Sunday, August 20, 2006

Deja Vu and Santanaria, Killed My Optimism: Game 123 Thoughts

Super Duper! (Yes, that's sarcasm.) Sox lose 3-7

-Note- I was very optimistic going into the game, but all that optimism was turned into sarcasm by the loss.

-Blame it on the jet-lag, blame it on a horrendously wrong gut-feeling, but I thought maybe, just maybe Javy would pull out the win against Johan. I thought the stars had aligned and we were going to win. I mean while watching the Rangers came back from a 6-0 deficit to beat the Motor City Kitties, I thought it was going to be that kind of night for the Sox too. I guess I'm going to blame it on the free cocktails; yes, that's what got me to believe Santana was going to slip up today; curse you Johnny Walker!

-I guess Santana did slip up, once. He surrendered a run scoring double to Tadahito. It was a damn fine piece of hitting by Gooch.

-Santana wasn't unhittable today. He looked damn near mortal at times, but the Sox failed to pounce and string together hits. The Sox only had three runners in scoring position against Santana and none of them reached third base.

-Javy slipped up once, too. It just happened to be prolonged along the course of one inning. BIG surprise. Seriously, this act is getting old. When I asked for an encore, I was talking about his performance against the Jays, not all his other rubbish starts.

-Today was yet another example of a Sox pitcher overcoming an error in the field. Oh wait, sorry, that was me being optimistic again. It turns out Javy blew up after Paulie's error. He gave up 4 runs in the third.

-You could make a case and say Javy pitched well outside of the third inning, but I've been there and done that about 10 times this season for Javy.

-I'm continually seeing flashes of pre-'05 Sox. Big bats, bad pitching, all the while pissing away winnable games.

-Good news - Neal Cotts didn't allow any inherited runners to score.
-Bad news - Neal Cotts had no inherited runners today, but still gave up two runs. Neal seems to be on a mission to have his ERA climb above 4.00; that's the only thing I can think of. He suddenly refuses to pitch well. Neal almost has me longing for Boone Logan.

-Cuddyer, Morneau, and Hunter killed us. Not surprised at all. We've all seen it happen before.

-Overall the Sox looked lifeless. I was surprised to get the one run, that we did early. I was praying that we could cling to that lead and pull out an '05-like 1-0 victory. As soon as the next half inning was done; I was positive we were going to lose. It's hard enough to beat Santana, but spot him a 4-1 lead and you're asking for trouble.

-We hit Rincon to the sound of two runs. Yippee!

-All of a sudden the Sox find themselves in a make or break series against the Tiggers. I think we all thought after the last Tiger series we were in good shape, but we fouled up an easy series against the Royales, a la the Red Sox, and sucked it up against the Twins.

-Good Ozzie Move of the Night - I liked the line up he put out there. I'm not thrilled about Crusty Alomar, but I don't mind taking out AJ the lefty.

-Bad Ozzie Move of the Night - Putting in Neal Cotts. The Sox had a small ray of hope after putting up two runs, but Cotts immediately stomped all over my hope.

-Big Ups of the Night and Player of the Game Honors to...




Tadahito Iguchi (7)








He was the only player that brought it today. All hail the Emperor.

Sox Record: 73-50

2 Comments:

Blogger Jeeves said...

Let me know if I forgot any major points about the game. I was fighting the urge to take a nap during the game, which I proudly can say I didn't, but parts of the game are kind of a haze for me.

The business items I was talking about earlier, will come later tonight.

I didn't forget.

8/20/2006 6:45 PM  
Blogger jamesmnordbergjr said...

Eh, we walked away with the WC lead, so that's a plus.

We knew this would be a tough start, so I wasn't so optimistic. The preview should have indicated that.

But after these 3 games, I have a feeling we may be fighting the Tiggers for the WC with the Twinkies stealing the division.

Tomorrow looks so much better than today did.

8/21/2006 3:32 AM  

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