Lifes hard without baseball

This will do for now. I'll probably continue the Texans series on Friday.

Postseason Recap: One win from the ropes

Mets 12, Cardinals 5
Cardinals 4, Mets 2

Well, lets say it's more like Mets 2, Cardinals 2, Jeff Kellogg 1. His expanding strike zone completely ruined any hopes of the Mets comeback. Not that I'm bitter or anything about the 5 walks the Cardinals recieved as compared to the 2 the Mets got. No, that doesn't factor in at all. As of now the Cardinals are holding the Mets to something stupid like 0 for 31 with 2 outs and RISP, which is both ridiculous and irritating. Irritating only because FOX won't stop harping on it. And no, the Mets offense was not clicking on all cylinders last night, but they were only outhit by two.

All Mets fans have left at this point is "ya gotta believe" and the hope that John Maine remembers his good regular season outings instead of the crapulence he has displayed the last 2 outings. Tommorow the NL could very well have an 83 win team in the World Series. If that doesn't convince the rest of these clubs to spend money, I don't know what will.

Postseason Recap: Leshcart Evets

Tigers 6, Athletics 3

I'll leave the full funeral for this series to Sr. Raymond. Suffice to say, I really doubt it was the best idea to pitch Huston Street for three consecutive innings.

Cardinals 5, Mets 0

Leshcart Evets. Doesn't that sound nice, Steve? Wouldn't you like to say that? Leschart Evets. Leschart Evets.

I have no real analysis for this game. I didn't watch any of it. That is one ugly box score. Lets try to glean positives. 1) The real players in the Mets bullpen got the day off. 2) Steve Trachsel may be injured. 3) Would it really be the National League playoffs if there wasn't a Game 7 that involved Darren Oliver and Jeff Suppan?

The Mets live on, one thing I've noticed about them this year is that they always do better when nobody thinks they've got any chance. Tommorow will involve Oliver Perez, so I suspect that line of thinking will be prevalent. An interesting fact about Oliver Perez is that he's left-handed, which means TLR will probably start Scott Rolen and relegate Scott Spiezio to the bench. An interesting fact about Scott Spiezio is that his beard is made out of dead animal corpses.

Postseason Recap: Fuck. Also, Fuck.

Satanic Fowl 9, Mets 6 - Okay, well. Lets get this out of the way. Willie made a poor move in the seventh leaving Mota in after the first two runners got on. Mota, throughout the postseason, has pitched HORRENDOUSLY in his second inning of work two of three times he has been summoned. Why you would try to go to the well again, I just don't understand. Theres nothing there.

That said, Wagner blew the game. It's going to happen ten percent of the time, it happened here. I'm not going to Benitez this guy, except to say that despite him being a great closer, he has bad games every once in awhile. When the Mets get to the bullpen with a lead, we should be winning 90% of the games. Well, this is the 10%.

Things to be encouraged by: We slapped around Chris Carpenter. We slapped around Carptenter but not Weaver? The difference is in the strike zones. Last night, Tim Welke's strike zone had it's own tax zone, this game, the umpire called it much tighter, but blew a few more calls (which I'll get into). If we can get their best pitcher down, we should be able to whip the rest of them.

Gotta hand it to the Cardinal relievers, they just keep getting clutch outs. The Beltran double play was one of the turning points of the game. They stranded Lo Duca on second with one out as well. These guys will eventually turn south though, they are pitching over their heads in my opinion.

Okay, John Maine. Not a productive outing in any way, shape, or manner. Heres what I saw: First inning was wonderful. Second inning, he had the 2-2 to Edmonds called a ball, and that call got to him and he started trying to be too perfect. At that point, he kept on getting ahead of the hitters, but he would throw junk pitches from 0-2 to 4-2. That killed him. Then after the Edmonds homer, he just gave up any sembelance of command and started throwing ball after ball and hoping they'd put it in play and get out. Not a great approach. He needs to work on his approach with runners on base, and he really does seem shell-shocked out there. Chillax kid.

