Quick Hits on Game 3 of the World Series
By Blogger
Some reactions:
1) After Tal's Hill, the one thing that bothers me most about Minute Maid Park is the left-center field wall. It's just too weird to have a yellow line flush in the middle of a yellowish-white stone wall with a ball hitting above the line ruled a home run and a ball hitting below ruled in play. Jason Lane's home run this evening illustrates why it's a bad idea. The solution is to remove the yellow line entirely. If a ball goes into one of the balconies or over the wall, it's a home run. If the ball bounces back onto the field, it's in play. I figure that ruling if a fan touched it or not would be easier than ruling if it hit the wall above or below the line.
2) Jon Garland vs. Alex Smith might be the most intriguing "Are They The Same Person?" situation since Jamie Moyer vs. Jimmy Key. Who else noticed that Moyer's career only picked up once Key retired? Garland's season started coming back to earth around the time the NFL's preseason games began. Hmmmm...
3) Note to Tim McCarver: The nickname is Tim "Rock" Raines, not "The Rock". You might want to lay off calling him that, too, especially in light of how the nickname refers as much to cocaine as to the guy's toughness. Oh, and you're not hip because you remember the nickname of a star from the 80s.
4) I was able to read Phil Garner's lips as he screamed at Carl Everett after Joe Crede was plunked in the fifth inning. I believe he said: "We didn't hit him on purpose. Yeah? Well, you're wrong about that. Literally interpreting the Bible is an affront to God because you aren't using the brain It gave you. When you use God as a magic word to explain whatever you can't understand, as proponents of intelligent design do, you're actually devaluing God and reducing Its power and influence to the level of superstition. Dinosaurs aren't mentioned in the Bible because the writers didn't understand them as we do today. The creation story is just that: a story. It's meant to convey that God created us and everything, not to explain exactly how it happened."
5) A.J. Pierzynski, hereby known as Pier*****i, is eminently punchable.
6) No one else seems to have mentioned it, so I guess I have to. The 2005 White Sox corps of relievers is the bullpen the 2003 Red Sox tried to build. They don't have a clear-cut Ace Closer. Every one of them is pretty good, though, and Guillen uses them fairly interchangeably. In other words, Cotts is as likely to face a righty as Hermanson, and there are three different guys currently on the roster that closed out games on at least a semi-regular basis during the season (Hermanson, Jenks, and Marte, plus Takatsu). Hey, where are all the critics claiming they need a Proven Closer(tm)? Rabble rabble rabble.
7) Everyone who brings up an "argument" that World Series games start too late obviously doesn't live on the West Coast and obviously holds baseball to a double standard as opposed to football. Every Monday Night Football broadcast ends too late for kids on the East Coast to stay up and watch to its conclusion. Where are all the angry pundits screaming about how the NFL hates its fans?
8) To paraphrase Kevin Millar, who was taped giddily making proclamations before Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, the White Sox can't let the Astros win even one. If Houston guts out Game 4 behind Brandon Backe, they've got Clemens/Pettitte in Game 5 and then Oswalt in Game 6, and then anything can happen in a Game 7. Yeah, you read that correctly. I don't care what the reports say. There's no way Clemens is healthy and there's no way he is anywhere near effective if they get to Game 5. I predict two to three innings again, in which case he'd hand it off to Pettitte.
1) After Tal's Hill, the one thing that bothers me most about Minute Maid Park is the left-center field wall. It's just too weird to have a yellow line flush in the middle of a yellowish-white stone wall with a ball hitting above the line ruled a home run and a ball hitting below ruled in play. Jason Lane's home run this evening illustrates why it's a bad idea. The solution is to remove the yellow line entirely. If a ball goes into one of the balconies or over the wall, it's a home run. If the ball bounces back onto the field, it's in play. I figure that ruling if a fan touched it or not would be easier than ruling if it hit the wall above or below the line.
2) Jon Garland vs. Alex Smith might be the most intriguing "Are They The Same Person?" situation since Jamie Moyer vs. Jimmy Key. Who else noticed that Moyer's career only picked up once Key retired? Garland's season started coming back to earth around the time the NFL's preseason games began. Hmmmm...
3) Note to Tim McCarver: The nickname is Tim "Rock" Raines, not "The Rock". You might want to lay off calling him that, too, especially in light of how the nickname refers as much to cocaine as to the guy's toughness. Oh, and you're not hip because you remember the nickname of a star from the 80s.
4) I was able to read Phil Garner's lips as he screamed at Carl Everett after Joe Crede was plunked in the fifth inning. I believe he said: "We didn't hit him on purpose. Yeah? Well, you're wrong about that. Literally interpreting the Bible is an affront to God because you aren't using the brain It gave you. When you use God as a magic word to explain whatever you can't understand, as proponents of intelligent design do, you're actually devaluing God and reducing Its power and influence to the level of superstition. Dinosaurs aren't mentioned in the Bible because the writers didn't understand them as we do today. The creation story is just that: a story. It's meant to convey that God created us and everything, not to explain exactly how it happened."
5) A.J. Pierzynski, hereby known as Pier*****i, is eminently punchable.
6) No one else seems to have mentioned it, so I guess I have to. The 2005 White Sox corps of relievers is the bullpen the 2003 Red Sox tried to build. They don't have a clear-cut Ace Closer. Every one of them is pretty good, though, and Guillen uses them fairly interchangeably. In other words, Cotts is as likely to face a righty as Hermanson, and there are three different guys currently on the roster that closed out games on at least a semi-regular basis during the season (Hermanson, Jenks, and Marte, plus Takatsu). Hey, where are all the critics claiming they need a Proven Closer(tm)? Rabble rabble rabble.
7) Everyone who brings up an "argument" that World Series games start too late obviously doesn't live on the West Coast and obviously holds baseball to a double standard as opposed to football. Every Monday Night Football broadcast ends too late for kids on the East Coast to stay up and watch to its conclusion. Where are all the angry pundits screaming about how the NFL hates its fans?
8) To paraphrase Kevin Millar, who was taped giddily making proclamations before Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, the White Sox can't let the Astros win even one. If Houston guts out Game 4 behind Brandon Backe, they've got Clemens/Pettitte in Game 5 and then Oswalt in Game 6, and then anything can happen in a Game 7. Yeah, you read that correctly. I don't care what the reports say. There's no way Clemens is healthy and there's no way he is anywhere near effective if they get to Game 5. I predict two to three innings again, in which case he'd hand it off to Pettitte.
posted by Blogger at 2:16 AM
2 Comments:
Amen on your comments about the outfield wall situation in Houston. That thing is ridiculous and just screams for instant replay every time something is hit near it. Also a question for you: If you were stranded on a desert island with only Tim McCarver and A.J. Pierzynski there to hang out with, which one would you strangle first?
AQB: Is this one of those speed dating questions that is meant to uncover the darkest elements of my soul in ten minutes or less? I think McCarver has to go first, even though the meat would probably be stringier, because at least AJ is fit enough to forage for food once Timmy Mac steak runs out. (See? This is why I didn't want to answer that...)
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