Remember how Detroit jumped out and throttled us in 2011 - Verlander, Porcello & Scherzer - before our bats woke up? And last year, somehow, we caught mighty Cleveland napping - Greg Bird v. the impossible Andrew Miller. In a five-game series, one grounder, one bloop, one meatball, can turn everything.
Which brings us to tonight... where, gulp, I believe we have an advantage. Three reasons, none of which show up in the box scores.
1. Boston will now have "rested" for a week. Good luck with that. Surely, they took swings between their hot-tubbing and games of cribbage. Let's hope David Price achieved personal high scores in Super Mario. But can you imagine the terror we'd be feeling tonight if Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman had gone a week without pitching to live batters? We're better off for having played the Wild Card.
2. All we need is one win - one goddamn victory - in Boston, and the entire series shifts in momentum. I do not believe the Redsocks can beat us in NYC. So if we steal one at Fenway - if Sale or Price mess up - we drive home with Dustin Pedroia's tiny testicles dangling from our rear view mirror. Best part of this: They know it. (See #3.)
3. They won't admit it - because they are useless, pathological liars - but every frat-boy, keg-tapping, Redsock fan worth his key chain bottle opener was rooting desperately for Oakland to win the Wild Card. They claimed to love the idea of a Boston-New York series. What a crock. To them, we are the boogie man, the wall of water, the fire tornado, the killer clown that lurks in their darkest nightmares. They've spent the last six months talking about the greatest team in Boston history, and now the wolf is scratching at their door. They are terrified. Everything they've accomplished thus far... it might mean nothing.
If we lose, well, we'll just buy every free agent in captivity this winter, knowing that our luxury tax bill can't kill us. And if we win, all that "greatest Redsock team evah" crapola... it becomes music to our ears.
We have them where we want them.
One final note: Mustang and I are in NYC at the Comic Con, and I will be unable to post the inning-by-inning game threads tonight, as we did for the Wild Card. If anyone else wants to take up that mantle, go for it. I will likely be at Foley's Sports Bar, in the shadow of the Empire State Building, summoning every ounce of juju in my bile locker. I'll chime in on-line via the phone, if I can.
Be strong, comrades. Even if we lose tonight, we have them where we want them.
Roster note (from USA Today, I think):
ReplyDeleteWade was active for the wild-card game, but he won't take the field for New York's upcoming series against the Red Sox. CC Sabathia and Stephen Tarpley will replace Wade and Kyle Higashioka on the squad.
Hi 'Stang and duque,
ReplyDeleteI don't have a comic shop near me and find it a chore to search and buy continuously on the internet. ever think of a selling format similar to a winery's wine club? you know, you keep my card on file and when a new issue drops, you mail it out to me and charge my card. i'd be in for the entire AHOY portfolio. I really would prefer to have my buying put on autopilot. there'd be zero chance i'd miss an issue. I have only purchased The Wrong Earth and that was enough to reel me in. (How Dragonflyman got himself and Stinger out of the oven was so improbable that it gave me some good laughs. I think you guys have something!)
as far as the Yanks go, I am so looking forward to this series with Boston with all the pressure bearing down on THEM. They totally need Sale to win tonight. if we beat Sale, they are done because next we pound Price and then they must play at THE STADIUM down two games. and we all know: THEY CAN'T BEAT US AT HOME!!!
If we beat Sale tonight, we will sweep. You heard it here first!!
i heard a rumor that Dragonflyman and Stinger are Yankees fans while Dragonfly pulls for the socks. any truth to that?
ReplyDelete1. If you're really up at that sports bar, let me know somehow and I'll think about popping by, even though I'll probably bail when push comes to shove. I'm a ten minute bike ride away.
ReplyDelete2. The "historic" team they have this year can sick on my hairy scrotum.
3. Are we having a mass juju intervention or are you waiting before summoning the gods?
4. I am still waiting for West Village Comics to get my comic book order in. I'll go bug them today, but I believe they're are the Comic Con, so they may not be in. He told me he's across from Neal Adams's booth.
5. I'm going to go polish my resentments. Later, all.
"suck," not "sick."
ReplyDelete"proof," not "click."
"stirred," not "shaken."
ReplyDeleteI'll go on record as saying I hope the Yankees win tonight.
