I'm trying to tell myself it's not bad if the Sox go on and win the World Series.  They're the best team, Boston's a great city, Fenway is a beautiful park, and they have a rabid fan base.  The "curse" is over, so what's the big deal.

But seeing Manny Ramirez so emphatically turn a 7-2 deficit into a 7-3 deficit, then thrust both arms in the air like he just won a pie-eating contest before circling the bases during the time the Goodyear blimp could have circumnavigated the globe makes me think a Cleveland victory would be true poetic justice.  I still don't think the Sox have much right to lose this series, but they are on the verge of being upset.  And if that does happen, will someone tell Manny?

In a move reminiscent of a younger, more impetuous George M. Steinbrenner III, the Yankees have just traded untouchable prospect Phil Hughes for seasoned righthander Paul Byrd.  Speaking through Yankee spokesman Howard Rubenstein, The Boss offered, "The people of New York deserve a valued post-season hero that will help this team achieve our goal to bring a world championship back to New York where it belongs."  Byrd, for his part, added "I know New York can be tough, but I'm excited to play for a winner and I promise my Indian teammates this will not distract from my current role as game 4 starter in the ALCS against the Red Sox, should the series go that far."

Well, I can’t really elaborate on anything from this game, since my TiVo said “not tonight, pal!” as it so often does, taping the wrong channel and leaving me with 4+ hours of soap operas and local LA news, which was probably a rerun from yesterday anyway.  Why does everyone love the TiVo?  Anytime I set it, the TiVo essentially tells me “it’ll try to record what you want, but I ain’t promising anything… I’ll only disappoint you”.  We have this understanding.

But this much I know: Sabathia gives the Yankees a gift of a shaky outing, but the Bronx Nine decline his charity.  Wang makes the same offer to the Indians.  They politely accept.

I’ve not yet gotten the temperature from fans to know if Alex Rodriguez is on thin ice for not hitting a 10 run homer to give the Yanks the win.  Taking two walks in four plate appearance is fine by me, though. The Yanks letting C.C. off the hook, then rolling over against the bullpen is something that I’m glad my TiVo spared me from.

On to things I have witnessed.  I witnessed Lou Piniella allow Carlos Zambrano to swing away in a tight game with a runner on second and no one out in game one of  the Cubs-D’backs series.  I’m told his reasoning was that Soriano, coming up, is a feast or famine hitter, so Lou was not really expecting a single from him.  (Note to Yank fans who wanted Torre sacked last year: try chewing on that logic from the guy who probably would have replaced him.)  For added fun, I got to listen to Ron Darling on the TBS broadcast actually agree with such asinine logic, adding that Zambrano is one of the best hitting pitchers in the game.  With Zambrano’s lifetime .219 average (and going up against Brandon Webb), this is like saying shoe leather is the tastiest form of footwear when put on a pizza, so let’s have that instead of anchovies.  I reckon if it’s 1986 and Darling is on the mound of a tight game, he’d swallow his Bazooka if Rafael Santana were swinging away in such a situation, so why should a pitcher with a similar average be any different?

That said, maybe Lou had a point.  Soriano, aka, the Man Who Was Traded For Arod, is flailing at pitches like he’s trying to capture a butterfly with a measuring cup—in other words, he’s doing an imitation of himself from the 2003 post-season against the Sox and Marlins.  If you think A-Sor is all that and a bag of Funyons, check out his post-season lifetime numbers.  Plate discipline does not seem to be coming with age.

And if Piniella didn’t have that in mind, maybe he channeled the future and saw pitcher Ted Lilly trying to bunt in tonight’s game two.  Dropping down a bunt is not automatic, but he looked so overmatched, I think he had the bat upside down.  And Lilly was squaring around practically while the pitcher was still addressing the rosin bag.  The foul ball strike out was a foregone conclusion. 

Well my teams (preferred, not predicted) are 0-5 so far this post-season.  Let’s hope the Yanks can survive enough to make the leap from TBS.