12eight

Something has to be said about the job of Jonathan Papelbon last night.  I try to remain reserved about prospects; as exciting as any of them might be, they could flame-out at any moment.  But this kid... is something truly special.  Think about him for a moment.  Think about his major league career.  Can you think of anyone (other than K-Rod) whose first ML experience was forged in the kind of fire that Papelbon's has been?  His first start, captured here for posterity, was a key game vs. the Minnesota Twins, at the trade deadline, during possibly the most insane, soap-operaish week in Red Sox history.  He made two more starts in the heat of an August pennant race, and has since served as a key bullpen arm.  In recent weeks he has emerged as the Sox top setup, a bridge to Mike Timlin.

But last night?  Last night was the emergence of a star.  Last night, Jonathan Papelbon pitched 2 2/3 innings in quite possibly the biggest Sox win of the season - possibly saving the season - and did so brilliantly, striking out one, walking none, and allowing two hits.  What's more than that, though, was his demeanor; his steely composure.  I hate talking like that about ballplayers, but Papelbon deserves exactly that level of praise.  And he got it from his teammates, from seasoned veterans who should more be toturing rookies than lauding accolades upon them.  Kevin Millar, Jason Varitek, David Ortiz all, in their postgame interviews, made sure to single him out as deserving of their highest praise of the evening.

When he first came up, I was thrilled, getting to see a kid who I thought would be an important part of the 2006 Red Sox get his first taste.  Well, I was somewhat wrong; Papelbon has become an integral, trusted, and loved member of this year's club, and his time here in years to come looks very very bright.

Last fall, when the 2005 Red Sox schedule was released, everyone took a look at these last three games and said, in unison, 'wouldn't it be cool if they mattered?'  Well, we all got our wish.  The Red Sox come into this series on the wrong end of a one-game deficit, needing two of three to keep their AL East dreams alive; on the other side, an eye will be cast toward the Cuyahoga as the AL Central champion Chicago White Sox slip into Cleveland to close out their season.  The Indians and Red Sox, tied for the AL Wild Card, add a wrinkle to these last three days of the year.  As has been written, here and everywhere else, the Sox fate is squarely in their hands; win three and none of the rest matters.

The scenarios, by # of Sox wins:

Lose 3:
Sox lose AL East by 4 games, finish with a record of 93-69.
IF the Indians also lose all three of their remaining games, the two teams will meet for a playoff at Fenway on Monday.
IF the Indians win one game, the Red Sox are eliminated from postseason play.

Lose 2:
Sox lose the AL East by 2 games, finish with a record of 94-68.
IF the Indians are swept, the Red Sox win the Wild Card.
IF the Indians win only one game, the two teams will meet for a playoff at Fenway on Monday.
IF the Indians take 2 or more games, the Red Sox are eliminated from postseason play.

Win 2:
The Red Sox and Yankees are tied for the AL East Lead, each with a record of 95-67.
IF the Indians win less than two games, they are eliminated from postseason play, and the Red Sox win the Wild Card, as the losers of the season series with the Yankees.
IF the Indians win 2 games, there is a three way tie between the Red Sox, Yankees, and Indians.  A two-tiered playoff will ensue, with the Red Sox and Yankees playing for the East title, and the loser playing the Indians for the Wild Card.
IF the Indians sweep their final series, the Indians win the Wild Card, forcing a one game playoff between the Yankees and Red Sox for Monday, October 3rd.

Win 3:
The Red Sox win the American League Eastern Division.
IF the Indians win 2 or 3, the Yankees are eliminated from postseason play.
IF the Indians win 1, the Indians and Yankees will meet for a one-game playoff to determine the Wild Card.
IF the Indians are swept, the Yankees win the AL Wild Card.

Win tonight.

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Worst Division In History Watch: Day 4

We stand on the edge of a precipice.  With three games to play, the Padres must lose all three if they are to make history; two if they are to make history that's less embarassing.  After a stunning 11 inning 1-0 victory over the Giants last night - capped by a game-winning double by former Sox IF Damian Jackson - the Padres' record rests at 80-79, one win removed from a guaranteed .500 season.  The Padres open a meaningless 3 game set with the Dodgers tonight, and hopefully will care more about setting their playoff rotation than reaching the season's fulcrum victory.