How Poetic: vs Red Sox at Foley's Bar.
ReplyDeleteI hope the Yankees win by a touchdown tonight.
ReplyDeleteInside joke from Honey.
ReplyDeleteIn my mind, lack of Tyler Wade means Gardy will be the pinch runner.
By the way, I believe many, if not most comic book shops will put you on mailing lists and get you AHOY Comics. Right now, we are still trying to break in on the national distribution networks - (it's going great, but we're still nobodies) - so the best thing you can do for us is to try and order from your closest comic shop... or online at ComiXology.
13bit, I like the Team of Destiny getting "sick" on your balls better than sucking on them. All hail the autocorrect JuJu. We should summon everything we have tonight. And every October night until the Fall passess into Winter.
ReplyDelete“If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.”
13bit, you complete me.
So endeth the full nine yards JuJu.
Scrotum!
ReplyDeleteI would grab a cab to Foley's tonight, but I'm not only a lazy bastard, I'll be drunk by game time and am better off chain smoking through the game at home.
ReplyDeleteNo smoking in bars. Jesus, next you won't be able to smoke in cabs, elevators, subway trains, movie theaters....
Operating rooms. .
ReplyDeleteI can promise they are afraid. I’m in enemy territory as we speak (at work in Mass) and all anyone is talking about is the Patriots. That’s nervous chatter.
ReplyDeleteI remember smoking at the nurses station in the early 80's. Joe Cronin was a patient having a knee replaced. Different times. Quitting smoking was the second smartest thing I ever did after marrying Mrs. Firefly. Both extended my life by decades.
ReplyDeleteNow if only it would extend one's genitals.
ReplyDeleteScrotum!
ReplyDeleteSo, after a two-week delay, here I sit on my couch after yesterday's arthroscopic knee surgery to repair a torn left meniscus, my knee wrapped up in a Polar Care Cube, and my head pleasantly light from the Percocet painkillers the surgeon so helpfully prescribed. Please take into consideration this context before further reading.
ReplyDeleteFOUR GAMES TODAY! FUCK YEAH! Watching the AL, recording the NL for future time-wasting.
Baseball's most important concept is situational execution. The Yankees did that well in the Wild Card game (which I did not completely see, because 6AM surgery yesterday), far better than I hoped, which led to the win. Sevy pitched like he actually HAD A PLAN, but even then it was tight. I thought Boone was gonna blow it by trying to get him the win, but someone must have pushed the electrode in his head that wakes him up just before he went over that cliff. While I did not agree with starting Sevy, he executed a plan, and that's a step up for him rather than just trying to muscle up the whole game.
We also lucked out because Oakland didn't execute. Hendricks served up a BP fastball that Judge did not miss, and Oakland could not hit when it mattered. In short, we executed, and Oakland did not.
Execution will matter more playing the Red Sux. We cannot let the final series be any guide, because the Beanfarters did not bring out their A-game at all, especially on the mound. Sale is a complete question mark at this point, and I would not be surprised if Boston has been sandbagging him for just this game. We own Price, and that game is the key to at least getting a split if not a sweep at the Fens.
We have the talent, but in the last month we have not had the execution, which is why fans are on pins and needles. As Yogi always said, 90% of this game is half mental. Watching a team play stupid baseball is worse than watching them play bad baseball, so we have to hope the Yanks got all their stupid out in Aug./Sept. If the Yanks - to a man - come mentally prepared to play this series, have their heads in the game at all times, think through every situation, and execute on the mound and at the plate, we can beat these scrotum-sucking pretenders to the crown. Sloppy play, mental mistakes, Boone fuck-ups, and heads up our collective asses will be our undoing (Run, Luke! Don't point until it's over the fence!).
I have a pleasant tingling feeling in my scrotum for this one; but again, that could be the Percocet.
SCROTISSIMUS MAXIMUS CON CARNE
ReplyDeleteBOSTON CAN SICKEN THEMSELVES ON MY TOXIC BALLS
IF I HAD A HAMMER...
ReplyDeleteapoorplayer: For a guy on Percocet, those are remarkably lucid thoughts.
Other than a lack of first-hand knowledge as it relates to your last sentence, I agree with all.
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