he knew right then the Patriots were going to win it all that year. Not only did they have the players, he felt, and the rest of the technical ingredients, but they'd finally shown they had that last, necessary element of a championship year: luck and good fortune.
This isn't going to be a prediction that if the Indians win, it will be because they are lucky. But ever since that thought from Shaughnessy, in both the leagues I follow every year I've looked for that spark of the preternatural when trying to predict who might win it all. So far in baseball, I've been right every year with the exception of the Detroit Tigers last year. I saw it for sure in the White Sox when they beat us in 2005. And I remember a certain team in 2004 that seemed to have plenty of miracles fall in its favor. At this stage of the season and this level of the game, sometimes it takes those little karmic pushes to make a big difference. And right now, it feels like the Indians have that element sewn up, from their run at the end of the season and the midge-aided defeat of the Yankees to the fact that Lofton's homer didn't drop in just an inch or two to the right...I'm just saying, it's starting to feel, after a crucial loss for the Red Sox, like the gods are smiling on them.
Of course, none of that really means anything. Like I said, it turns out I couldn't have been more wrong when it came to sensing that pixie-dust feeling from the Tigers last year. And in general, I still believe that the Red Sox, if they really show up, can certainly kick Cleveland ass.
But from here on in, expect the uncanny. Expect the astonishing, the impossible. We're at that magical witching hour for the season in which the regular-season numbers, even the postseason numbers, all the scouting reports, basically anything you can put on paper, doesn't matter. From here on, it's just a matter of where the breaks fall. Which bugs hatch. An inch or two off the core of the bat. A bead of sweat in a pitcher's hand.
You are precisely right, damn Mr. Hyde for finding a flight to Cleveland. I was hoping he'd mislaid his tickets.
Aside from a pitcher who can give us 7, we need some production out of the 1-6-7-8-9 spots in the order. I was happy for Tek's HR last night, but it felt like too little, too late.
We'll see what tonight brings. I'm actually OK that Tito is with sticking with Wake. Certainly, there is no one else I'd rather see succeed in a big way, and he deserves that chance. I just hope he is rested and well and feeling up to 8 shut-out innings1
Posted by: KLN | October 16, 2007 at 16:01
Please check out this Video Comic Strip. A parody of the Red Sox.
www.redsakeshow.com
Thanks...
Posted by: Chip Benson | October 16, 2007 at 21:33
10:32 PM. Back to Back to back homeruns from Youk and Ortiz and Manny. The game SHOULD be tied right now. But it's not. And the Sox are probably going to lose.
Ugh. Is it okay to feel fury at Manny Delcarmen at this point? I know Gagne has been feeling the heat lately, but seriously. One could make the argument that Delcarmen was an integral reason the Sox lost game 2. And here he came in to get 1 final friggin' out of the 5th inning, and he gives up 4 runs. Sure, 2 of those were credited to wake, but c'mon! You can't give up a 3-run jack. I'm sure if they left Wake in to finish the 5th, he wouldn't have crapped the bed to THAT extent.
Posted by: maxwell horse | October 16, 2007 at 22:34
Maxwell.
Yeah, be upset at MDC if you want, but I'm still reserving most of my fury for Eric Gagne, for a coupla reasons.
1. We aren't at this point without MDC. Without him stepping up as the power righty we needed (especially when Oki was struggling), who knows how the records would've fallen out and who we would've faced and what would've happened in Round 1. Did he $#!t the bed pretty spectacularly tonight, and allow the tying run in Game 2? Absolutely.
2. We are absolutely at this point and possibly better as a team without Eric Gagne.
This is a key difference.
Posted by: QuoSF | October 17, 2007 at 01:38
That picture, that one right there at the top of the post. That's the picture that ripped my heart out this year.
We've all seen the guys down before. But have we ever seen them without the fire in their eyes?
We need Millar back. Somebody to drop trow, blow a rasperry at Sabathia, shave Gagne's eyebrows and rekindle the fire in the loins that leads to improbable, impressive wins.
And we ain't got it. And it's been a long couple of nights in Cleveland.
Posted by: bangpitcher | October 17, 2007 at 10:13
All that picture reminds me of is that I'd almost be more confident in putting the guys on the outer edges of the picture into the lineup before the 'innies' so to speak.
Posted by: QuoSF | October 17, 2007 at 10:58
Last night, I thought those 7th inning three runs in a row were the beginning of the impossible and the uncanny happenstances you allude to in this post. But no. No...it was just a case of staring dully at the screen and wondering if I hallucinated all the glory of August and September. At this point, I feel like Lofton and his "I want a ring, dammit" mantra are analogous to Millar and his Cowboy Up slogan. Seems like the Sox have lost the fire in their bellies as well as their eyes ...
Posted by: Acey | October 17, 2007 at 19:11
Sometimes I wonder how Kenny Lofton makes it around the bases without blowing out all the brittle bones in a knee (or two) -- and then I remember that if Grandpa Jamie Moyer can run faster than Pat Burrell, almost 15 years his junior, then Kenny's abilities don't seem that freaky.
It was brutal in the Jake for those two games. I'm hoping now that I've left the city of Cleveland, maybe their fortunes will take a turn for the better.
Thank goodness for Josh.
Posted by: Texas Gal | October 18, 2007 at 04:46
Greetings from Ohio. I think the midges were a sign that Indians are blessed by the nature gods this year! We Tribe fans are hoping for another wonderful night of baseball. Right now the weather forecast says the rain will miss the ball park. Another sign?
Posted by: Margaret Sander | October 18, 2007 at 07:55
Here's a really annoying connection to our "friends in the Bronx" that is quietly hurting us. I know for a fact that Kenny Lofton is spurred on and acting 25 years old as a "stick-it-to-ya" for Joe Torre and the Yankees. He felt dissed by them and said Torre lied to him about playing time when he was there, etc. I know he's the poster boy for DHL courior service and has played for more teams than J-Lo has husbands, but I think he's relishing his post season run. I also watched a Cleveland game vs. NY when he was kicking THEIR butts and he had such a smirk on his face when he was getting the Bronx treatment. Just a thought.
Posted by: Sammy | October 18, 2007 at 14:38