Street Fighting Man

Game 2 - American League Division Series

Angels 4, Red Sox 1
Angels lead 2-0

Let's review the bidding, then. In two ALDS games, the Red Sox have one run. Okay, that'll be just about enough.

Sure, Josh Beckett and Jon Lester could've been a little better, but when you're pitching with a razor-thin margin for error, sometimes you get cut. Pretty simple game, baseball. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains (snows, too, especially in Colorado). And the Sox aren't doing any of those things at a high enough level to beat a good Los Angeles team.

The Sox trailed the Oakland A's 2-0 in the 2003 ALDS after a brutal Game 1 loss and an indifferent Game 2 effort. I wrote the following then (Mom, parental guidance is suggested, as the next paragraph contains colorful language written by a clearly unbalanced person):

The Era of Positivity has not ended, goddammit. The Sox will win Game 3, they
will win Game 4, and Pedro will take the hill in Oakland on Tuesday like a
gladiator. I haven't given this much of my heart to this team to see them swept.
I remember 1999, and I remember the greatest comeback in my lifetime. Cowboy up, motherfuckers, because there's still a lotta ball left. Stay on goddamn target.

Now that guy was obviously a much edgier version of your current mild-mannered blogger. He probably wouldn't have believed you if you told him the Sox would have two championships before he turned 40. (Though he'd have been quite easily convinced that Grady Little would fuck up a sure thing just a few weeks later.) That said, his six year-older self still believes. The Sox are a hell of a good team in Boston. Terry Francona's still the best postseason manager in the game. Kevin Millar's not around to pass out bourbon shots and come up with pithy sayings, but Dustin Pedroia's got just as much redass. Pedro's not taking the hill in Game 5, but Jon Lester beat freaking cancer. You think Torii Hunter and his pole dancer's first name scare him?

Yeah, that's right. I can still talk tough and almost mean it. Let's hope the Sox have something left in them tomorrow at noon. Oh, and for the record, I'll be at my daughter's birthday party from then until about 3 o'clock, so I'll see almost none of the game. I really don't want to have seen my last Sox game of the year.