Alive.

Win Tomorrow.

Talk about tinkering right down to the bitter end.

The Red Sox today acquired LHP Mike Stanton (3-3, 4.75 in 41.2 innings) from the Washington Nationals for two minor league pitchers, RHP Rhys Taylor (2-2, 1.39 in 36.1 IP for the GCL Sox) and RHP Yader Peralta (0-0, 3.97 in 11.1 IP for the Lowell Spinners).  Stanton will obviously not be eligible for postseason duty, so this is a move specifically designed for the final 3 games of the season.  Against Stanton's old club.  In the middle of a down-to-the-wire pennant race.  Oh, and did I mention he's another specialist?  Now we can waste three bullpen spots on one out guys!  Fantastic!

Still, one more bullpen arm can't ever be a bad thing for this club.  Still, a genuine head scratcher.

Meanwhile, with their victory this afternoon, the Chicago White Sox have clinched the AL Central.  Three teams for two spots now, rather than four teams for three.  And the rains have come, though they're not expected to stay.

As in, 'Time for'. 

I've taken a lot of heat in recent days for my 'rampant' negativity.  Much of it is possibly deserved.  I don't care.  I don't think this team has what it takes, and I challenge them to prove me wrong.  If they're going to start, tonight is as good a night as any.

The last time Matt Clement and Scott Downs met up, the results were not pretty for this side of the border.  Since then, Clement has been alternately horrible and bizarrely good; he'll need to call more on recent experience tonight.  This is - I think we can all agree - a must win.  We cannot be dropping three games of a 4 game series to a sub-.500 club at home and feel at all good about this team; I have reservations about a split.  Moreover, can we honestly expect either the O's or the Rays to help us out tonight? 

From here on out, this season is solely in our hands.  Scoreboard watching becomes meaningless if you can't yourself win ballgames.  There is one sure fire way to make the postseason this year.

Win them all.

Give Toronto it's 81st loss of the season tonight, and go into tomorrow with heads held as high as possible.  Gut it out for three straight against the Yanks.  Then get ready to host an LDS.  It's that simple.  No more excuses.  No more injuries.  No more tearful media sessions, in which pitchers explain that they 'just didn't get it done'.  No more 'we're still relaxed'.  No more calling on the ghosts of 2004.  Win 4 games.  All the rest is meaningless.

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Worst Division in History Watch Update:
San Diego became the first .500 team to clinch a division last night, defeating the San Francisco Giants 9-1.  The Padres climbed to 79-79 on the year, with 4 remaining games.  To finish the season at .500 or worse, they will have to lose 3 of those; to become the first even-.500 division winner they will have to split.  Anything else and their simply the worst winning team to ever take a division, which is not nearly as cool.  Luckily, now that they've clinched, we can expect plenty of rest for starters, and plenty of AAA pitchers as they host the Dodgers.

I must be doing something right; 12eight exceeded its allotted monthly bandwidth today.  Anyone who tried and failed to get here this afternoon, my apologies.  I've temporarily upgraded the account.

I generally hate blog.om anyway, and had already been planning to move the site in the offseason.  So, this just gives me extra impetus.  I'll check out the various options; anyone who has a suggestion, let me know.  I'm not really thrilled with any of the major sites that I've checked out, but there are a few other ones here and there. 

In other news, the tickets I supposedly had to Saturday's game have evaporated, promised by my friend Nick to his girlfriend in a moment of weakness.  His new girlfriend.  Who doesn't like baseball.  YOU MISERABLE BASTARD I HATE YOU.  I don't really.  But come on.

So, instead, and given that I will be going to Sunday's game, Saturday will be the final Game Blog of the season.  So there's that to look forward to.

Arroyo out, DiNardo in with Toronto up 5-1 in the 4th.  The O's better hold that 1-0 lead, because this is looking very bad.  We cannot afford to lose ground.

Update: Of course, the moment I post this, the Yanks tie it at 1.  It's been a fun season, folks.

