Monday, April 27, 2009

CRW: If You Fool Yourself, He Will Make You Happy

I'm sure most Sox fans watching the game last night shared that same 'holy shit!' reaction when Ells stole home. I was lying on the floor, stretching my poor back when he took off, and I just remember hearing the commentators scream something on TV, so I looked up quickly (straining the muscle in my back that's been giving me problems all over again) and waited a second just to see our boy flop onto home plate.

He flopped. He didn't slide gracefully, he flopped. It was the best flop I had ever seen.

I remember the shame and embarassment of Carl Crawford's steal of home vs. Jason Johnson. I felt humiliated for Johnson. Stealing home makes the opposing team look bad. I don't care how good of a play it was... it ALWAYS makes the other team look bad. Jacoby made Andy Pettitte and Jorge Posada look bad AND made Drew look good at the same time. Without that steal, there is no way Drew would have gotten that double. Because let's face it, Drew was brutal this weekend.

In three games against the Yankees, Drew had 10 AB... he had one hit. One RBI... 2 K's... he grounded into three double plays. In the slugfest on Saturday, Drew's crowning glory was getting 2 walks and scoring a run. We had 16 RBI's in that game, and Drew got exactly zero of them. In all fairness, he wasn't the only one without an RBI... Youk and Green also had zero RBI's. But Youk did walk once, get two hits, and scored 4 runs (he was hit by a pitch, of course). And now JD has a busted leg. Give me a break. He honestly is made out of glass, isn't he?

I'll cut him some slack. Everyone has bad series, but it just seemed like Drew was the constant rally killer. Let's hope when he gets back into games, he'll get himself back in gear. Because my eyes hate bleeding. They really do.

Beckett was ugly on Saturday. Lester was good, but inefficient with his pitches on Friday. Fetus was incredible on Sunday. For that matter Hunter Jones and Michael Bowden were mighty impressive, and Saito is the '07 Okajima of '09. Okajima didn't even do THAT bad. He gave up one run on his own, and 2 runs scored because of a rare error from Munchkin. Our bullpen was incredible. Theirs... not so much. However, terrible call by Tito keeping Beckett in the game when he so obviously didn't have it. Tito was, seemingly, the only one who didn't realize that Beckett was done for the day. Thank God we pulled out that win.

The 'Tek grand slam? Honestly the last thing I expected to happen in this series. I would have predicted Ellsbury stealing home and Mikey ascending skyward in brilliant rays of light and happiness before I ever predicted that GS. Because Tek only has two in his long career. One against the Royals and one against the Orioles... not exactly the cream of the crop in baseball these days. But now... now Tek has three, and he's still yet to hit one off of a formidable opponent.

I kid... but that Yankee pitching staff is pretty bad. I hope AJ, Sabbathia, and eMpTy were worth neglecting the bullpen. My guess is that they're not.

I do, however, request to never have to listen to Joe Morgan again. Ever. He was mumbling something about how Jacoby Ellsbury's base stealing is completely dependant on how often he gets on base.

Pause.

Rewind.

Play.

Jacoby's base stealing is completely dependant on how often he gets on base.

Pause.

Really?

Isn't everyone's base stealing completely dependant on how often they get on base, or is that now a characteristic unique to our boy Jacoby? Just even thinking about what point he was really trying to make causes my brain to twitch. Have you ever had your brain twitch? It's not comfortable. I think that one line did me in for the rest of the game. I had to spend the rest of the innings bedridden. It was terrible, and very cozy all at the same time.

We're counting on Timmy to keep alive the streak that he started. Can he do it? I think he can. Scratch that... I KNOW he can. Go Sox.

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