Game 2 - Red Sox
Red Sox 9, Devil Rays 8 (16 innings)
I'll never get those four hours of my life back. I came home from work and hunkered down for a normal Tuesday evening of channel surfing. To my wondrous surprise, the Sox/Rays game was live and in color, thanks to the generous folks at MLB and their Extra Innings preview package. The Sox were trailing, 2-0, when I tuned in, but they battled to an 8-5 lead, thanks to timely hitting by Nomar and really poor fielding by the Devil Rays. Just like yesterday, though, the bullpen blew a gasket, with the ultimate indignity coming when anemic-hitting Rey Ordonez hit a two-run shot off of Bobby Howry. To put this in perspective, Rey Ordonez had played in 917 games in his major league career prior to last night. In his 3,045 plate appearances in those contests, he'd hit a grand total of 8 homeruns. He averages a longball every 102 games. And he touched one off against the Sox, leading me to exclaim "Rey Fucking Ordonez!!??!!", waking my daughter and causing my wife to leave the room in disgust. Again.
I went to bed after the 13th inning, unsatisfied and vaguely drunk. Which, come to think of it, is a pretty good description of the average Red Sox fan. At least I was happy when I woke up this morning and found the box score. Kevin Millar's solo homer in the 16th won the game, and Ramiro Mendoza, Steve Woodard, and Brandon Lyon combined for 7 shutout innings, so there were some bright spots. Chief among the highlights, though, was my 17 month-old daughter learning to say, "Nomahhhh" when Garciaparra's two-run double knotted the game at 2. That triggered a series of "Listen to this" phone calls to friends and family.
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Opening Day - Mets
Chicago Cubs 15, Mets 2
The optimism and enthusiasm about the new season ended abruptly with the click of a button. Having gone home to catch as much of the Mets' opener as possible, I turned on the game in the bottom of the 1st. Cubs 4, Mets 0. Optimism and enthusiasm were replaced by familiar disappointment, which was later supplanted by utter frustration, which soon gave way to comic mockery. The Tom Glavine era kicked off with a burst of mediocrity (3.2 IP, 8 H, 5 ER), while Kerry Wood made the New York hitters just look silly. Meanwhile, the 1-2-3 spots set the table with an 0-for-9 day, and the pitchers allowed 2 HRs and 7 RBI to light-hitting Corey "Light-Hitting" Patterson while issuing a dozen free passes in aggravating fashion. The comedic portion of the program featured Art Howe leaving poor (in every sense of the word) Mike Bacsik in to clean up his own mess for two innings and nine runs worth of pounding, the outfielders showing the kids what they were missing at the circus, and pinch-hitting ex-Met Lenny Harris getting as many cheers from the Shea "faithful" as Glavine got boos when he was chased. [Lenny went 1-for-1.]
Though Glavine was right when he later commented that it was only one game, you can't help but wonder whether it was a tone setter for the entire season. For just as the Red Sox may have previewed a possible theme of a season of heartbreak and disappointment (misery loves the Sox giving up 5 in the ninth), the Mets may well have given us a glimpse of what is to come for the next 161 games: ineptitude, misery, and a little bit of comedy. (Dark comedy.) That optimism has proved elusive, I guess. So why am I thinking we'll bounce back in Game 2 on Wednesday?
Chicago Cubs 15, Mets 2
The optimism and enthusiasm about the new season ended abruptly with the click of a button. Having gone home to catch as much of the Mets' opener as possible, I turned on the game in the bottom of the 1st. Cubs 4, Mets 0. Optimism and enthusiasm were replaced by familiar disappointment, which was later supplanted by utter frustration, which soon gave way to comic mockery. The Tom Glavine era kicked off with a burst of mediocrity (3.2 IP, 8 H, 5 ER), while Kerry Wood made the New York hitters just look silly. Meanwhile, the 1-2-3 spots set the table with an 0-for-9 day, and the pitchers allowed 2 HRs and 7 RBI to light-hitting Corey "Light-Hitting" Patterson while issuing a dozen free passes in aggravating fashion. The comedic portion of the program featured Art Howe leaving poor (in every sense of the word) Mike Bacsik in to clean up his own mess for two innings and nine runs worth of pounding, the outfielders showing the kids what they were missing at the circus, and pinch-hitting ex-Met Lenny Harris getting as many cheers from the Shea "faithful" as Glavine got boos when he was chased. [Lenny went 1-for-1.]
