No Sideshows, Just Baseball

The Sox returned home to "America's Most Beloved Ballpark" (or something like that) amidst a tidal wave of political advertisements on TBS. God forbid.

Josh Beckett had good stuff, but lacking command, yielded a pair of homers to the Angels' Mike Napoli. So the Angels have 100 percent of their runs via the home run. Somewhere during the playoffs we heard that the White Sox lead the majors with 47 percent via long distance.

Health problems probably didn't affect the Sox as much as their decision to stay away from Joe Saunders with J.D. Drew. Mike Lowell hasn't looked great either offensively or defensively so far.

As for the 'you never see this', Jacoby Ellsbury had a three run single that fell between the infield and Torii Hunter, who may not be moving as well after his 'hopping mad' close play at first in Game 2. The second play du jour was Delcarmen late on covering first on a grounder to Youkilis because another broken maple bat blocked his path.

Dustin Pedroia still seeks his first postseason hit of 2008, although he was leading the ESPN poll for AL MVP, not that it matters.

Ellsbury would have stolen second base in the 7th inning, if he didn't 'shape' the steal with a popup slide and overslide the base. Dammit.

Buck Martinez does an absolutely fantastic job predicting pitch selection and sequences. No wonder that former catchers are frequent managerial candidates.

As for ex-Red Sox around the playoffs, Manny moves into the NLCS, along with Nomar and D-Lowe, and Jamie (Social Security) Moyer. Moyer has only won 214 games since seasons he was 30 years old. He's won 20 games twice and is tied for 48th in pitching wins All-time at 246. Seven of those wins came with the Sox. Yet, he's never finished above 4th in Cy Young voting. He's won 82 games since being 40, including winning 20 games at age 40. By comparison Roger Clemens won 61 Vitamin B12-aided games and Randy Johnson 65 after age 40. Even Warren Spahn only won 75 after age 40. Phil Niekro won 121 after forty, and Nolan Ryan 71. So what Moyer has done is pretty remarkable.