Also, I have written a haiku about Scott Spiezio:
Who dyes a beard red?
A white trash cunt haunts Mota.
Start Scott Rolen, please.

Detroit 3, Oakland 0
Well if Kenny Rogers is just going to do this every game, we're not going to have much of a World Series. This wasn't a matter of the A's stranding runners; this was a matter of their asses getting REAMED.

I'd ask the A's to emulate the Boston Red Sox, but then their fans would all turn into smug cunts too; theres no need for more smug cunts in this world.

Postseason Recap: A's falter, Weaver good?

Detroit 5, Oakland 1
Detroit 8, Oakland 5

In game one, the A's came out a lot like the Twins did in their first couple of games: fighting and clawing to strand every runner possible. They managed to score one on a groundout, but took the dreaded 0-for with RISP that decided this game. The Tigers got three of their runs on two out RBI's as Barry Zito took his potential FA treasure trove from 15 million a year to 14 million a year.

In game two, the Tigers got a career game from the unlikely Alexis Gomez and started Neifi Perez for some reason as they KO'ed Esteban Loaiza. Oh I know Sean Casey is injured. Theres just still no reason to ever start Neifi Perez. The A's stranded eight more runners and couldn't knock out Nate Robertson.

I had an idea that the Tigers may be doing this by putting low OBP/high SLG guys in the lineup, thinking maybe that they were drawing fewer walks, however, they've drawn the second most among teams remaining. Maybe it's just that since everyone in the lineup other than Polanco is a power threat, pitchers still have to pitch carefully. Wheras good pitchers won't walk hitters like David Eckstein in the postseason.

Mets 2, Satanic Fowl 0

I like Carlos Beltran. He hits homers for the New York Mets.

No really, I saw someone on ESPN this morning (Brantley? I think) talking about how stupid it was for TLR to leave Jeff Weaver in to face him. Jeff Weaver had a one-hit shutout and there were two outs. If Tony had taken him out in that instance, it would've been GROSS incompetence. A bigger problem for the Redbirds is that with the Mets' perceived ability to not be able to hit left-handers, they used Tyler Johnson for 20 pitches and this series is going to play five straight games (or four, I wouldn't complain if there were four). The only other left-hander in their pen is Randy "BERMAN THINKS I AM FUNNY" Flores, who had a 5.8 ERA.

My gut reaction when I saw the Mets rotation being put to the test in five straight games was it was going to hurt the Mets because Randolph wouldn't be able to be as proactive. But what about the Satanic Fowl? They have just two left-handers in their pen. Also, their bullpen is horrendous. I don't care what they've done so far in the postseason, the only real pitcher of any competence is Wainwright.

(No Box Scores Yet)
Nippon Ham Fighers 3, Softbank Hawks 1
Nippon Ham Fighers 1, Softbank Hawks 0

In game one, right-hander Yu Darvish turned out to be too much for the Hawks, as he threw a CG and struck out eleven. Darvish allowed his run in the first on a sacrifice fly after back-to-back hits and a bunt. The Fighters took the lead for good on Tsuyoshi Shinjo's two-out single in the third.

Another gutwrenching loss for Kazumi Saito in Game Two, as he went a CG and only gave up the winning run in the ninth off an infield single to Atsunori Inaba. He had walked the leadoff hitter, Hichori Morimoto, on four pitches. He was bunted over, and then they intentionally walked PL HR King Michihiro Ogasawara to pitch to Fernando Seguignol. Seguignol struck out, but the infield single by Inaba won the game for the Figters. Saito was matched by 22-year-old rookie lefthander Tomoya Yagi, who threw the CG SO for the Fighters to send them to their first Japan Series since 1981.

In other news, Chunichi clinched the CL by taking the Yomiuri Giants 9-3 in 12 innings. Fukudome broke the tie with a bases loaded single and then Tyrone Woods put the game away for good with his second grand slam in two days, and 47th of the year (leading all of Japanese baseball). Ham Fighters-Dragons will meet in the Japan Series, and FC will be previewing it here sometime this coming week.