As of last night, two more divisions have been clinched, and another moved a step closer.  Aside from all the divisions we're involved in - those being the AL East and, via the wild card, the AL Central - remain up in the air.  Also still in the air are both the NL and AL wild cards, though the NL should be decided fairly soon.  The following is a list of probable playoff teams.  I've left the AL East and the AL wild card empty, because at this point who the hell knows.  Bolded teams are those that have clinched, italicized teams are those that are more than two games up in their respective races.  Teams in regular text are those that have a lead of between 1 and 2 games.  Everyone else?  Question marks.

National League East: Atlanta Braves (90-68)
National League Central: St. Louis Cardinals (97-61)
National League West: San Diego Padres (78-79*)
National League WC: Houston Astros (86-71)

American League East: ???
American League Central: Chicago White Sox (94-63)
American League West: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (91-66)
American League WC: ???

So, everyone's almost done... except us.  Fantastic.

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Worst Division in History Watch: Day 2

Yesterday's exciting matchup between the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants made the playoff picture clearer, as well as this watch.  The Giants have officially been eliminated from .500 play with their 83rd loss of the season.  Meanwhile, San Diego has made it slightly easier for itself.  Here are the updated standings, including last night's contest:

Team W  L  %    GB  RS  RA  PyPCT
SDP  78 79 .497 --- 667 721 .461
SFG  74 83 .471 3.0 641 725 .439

And here is the chance of a .500 season by the Padres (taking into account the fact that yesterday's math was flawed):

SDP needs 3 of last 5: 28.46% chance.

So, still not a very good possibility, but given that it had (actually) been at about 15.6% yesterday (as I said, my math was off), that win raised their chances of reaching .500 by quite a bit.

It has been brought to my attention by someone who is far far better at math than I am - that being my father - that I basically have no clue what I'm talking about.  So, forget all the probability stuff.  But the Watch shall continue.

On a night when the White Sox lose, the Indians lose, and the Yankees are losing:

If everyone else jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

This is my favorite 2005 story that no one is paying attention to.  There are two teams still in contention in the NL West: the 77-79 San Diego Padres and the 74-82 San Francisco Giants.  To break .500 for the season, the Padres will have to win four of their last 6 games; the Giants would have to win every remaining game.  The standings as of right now:

Team  W  L  %    RS  RA  PyPCT
SDP   77 79 .494 658 715 .459
SFG   74 82 .474 635 716 .440

Incredible.  Not only do they both suck, but they should suck even more given their RS/RA.

These two square off tonight; should the Padres win, the Giants would be 4 games out and seal a losing season.  Should the Giants win, they would be 2 games out and force the Padres to go 4-1 to reach .500.  According to my crude math, here are the chances that either team will reach .500:

Padres: 4.44%
Giants: 0.73%
Total:  5.16%

Because I find this endlessly entertaining, and because we really are witnessing history, I will update these numbers on a nightly basis.

Last night's rainout gave way to a picture perfect day at the ballpark.  The sun was out, a perfect September chill in the air.  The knuckler was knuckling, the flag was blowing in, and a couple of hawks even decided to get in on the action, swooping over the park, one of them perching atop the Monster Volvo sign for a half inning.

To top it all of, there was baseball.  Tim Wakefield, again, was exceptional (and I think at this point you could run a search for the term 'Tim Wakefield, again, was [some positive adjective] on this blog and return about ten posts between July and today).  He went 7, allowed only a single run (unearned) and generally held a young Toronto lineup clueless.  This year's late season duo - replacing the 'Timlin in the eighth, Williamson in the ninth' find from 2003 - is Papelbon in the eighth, Timlin in the ninth, and today it worked quite nicely, with Pap getting into but working out of a mini-jam in the 8th and Timlin shutting the door on 11 pitches in the ninth.  Offensive heroes included Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, and Edgar Renteria.

Jere was back at the game today as well, and joined us for the last few innings; the hawks wouldn't stay in one place long enough for him to get a shot of them, but he'll have other gameday photos up at his place.

So, another couple hours, and it starts again.  Chacin @ Schilling, 7:05pm, and the weather will be permitting.  Down in Baltimore, Mike Mussina squares off against Bruce Chen, and the Orioles square off against their own inability to stop thinking about October golf.

6 to go.