Final Score: Rich Team That Buys Victories 5, Angels 2.
There were times when it seemed nothing could slow down an Angels team brought together by the death of Nick Adenhart in a season that had already begun with John Lackey, Ervin Santana, and Kelvim Escobar on the DL. Joe Saunders would pitch through pain, Scot Shields would be lost for the season, and Vlad the Impaler would look more and more each day like Vlad the Former Impaler.
No matter. The Angels just kept winning. And winning. And winning. Then they got to the ALCS and forgot how to play baseball. Mike Scioscia, widely considered to be one of baseball's best managers, would make several puzzling moves, including today's choices of sticking with Joe Saunders through thin and thin -- Saunders wobbled through every inning and never came close to getting it together -- and trying Scott "Let me try 25 pitches this inning and see if a few of them are good" Kazmir in a 3-2 game, while Jered Weaver -- he of precisely the breaking stuff the Yankees couldn't handle all series -- sat, and sat, and sat.
Not how I would have played it, but then again I would have caught Matsui's pop up, I would have taken the out at first on Melky Cabrera's ground ball, I would have thrown a bunt nearer to a base than to the malt vendor.
BREAKING NEWS!!!! Derek Jeter has just sneezed. Fox will have the full story right after Tim McCarver says something inane. So that would be right now. Good effing grief, people.
Bye bye, Angels. Go Phillies!
0 recs | 31 comments
Go Phillies!
30 years from now my daughter (born 10 days ago!) will be in a store looking at one of those, what happened the year you were born cards. Price of gas, bread, milk. What TV shows, movies were big. There is always a sports recap. Steelers superbowl, Lakers NBA Finals. World Series. IT CANNOT SAY YANKEES! GO PHILLIES!
Please baseball gods do not allow my daughter’s first world series to be a Yankee championship!
fansince1980 - October 25, 2009
They're so cute at 10 days!
Around 11 days they cop a hell of an attitude, though.
Nico - October 25, 2009
That's okay.
It only lasts a couple of decades or so.
el campysino - October 25, 2009
True. At about 20 years and 11 days, they're nice again.
Nico - October 25, 2009
Or at least they've acquired the decency to pretend.
el campysino - October 25, 2009
Winner!
Spoken as a father of 3 adult daughters who refuse to run off with one of the many young males who frequent my abode.
alox - October 25, 2009
A friend of mine has a 5-year old boy and a 3-year old girl
and her son is going through his premature teenager phase. After one such session, my friend turned to her daughter and said something to the effect of “Your brother! Your brother!! YOUR BROTHER DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!!11”
To which the little one replied: “But, are we going to keep him? Sometimes he’s OK to play with”
elcroata - October 25, 2009
lol
day-to-day - October 26, 2009
Congrats on the new baby - enjoy!
Seems like yesterday that my twenty y.o. kid was born!!
BERRYJO - October 26, 2009
Let's Go Phillies!
OaklandSi - October 25, 2009
Let's hope this guy keeps the umps in line
doctorK - October 25, 2009
Some pretty inexplicable decisions down the stretch, I have to say
I don’t understand why Andy Pettitte started the 7th inning by pitching to two righthanded batters, then was replaced by a righthander.
I really don’t understand why Ervin Santana started the 8th inning, pitched to one lefthander, then was removed for a lefthanded pitcher before a stretch of the Yankees lineup that included two switch-hitters followed by a righty.
Then there’s pinch-hitting for Mike Napoli with Gary Matthews Jr. in a situation where any baserunner is as good as a home run, which is in a whole separate category (I can’t say “whole new category” because Scoscia keeps doing it) of stupid.
PaulThomas - October 25, 2009
I don't get rivera to start the 8th either
I really think Joe girardi COULD manage his way to a loss or 2 in a short series.
Future Ed - October 25, 2009
and sacraficing with swisher
1rst and second no out is OK, But I am not sure I would have done it.
Future Ed - October 25, 2009
I have no problem with that
If you figure that you’re going to deploy Rivera for 2 innings no matter what (decent plan), why not make sure he actually works 2 innings? If anything, my typical critique of the Yankees’ (and everyone else’s) bullpen usage patterns is that they don’t use their closers enough.
PaulThomas - October 25, 2009
Rivera going 2 no matter what
means a tired rivera for game 7 if he gives up 2 runs. Keeping chamberlin in until he gives up a runner may save an inning for rivera and have him fresher for game 7.
Future Ed - October 25, 2009
it probably shows both how much confidence Girardi has in Rivera
and how little confidence he has in the other relievers.
OaklandSi - October 26, 2009
Did this series finally show fox
that Jeter is not a good defender?