Though Glavine was right when he later commented that it was only one game, you can't help but wonder whether it was a tone setter for the entire season. For just as the Red Sox may have previewed a possible theme of a season of heartbreak and disappointment (misery loves the Sox giving up 5 in the ninth), the Mets may well have given us a glimpse of what is to come for the next 161 games: ineptitude, misery, and a little bit of comedy. (Dark comedy.) That optimism has proved elusive, I guess. So why am I thinking we'll bounce back in Game 2 on Wednesday?
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
The Obligatory Introductions - Mets
I'd prefer not to have to review the Mets' 2002 season. It was an entirely different kind of painful from the Sox' - no heartbreaking letdowns at the last minute . . . unless you count the All-Star break the last minute. So while the Red Sox fans were tortured in those last few games and the whole postseason with a dose of what-might-have-been, the Mets fans were tortured on a weekly basis with doses of what-might-have-been-if-this-entire-team-didn't-suck fed to us ad nauseum. 75-86, 5th in the NL East (a division scaring nobody), finishing behind the hapless, penniless Marlins and the fanless, faceless, MLB-freakin'-owned Expos.
The Mets' offseason made plenty of headlines for the pricey signings of and trades for big but questionable names like Robby Alomar, Mo Vaughn, Jeromy Burnitz. They also raised eyebrows when they replaced steady if unglamorous arms like Rick Reed, Kevin Appier, and Glendon Rusch with not as big but much more questionable names like Pedro Astacio, Shawn Estes, and Jeff D'Amico. Add in the question marks of Rey Ordonez's weak bat, Edgardo Alfonzo's weak back, Roger Cedeno's weak fielding and on-base percentage, Mike Piazza's weak arm/knees/September stats, a weak bench & middle relief corps, and a weekly melodrama unfolding between GM Steve Phillips and manager Bobby Valentine, and you have more question marks than The Riddler. Not how you would prefer the horizon of the 2002 season to look. But, in nearly every case (save maybe Ordonez's hitting), the situation could have realistically gone either for the better or the worse. And the chances of each of those multitudinous shrug-your-shoulders scenarios souring had to be a long shot. The end result? Pedro Astacio really panned out and the middle relief (stabilized by a couple of trades) performed admirably. Every other question mark became an exclamation point preceded by a curse. Hence, last place and the dismissal of Bobby V.
This offseason, unfortunately, looked a bit like more of the same. Tom Glavine's signing was undercut by dubious predictions by every two-bit stat guru. Cliff Floyd gives the Mets the first legitimate outfield bat since . . . Darryl Strawberry? And yet he adds to the problem of shoddy OF glovework. Ty Wigginton is the starting third baseman. I'm not kidding. Fan favorite Alfonzo is in San Fran while most if not all of the big ifs from last year are still here. Still . . . reasons ya gotta believe include new manager Art Howe, the phrase "now batting 9th for the Devil Rays . . . Rey Ordonez," and the fact that when you finish in last place, you can't slide any further. You'd think that after last season, we fans' expectations would be low. Somehow we still misguide ourselves with delusions involving salary cap figures and all of the pieces that should be interlocking by now. So let's aim for 83 wins and see what happens. At least it's still fun to watch Mike Piazza hit. [Too bad he's suspended for 5 games.]
I'd prefer not to have to review the Mets' 2002 season. It was an entirely different kind of painful from the Sox' - no heartbreaking letdowns at the last minute . . . unless you count the All-Star break the last minute. So while the Red Sox fans were tortured in those last few games and the whole postseason with a dose of what-might-have-been, the Mets fans were tortured on a weekly basis with doses of what-might-have-been-if-this-entire-team-didn't-suck fed to us ad nauseum. 75-86, 5th in the NL East (a division scaring nobody), finishing behind the hapless, penniless Marlins and the fanless, faceless, MLB-freakin'-owned Expos.
