Hardball Heaven

There they go, overthinking and getting all cutesy again. The Angels, after battling back from a 2-0 deficit and having all the momentum on their side in Game 4, just screwed up a suicide squeeze play for a huge out in the top of the 9th.

By the way, the TBS play-by-play man - I'll find out his name before I sign off - is horribly anti-Red Sox. Believe me, I'm sensitive to all the whiners who bitch and moan about certain announcers biases, but this guy is bush-league. A Sox player strikes out and he yells 'oh, take a seat...' Douche. Anyway, the best way to shut this jackass up is to win Game 4, and the Sox are currently a base-hit away from -- and I'm not making this up -- they just got a single from Jed Lowrie that scores Jason Bay with the winning run! Sox win 3-2 and just like that, they're headed to the ALCS against their new rival, the Tampa Bay Rays. Oh, and it's Chip Caray, the little voice that we won't have to (hopefully) be hearing from anymore. Bye Chip. Thanks for nothing, ass-wipe.

The Angels are known as a bunch of swashbucklers (love that word) who aren't afraid to take the extra base, hit and run, squeeze, etc. But sometimes aggression can come back to bite. Vladimir Guerrero's baserunning gaffe in Game 2 in Anaheim - when Youkilis threw him out from short right-field - is Exhibit A, and the failed squeeze play tonight is Exhibit B. Roll the dice like Mike Scioscia does, and you're bound to get burned every now and then. Unfortunately for the Angels, these miscues came at the worst possible times and the Red Sox extended their postseason mastery over them.

So now we get a nice little three-day reprieve from late-night baseball while the Red Sox and Rays get ready to resume hostilities Friday in the ALCS from (gulp) The Trop. I can't believe I actually watched a preview back in April down there. The place was swarming with Sox fans but something tells me it'll be more pro-Rays this time around. Amazingly, this is the fourth ALCS for the Red Sox since 2003.

More on the series over the next couple of days. In the meantime, get some shut eye ya hear?