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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
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Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892)
#4735735 - 09/30/05 09:13 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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From an article about the Yankees and Red Sox this weekend:
The champion of the American League East Division and the AL Wild Card will be determined by pitching matchups no one could have conceived six months ago -- not even under the influence of strong hallucinogens.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
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Here's the entire article from MLB.com:
http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/artic...s&fext=.jsp
BOSTON -- And, so, they fool us again. Just when we thought the Yankees and Red Sox had given us all they could, they found another level.
And this is it. The ultimate series, for the ultimate prize. Three games in Fenway Park, where either the Yankees will deliver the ultimate payback or the Red Sox the ultimate encore.
A year after the Red Sox danced in Yankee Stadium, the Bombers could turn The Fens into their mosh pit, needing only two out of three to celebrate their eighth straight division title.
Or, the Red Sox could do the two-step, dealing the Bombers another final blow.
Or, neither happens, and they're left in a pretzel to be undone in Game No. 163, on Monday in the Bronx.
The Yankees soared here on their strong second wind -- 15 wins in their last 18 games -- and the Red Sox await them just plain winded -- a mediocre 11-10 in their last 21 -- but relieved to steal one from Toronto.
So not much will be decided in the next three days. Only a division championship, a Wild Card pass into the postseason, and an MVP Award.
Alex Rodriguez will try to pick the pockets of David Ortiz, the Big Papi who virtually wrapped his Big Paws around the trophy with another pressure performance Thursday night.
Cataclysmic, or merely seismic, this series under the multicolored New England fall foliage?
These are noble teams, dignified by the resolve with which they have run the race. They are not sleek, but dinged. Teams buckling under the weight of their cities' expectations, pulled down by their own flaws.
But they have refused to give in or give up until they cross the finish line, like a couple of aging marathon runners stretching on bowed legs for the tape.
The collapse can wait until Monday ... or Tuesday ... or next Sunday ... or whenever a last out sends them into winter.
The champion of the American League East Division and the AL Wild Card will be determined by pitching matchups no one could have conceived six months ago -- not even under the influence of strong hallucinogens.
Friday night, someone named Chien-Ming Wang will go for the Yankees opposite the old Yankee, David Wells.
Wells owns two of Boston's three wins over New York since Memorial Day -- 7-2 on May 29 in Yankee Stadium, 17-1 on July 15 here.
Saturday will pair Randy Johnson and Tim Wakefield, 81 years of contrasting aces. The two are as compatible as P. Diddy and Pavarotti. Two of Wakefield's right-handed knuckleballs equal one of the Big Unit's flames. But Johnson hasn't lost since Aug. 21 and Wakefield has allowed nine runs all month.
Scheduled to lower the regular-season curtain on Sunday are two veteran right-handers who are accurate reflections of their teams' seasons. It will be a poetically just finale.
Mike Mussina, who alternately looked prime or like he was pitching a cannonball, is due to meet Curt Schilling, who got phat off the World Series triumph but ultimately didn't have two good legs to stand on.
A three-game sweep would give Boston its first division title since 1995. You wouldn't want to bet on that, but you could hope for the Red Sox to win the first two and leave the next step up to Sunday -- remembering the mastery Schilling conjured only three weeks ago in Yankee Stadium, where he stepped totally out of 2005 character with eight innings of five-hit ball.
The Red Sox shed one major haunt last year, but have set themselves up for a new one. If they hit a postseason roadblock, Terry Francona's crew would have a hard time letting this one go.
Not because they blew a big lead over the Yankees -- the biggest they had was 5 1/2 games, on Aug. 10.
But because they blew the chance to build a big lead. While the Yankees were regaining their bearings from a blown-up rotation and were panicked into overhauling a third of their lineup, the Red Sox never took advantage.
They know this, and it gnaws at them.
"This was the season for us to be 10 games up on the Yankees," Ortiz said a few days ago. "They can't play worse than they did at the beginning of the season."
The Red Sox didn't even make as much of that as did the Baltimore Orioles, who led the division until June 23.
By the time the Sox cut the cord to '04 and started to focus on the present, so did the Yankees. The race was on, one of the best races in their long history.
Seldom in 105 seasons have they never been separated by more than 5 1/2 games.
It has taken a lot out of both of them.
The Yankees have a beat-up pitching staff, a soft-tossing center fielder and a sore-legged right fielder.
The Red Sox have a one-armed center fielder, a shelved closer and a gasping offense too often reduced to its two-headed monster, Manny Ramirez and Ortiz.
They each deserve this shot. They deserve each other. We deserve them both.
"It's the master plan," Johnny Damon said. "God's way ... Yankees and Red Sox."
Amen.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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THE KRAT BARON
one-eyed willie
Registered: 07/08/03
Posts: 42,409
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Very nice find!
Saturdays game is going to be a damn good show, that's for sure.
Tonight we need a nice shutdown to put us up by 2.
-------------------- m00nshine is currently vacationing in Maui. Rumor has it he got rolled by drunken natives and is currently prostituting himself in order to pay for airfare back to the mainland but he's having trouble juggling a hairon addiction. He won't be back for a long while.
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lowdominion
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A breakdown of the pitching matchups:
Friday: Chien-Ming Wang vs. David Wells The Yankees have won five of Wang's last six starts, including three straight. He's 4-1 in his last six starts with a 3.60 ERA. David Wells has won his last six decisions at home. He's 7-1 with a 3.00 ERA in 11 home starts, with his only home loss coming on April 25 against the Orioles.