The Mets' offseason made plenty of headlines for the pricey signings of and trades for big but questionable names like Robby Alomar, Mo Vaughn, Jeromy Burnitz. They also raised eyebrows when they replaced steady if unglamorous arms like Rick Reed, Kevin Appier, and Glendon Rusch with not as big but much more questionable names like Pedro Astacio, Shawn Estes, and Jeff D'Amico. Add in the question marks of Rey Ordonez's weak bat, Edgardo Alfonzo's weak back, Roger Cedeno's weak fielding and on-base percentage, Mike Piazza's weak arm/knees/September stats, a weak bench & middle relief corps, and a weekly melodrama unfolding between GM Steve Phillips and manager Bobby Valentine, and you have more question marks than The Riddler. Not how you would prefer the horizon of the 2002 season to look. But, in nearly every case (save maybe Ordonez's hitting), the situation could have realistically gone either for the better or the worse. And the chances of each of those multitudinous shrug-your-shoulders scenarios souring had to be a long shot. The end result? Pedro Astacio really panned out and the middle relief (stabilized by a couple of trades) performed admirably. Every other question mark became an exclamation point preceded by a curse. Hence, last place and the dismissal of Bobby V.
This offseason, unfortunately, looked a bit like more of the same. Tom Glavine's signing was undercut by dubious predictions by every two-bit stat guru. Cliff Floyd gives the Mets the first legitimate outfield bat since . . . Darryl Strawberry? And yet he adds to the problem of shoddy OF glovework. Ty Wigginton is the starting third baseman. I'm not kidding. Fan favorite Alfonzo is in San Fran while most if not all of the big ifs from last year are still here. Still . . . reasons ya gotta believe include new manager Art Howe, the phrase "now batting 9th for the Devil Rays . . . Rey Ordonez," and the fact that when you finish in last place, you can't slide any further. You'd think that after last season, we fans' expectations would be low. Somehow we still misguide ourselves with delusions involving salary cap figures and all of the pieces that should be interlocking by now. So let's aim for 83 wins and see what happens. At least it's still fun to watch Mike Piazza hit. [Too bad he's suspended for 5 games.]
Opening Day - Red Sox
Tampa Bay Devil Rays 6, Red Sox 4
Well, that didn't take long. The sound you hear is me trying to extricate my testicles from my stomach after the Sox' season-opening groin-kick. Pedro pitches brilliantly for seven innings, the Sox take a 4-1 lead into the 9th inning against the worst team in baseball, and Alan Embree and Chad Fox proceed to give up homeruns to Terry Shumpert and Carl Crawford to lose, 6-4. The Boston mediots will dust off their pre-written templates decrying the closer by committee idea, full of I-told-you-sos and "Gee, the real games are tough, huh Theo" bitterness.
I walked around my house muttering, "I can't fucking believe they lost that game", as my wife ignored me. What is it in the DNA of every Red Sox fan that causes this soul-draining reaction? Truly, I was miserable all night last night. Intellectually, I know that there are 161 games left, and that one loss is not terribly relevant, but I can't help feeling that I've been down this road before. Dammit.
Tampa Bay Devil Rays 6, Red Sox 4
Well, that didn't take long. The sound you hear is me trying to extricate my testicles from my stomach after the Sox' season-opening groin-kick. Pedro pitches brilliantly for seven innings, the Sox take a 4-1 lead into the 9th inning against the worst team in baseball, and Alan Embree and Chad Fox proceed to give up homeruns to Terry Shumpert and Carl Crawford to lose, 6-4. The Boston mediots will dust off their pre-written templates decrying the closer by committee idea, full of I-told-you-sos and "Gee, the real games are tough, huh Theo" bitterness.
I walked around my house muttering, "I can't fucking believe they lost that game", as my wife ignored me. What is it in the DNA of every Red Sox fan that causes this soul-draining reaction? Truly, I was miserable all night last night. Intellectually, I know that there are 161 games left, and that one loss is not terribly relevant, but I can't help feeling that I've been down this road before. Dammit.
