Did We Come This Far For This?

I tried to tivo the game last night, you know, change up my luck a little. I put my phone on silent, put in a drawer and put the home phone on do not disturb – we had a pretty productive evening, cleaning up the house putting up some new pictures, listening to some music … but then at about 10:50, I went upstairs to put the game on. I zipped through the Indians at bats (and so did Wakefield for the first four innings) and just watched the Sox bat. Nothing good, only my reinforcement that I really can’t stand J.D. Drew or Coco Crisp anymore – we need a break from each other. Coco’s defense his two years in Boston has been nothing short of superlative – a joy to watch, but he has been so far from the offensive force that I expected him to be when they acquired him in ’06. Overall, he’s been a disappointment. Drew, we’ll save that for another time, because he’s still got four years left on his inconceivable deal that we don’t have to get into now; we just know he’s pretty much sucked all year. He summed up his year in his first two at bats in Game 4: AB #1, Manny on 2nd, one out, he strikes out on four pitches; AB #2, with two out and nobody on, he rips a single up the middle. Nice!

Anyway, this isn’t a place I want to recap a loss, we all know they lost – it sucks, and they’re down 3-1 and have been completely outplayed. I love to cook, so if a baseball team wants to whip up a dish called “Disaster” here are the ingredients:

Don’t score first
Your starters in Games 2, 3 and 4 can’t make it through the 5th inning
The last eight runs you’ve scored have been the result of a HR
J.D. Drew and Coco Crisp make-up 2/3 of your outfield

The one that gets me is the third one – you’re not going to win a championship if your only course of offense is the HR. It helps, hell yeah, but they’re singular sources of offense, they are not stringing together productive hits, thus they’re not having productive innings and haven’t done so since the 3rd inning of Game 2. They have no momentum. But as they say, momentum is a good as the next day’s starting pitcher, which is Josh Beckett – so I feel pretty good, as should all Sox fans, but they’ll be going against Sabathia again, and I’d be surprised if he gives up 8 runs again in less than five innings for a 2nd straight start, but the Sox have fared pretty well against him so we’ll hope for the best.

Back to Game 4 for a moment – I never had a problem with Francona starting Wakefield over Beckett (on three days rest) in Game 4 … Wake won 17 games this year, he was a vital part of the division championship and a 2-1 deficit is no reason to panic; I mean, he was pitching against Paul Byrd, who allowed almost 50 more hits than innings pitched in ‘07 – this wasn’t anyone who should’ve overmatched the Sox offense. What I DID have a problem with is Francona unwilling to move the lineup around – why not sit Drew in favor of Kielty, who has great numbers against Byrd, and give Ellsbury a shot over Crisp? What’s the harm? I know Tito is fiercely loyal as everyone has written, but there’s a difference between being loyal in June and October, down 2-1.

This team desperately needs a spark – they NEED to score first Thursday or I fear they won’t recover; if they can get on the board first, that will jumpstart them, give them and the fans the “Alright, this things not over” yet feel. Hopefully they can return to Boston this weekend for more than cleaning out their lockers. They had to win one game in Cleveland to guarantee Fenway sees another game before April 2008, and it doesn’t matter which one you win … of course now their only choice is to win tomorrow.

Here’s hoping for some baseball at the Fens on Saturday!