After a less than thrilling night in my baseball viewing (Sox lose close game in New York, Rangers win… in Kansas City), I feel rewarded for staying up and catching the Dodgers game against the Mets.
It had been touch-and-go for a while there. Nomar Garciaparra struck first with a two-run homer off his former Boston teammate, Pedro Martinez, who was starting for the Mets. They tied it up in the next inning though, and it was pretty tight through the next four innings.
It started to get ugly in the bottom of the sixth when the Dodgers chased Pedro and put up a six-run inning against New York. It was not pleasant to watch the pitcher struggle like that, but at least the Dodgers were the ones capitalizing.
At the start of the seventh inning, L.A. starter Derek Lowe (another former teammate of Pedro’s) was relieved after giving up two runs on five hits through six innings. With an 8-2 lead, I’m sure it seemed safe to give Lowe some rest. On the other hand, after the debacle that was Game Seven of the 2003 ALCS, I am not sure I will ever trust Grady Little’s pitching choices. Of course, Little is not directly responsible for Jonathan Broxton converting that six-run lead into a save situation. He faced four batters, made no outs, and was responsible for three earned runs, allowing two hits and two walks before Takashi Saito was brought in to stop the bleeding.
Saito, thankfully, pitched quite nicely. He gave up one hit and one walk through two complete innings but also struck out four and held the Mets scoreless.
Then came the scary-beautiful ninth inning. Eric Gagne came on in only his second appearance of the season. It has been over a year since Gagne recorded a save, and he had to face Carlos Delgado, David Wright, and Endy Chavez. With fourteen pitches, many of which crossed the plate slower than a car on the San Bernardino Freeway, he struck out Delgado and Wright and retired Chavez on a fly ball to centerfield. It was terrifying, exhilarating, breathtaking, beautiful- a sight for sore eyes. I do not know what the future will hold for Gagne and the Dodgers, but if this is any indication, then wow.
Hey L, I just came from Smoke's blog and I just wanted to say, you'll always be a troglodyte to me....just a quick Sox update for you, not that you need it: David Pauley looked awesome last night in the Stadium, but the Sox couldn't get anything going against Wang-that's-pronounced-Wong....we need a big performance from Schilling tonight....
Half- aw, shucks, you made me blush. Okay, well, maybe not... Yeah, as anybody who reads my blog knows, I have almost no use for girly-girlness and, more importantly, no tolerance for arrogance. The signature I use in my personal e-mails is a quote from As You Like It "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
Okay, so maybe it is a bit pretentious to use a Shakespearean quote in your e-mails, but I was an English major. Anyway, I've never felt like I had to pretend to be anything I'm not in this blogging community, and I love that. I don't have to hide the fact that I'm a girl, but I can be one of the guys if I want. Like any good Mavs fan, I am Rowdy, Proud, and Loud.
As for the Sox update, thanks... I turned on the game for a while when I got home from work and did get a chance to see how good the pitching was. (And, yeah- what's up with Wong/Wang?) I switched off when Cabrera snagged Manny's homerun ball, though. With Rivera able to lace up his cleats, I didn't feel up to watching the rest (that and I had some other work to do).
Well, you didn't miss much. The rest consisted of a 1-2-3 ninth from Rivera; I think all the wind went out of the Sox sails when Melky made that catch. I have to admit though, Manny's face when he realized he didn't have the game-tying home run was priceless, he just kind of stared in his mostly-vacant way out toward left field....
Aw, pobresito Manny :(. I couldn't take too much more of it because my out-of-market coverage on mlb.tv was from the YES-men and not NESN, and I can listen to only so much of their blather before I need a bucket.
"Basketball, football, baseball- if it has balls, I'm all over it. Puck hockey."
I am a Red Sox fanatic and otherwise sports-obsess ed nut. Favorite teams include: Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston Astros and Texas Rangers; Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots; Dallas Mavericks and Boston Celtics.