Future Ed - October 25, 2009
No.
Yes, he’s not a good defender. No, Fox didn’t notice.
Nico - October 25, 2009
by sheer will he made that ball bounce to cano with his Jeter chest
Future Ed - October 25, 2009
“I was just thinking how appropriate it is that Mariano Rivera takes a bow before every pitch” ~Tim McCarver.
I hate FOX baseball coverage, I hate the Yankees, I hate the Phillies even more. I will not be watching the World Series for the first time in my lifetime. Sigh.
ZeroIndulgence - October 25, 2009
have the TV ready
listen to the radio, if something neat happens switch the TV on.
Future Ed - October 25, 2009
Know your role as a baseball fan.
You must hate the Yankee’s in the WS. It’s an unwritten law, that quite frankly, should be codifed without further ado. And fuck :Philly too.
alox - October 25, 2009
Collective Halos Heaven reaction during the 8th inning debacle...
GO PHILLIES!!! And can someone please make Tim McCarver & Joe Buck disappear.
baseballnut020 - October 26, 2009
Thank God I can stop rooting for the Skankees now
I hope that when one stops rooting for the Yankees, her soul begins to repair itself immediately (like when you stop smoking and your lungs begin to immediately fix the damage ).
day-to-day - October 26, 2009
You will probably gain some weight, though
elcroata - October 26, 2009
so much for my lousy predictions
that had the Angels winning it, oh well… that’s what you get when you use the Magic 8 Ball & powerful mind control drugs without reading the instructions for either. I repeat my assertion of a few games ago that the Leggo My Sleggos owe us some of this Bad News Halos baserunning and fielding next year. Oh, and Brian Fuentes (what does he make, like 40 billion a year?) sucks so bad he makes Byung Young Kim look like Rollie Fingers… thank you thank you thank you Jesus that Andrew Bailey is my closer and JOey Devine is coming back around too, because that means that we have 2 closers and they have none.
The big silver lining for next season’s AL West is that we will never have to worry that Jeff Mathis will be run out of town again, no matter how Mendoza-licious his numbers might be… now Scioscia will play him even more, and we already know he’s good for at least several actions a year that result directly in LAAAAAAAAAA losses, often to our gallant lads in the cleats of white.
OK, I officially declare myself a Phillie Phanatic this week, how could I not? The A’s used to play there and the Phils have no players I hate and Joe Blanton and Matt Stairs too. I wanna see The Ace of Cakes whittle through A-Rod & Cano whilst Tim McCarver & Joe Buck chew their NY-cheering towels and scream like little girls whenever Jeter takes a groundball up the ass or off the chest.
emperor nobody - October 26, 2009
Every time I watched this series
and found a soft spot for slegnA in their emotional year, they would go on and make a baserunning blunder that would just make me shake my head and say – no way does this team deserve to win a ballgame and represent AL in a World Series (or anywhere, for the matter of fact).
Hitting a 90mph cutter is hard and throwing it perhaps even harder, not that I would know. But running to a proper base and stopping once there is something a 9-year olds already do properly. When do yo start to forget these things? For baseball priding itself as a chess game of sports, there are pretty many plain dumb moves out there.
Not that Yankees did it much better, thanks for asking. Overall, it might have been a series with worst baserunning I have ever seen, although it might lack a crowning moment like this one.
elcroata - October 26, 2009
I turned off the sound
and you know what? It was WAY better. I don’t need McC (obnoxious twangy clown) or JB (smug pseudo-objective egotist). I (and most likely anyone posting around here at this time of year) can analyze my own baseball.
The right handed Phillies better be ready to hit an outside pitch in Yankee stadium. All you have to do is see how the Yankees hitters are aggressively going after that outside pitch to see the way to hit in Yankee stadium. I find it hard to believe that the Angels thought that the way to win was to take that pitch and rely on the mercy of the godawful umpires in this series (Mcclelland’s unbelievable call of one out only when two runners OFF BASE were tagged is the worst call I’ve ever seen in over 40 years of watching baseball).
Brian in 317 - October 26, 2009
Worst call ever seen?
I was going to say that’s a bold statement…but you are correct. It was indeed the worst call I’ve ever seen as well. Just abysmal.
ZeroIndulgence - October 26, 2009
What about McCarver counting out loud and reminding the audience everytime Petitte threw to first? “That was the seventh pick to first…” What an annoying idiot. Just go away and take Buck with you, he’s just as worthless. I hate the Yankees, but hate the Angel’s even more. Not a Philly fan, but any NL team over the Yankee’s!
dashman33 - October 26, 2009
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