The What
The Baseball Poets, as Tony Kornheiser calls them, are in their finest throat in these, the first days of a new baseball season. The profound beauty of the game, the emerald cathedral of the ballpark, the elemental symmetry in the 6-4-3 double play - all of these things resonate to the literati. To which we say, blah, blah, blah, let's play some ball. This spot is dedicated to a season-long chronicle of the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets, our favorite teams. Recent memory (or in the case of the Red Sox, the last 84 years) tells us that it might get painful.
The Obligatory Introductions - Red Sox
First, the review of 2002. The Sox were 93-69, gaining the bittersweet distinction of being the only team in the Wild Card era to win 93 games and not make the playoffs. They had the league's leading hitter in Manny Ramirez, two 20-game winners in Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe, three of the American League's top 4 ERAs (adding Tim Wakefield to Martinez and Lowe), seven, count 'em seven representatives at the All-Star game (Ramirez, Martinez, Lowe, Nomar Garciaparra, Ugueth Urbina, Shea Hillenbrand, and Johnny Damon), and they still didn't make the playoffs.
The offseason saw the hiring of 29 year-old Theo Epstein as General Manager, and an organizational shift of philosophy. Traditional baseball people seem threatened by young Theo's statistical bent, and were apoplectic when the Sox hired noted stat-guy Bill James as a consultant. Boston's notoriously negative press corps shifted into high gear as the Sox failed to sign big names or trade for Bartolo Colon, focusing instead on solid hitters with high on-base percentages, and a new approach to bullpen organization that's been dubbed "closer by committee". (Truthfully, the new approach is really an echo of baseball's earlier days, when the team's best bullpen arms were used when needed, instead of in pre-arranged setup/closer roles. If the experiment is successful, agents for high-dollar, low-inning closers will be the ones most concerned.)
We could spend more time on preamble, but let's get right to the heart of the matter. Bottom line - I'm more optimistic about the Sox' chances this year than I have been in many years. Which, of course, means that they will fall from playoff contention before the All-Star break. There are very few organizations in all of recorded sports history that subject their fans to more pain than the Boston Red Sox - a theme to which I feel certain we will return as this year proceeds.
The Baseball Poets, as Tony Kornheiser calls them, are in their finest throat in these, the first days of a new baseball season. The profound beauty of the game, the emerald cathedral of the ballpark, the elemental symmetry in the 6-4-3 double play - all of these things resonate to the literati. To which we say, blah, blah, blah, let's play some ball. This spot is dedicated to a season-long chronicle of the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets, our favorite teams. Recent memory (or in the case of the Red Sox, the last 84 years) tells us that it might get painful.
The Obligatory Introductions - Red Sox
First, the review of 2002. The Sox were 93-69, gaining the bittersweet distinction of being the only team in the Wild Card era to win 93 games and not make the playoffs. They had the league's leading hitter in Manny Ramirez, two 20-game winners in Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe, three of the American League's top 4 ERAs (adding Tim Wakefield to Martinez and Lowe), seven, count 'em seven representatives at the All-Star game (Ramirez, Martinez, Lowe, Nomar Garciaparra, Ugueth Urbina, Shea Hillenbrand, and Johnny Damon), and they still didn't make the playoffs.
The offseason saw the hiring of 29 year-old Theo Epstein as General Manager, and an organizational shift of philosophy. Traditional baseball people seem threatened by young Theo's statistical bent, and were apoplectic when the Sox hired noted stat-guy Bill James as a consultant. Boston's notoriously negative press corps shifted into high gear as the Sox failed to sign big names or trade for Bartolo Colon, focusing instead on solid hitters with high on-base percentages, and a new approach to bullpen organization that's been dubbed "closer by committee". (Truthfully, the new approach is really an echo of baseball's earlier days, when the team's best bullpen arms were used when needed, instead of in pre-arranged setup/closer roles. If the experiment is successful, agents for high-dollar, low-inning closers will be the ones most concerned.)
We could spend more time on preamble, but let's get right to the heart of the matter. Bottom line - I'm more optimistic about the Sox' chances this year than I have been in many years. Which, of course, means that they will fall from playoff contention before the All-Star break. There are very few organizations in all of recorded sports history that subject their fans to more pain than the Boston Red Sox - a theme to which I feel certain we will return as this year proceeds.
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