Saturday: Randy Johnson vs. Tim Wakefield This is a rematch of the pitching matchup for a 1-0 Yankees win on Sept. 11 of this season. Randy Johnson is 5-0 with a 1.64 ERA in his last seven starts. He is 5-6 with a 4.71 ERA on the road this season. He is also 12-6 with a 4.23 ERA career against the Red Sox during the regular season, but is 4-0 with a 3.62 ERA against them in 2005.
Tim Wakefield is 16-11. He's one win shy of his single-season high of 17, set in 1998 with the Red Sox. He needs one loss to tie Roger Clemens (111) for 2nd on the all-time list of most career defeats in Red Sox's history (Cy Young is first with 112). Wakefield has won eight of his last 10 decisions. He's 1-3 with a 3.03 ERA in five starts against the Yankees this season, but the Yankees are only hitting .157 against him. He's scheduled to start Saturday on three days' rest, and is 5-4 with a 4.14 ERA lifetime on three days' rest.
Sunday: Mike Mussina vs. Curt Schilling Mussina is 0-2 with a 7.20 ERA in four starts against the Red Sox this season. He's 17-14 with a 3.38 ERA against them in the regular season for his career. Mussina is also 0-2 in his last five appearances at Fenway Park. He hasn't won there in the regular season since pitching a three-hit shutout on Aug. 28, 2002.
Schilling is 1-2 with a 5.17 ERA in four appearances (two starts) against the Yankees in 2005. He's 3-5 with a 6.29 ERA in his 10 starts in 2005.
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daimyo
Monticello
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I wish I could be as excited about the Indians
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"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,026
Loc: the sky
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: daimyo]
#4735778 - 09/30/05 09:21 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Hopefully for you the Indians can rock the Sox, and so can the Yanks, and the Indians will meet us in the playoffs and the Red Sox can sit around doing a circle jerk in the basement of Fenway.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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lowdominion
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don't count on it I think all of the pitching matchups favor the redsox plus we are in are own ballpark where we kill the ball
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THE KRAT BARON
one-eyed willie
Registered: 07/08/03
Posts: 42,409
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These are going to be some damn good games but I honestly forsee Boston choking these next 3 days. The Yanks have a reputation to uphold and they are going to be bringing their A game to Boston tonight - this weekend.
-------------------- m00nshine is currently vacationing in Maui. Rumor has it he got rolled by drunken natives and is currently prostituting himself in order to pay for airfare back to the mainland but he's having trouble juggling a hairon addiction. He won't be back for a long while.
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lowdominion
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: THE KRAT BARON]
#4735794 - 09/30/05 09:24 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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if they have a reputation to hold how come they could not hold it last year with a 3 game lead
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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,026
Loc: the sky
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: lowdominion]
#4735795 - 09/30/05 09:24 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
lowdominion said: i gotta go pahk my cahr
We can talk all we want...when it comes down to it, the titans of the great game of baseball will speak for us.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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THE KRAT BARON
one-eyed willie
Registered: 07/08/03
Posts: 42,409
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: lowdominion]
#4735802 - 09/30/05 09:25 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
lowdominion said: don't count on it I think all of the pitching matchups favor the redsox plus we are in are own ballpark where we kill the ball
Have you seen Johnson at the plate lately?
-------------------- m00nshine is currently vacationing in Maui. Rumor has it he got rolled by drunken natives and is currently prostituting himself in order to pay for airfare back to the mainland but he's having trouble juggling a hairon addiction. He won't be back for a long while.
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lowdominion
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indeed we will see how it goes
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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,026
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: THE KRAT BARON]
#4735805 - 09/30/05 09:25 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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*on the mound
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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daimyo
Monticello
Registered: 05/13/04
Posts: 7,751
Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
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Quote:
lowdominion said: i gotta go pahk my cahr
--------------------
"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,026
Loc: the sky
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: lowdominion]
#4735809 - 09/30/05 09:26 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
lowdominion said: indeed we will see how it goes
I kinda wanna bet you man, I'm inspired by you and goobler and the Omaha Steak bet of Last Week, 2005.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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THE KRAT BARON
one-eyed willie
Registered: 07/08/03
Posts: 42,409
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Eh give me a break, I'm running on no sleep.
-------------------- m00nshine is currently vacationing in Maui. Rumor has it he got rolled by drunken natives and is currently prostituting himself in order to pay for airfare back to the mainland but he's having trouble juggling a hairon addiction. He won't be back for a long while.
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lowdominion
Stranger
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Posts: 2,440
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: THE KRAT BARON]
#4735812 - 09/30/05 09:26 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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yes I have and have you seen what redsox batting has done to him this season?
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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,026
Loc: the sky
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: lowdominion]
#4735813 - 09/30/05 09:27 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
lowdominion said: yes I have and have you seen what redsox batting has done to him this season?
Yes, I was AT THE GAME when he shut you guys out for seven innings before handing the ball to Gordon and then Mariano, and we beat you 1-0.
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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THE KRAT BARON
one-eyed willie
Registered: 07/08/03
Posts: 42,409
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: lowdominion]
#4735821 - 09/30/05 09:28 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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The question is will the redsox lineup be able to handle the heat/pressure of a high stakes matchup such as this?
-------------------- m00nshine is currently vacationing in Maui. Rumor has it he got rolled by drunken natives and is currently prostituting himself in order to pay for airfare back to the mainland but he's having trouble juggling a hairon addiction. He won't be back for a long while.
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lowdominion
Stranger
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Posts: 2,440
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Last seen: 15 years, 9 months
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Re: Ha ha ha... (baseball thread #4892) [Re: THE KRAT BARON]
#4735829 - 09/30/05 09:29 AM (18 years, 5 months ago) |
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why is it a question of the redsox hitting and not of the yankees pitching?
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