Friday, October 06, 2006 |
The Hunt For The Precioussss: Division Series, Day 4
Sweep Dreams, Oakland: A's 8, Twins 3
There was something far too storybook about sending Brad Radke and his bad shoulder up to pitch in an elimination game; for one thing, those kinds of stories usually involve the Yankees, who, let's face it, have an actual offense. (Er, but, see below.) The Twins didn't even have a defense, consistent with their haphazard play in the rest of the series, and in this instance exhibited it in a seventh-inning, two-out screwup by Justin Morneau, who ham-handedly fielded a routine grounder, only to find it slip out of his grasp.It cost Minnesota the game, because soon reliever Jesse Crain walked in a run and surrendered a bases-clearing double to Marco Scutaro, giving the A's an 8-2 lead dented only by Justin Morneau's late, inadequate, solo homer off Justin Duchscherer in the eighth. He'll have all offseason to think about it:
"In a short series, you can't afford to miss chances like that," Morneau said. "We just didn't do it with runners in scoring position. We didn't play Twins baseball. This isn't what we set out to do. This isn't want we expected to do. It's tough not playing the way we have all year."The A's, for their part, played brilliantly, with timely hitting that took advantage of the Twins' defensive mistakes, as well as a solid-if-dodging-bullets performance from Danny Haren, who gave up nine hits (one of which was a homer) but only one walk. The first team to advance, the A's get a couple days off now; more, they seem to me to have the scent of a team that could really go all the way this year. I have my own favorite in this race, of course, but let's hold off on declaring victors early.
The Chicken Man's Postseason Honor: Tigers 6, Yankees 0
I wanted this game as much as I ever wanted any in my life.Kenny Rogers is these days as disreputable a character as you'll find in baseball; knocking over a cameraman just doesn't fit into the family-friendly behavior most clubs want from their players. Non-hostile, at least, is preferred, and so Rogers headed off to Detroit after Texas understandably rebuffed his bid for a contract renewal. At this point, the joke went, well, that's the end of that, and too bad for him, but end-of-career limbo with a cellar dweller was exactly the fate some of us had hoped for, like bad karma coming back.— Kenny Rogers
Instead, he became an anchor on a playoff-bound team that surprised the hell outta everyone and won 95 games; Rogers himself picked up his third straight All Star appearance (and managed to avoid slugging any TV cameramen) and a well-below-league-average 3.84 ERA. But the thing that had to stick in his craw more than anything else was his 8.85 postseason ERA going into tonight's game; since his shattering start in 1996's ALDS Game 4 in which he lasted only two innings while giving up two runs, or the four runs he gave up to the Diamondbacks in the NLDS Game 2 of 1999, he's never been known as a postseason pitcher.
He's apparently learned something; he talked to himself throughout the game. It didn't hurt him:
"I was probably more emotional than I should have been," Rogers. "That is by far the greatest lineup I've ever faced. I just wanted to win for everyone here."Randy Johnson, the big game hunter of the postseason the Yankees thought they were getting, became instead the hunted as he surrendered five earned runs. I still have a theory that Randy Johnson plus a full season plus cold weather equals opposition advantage, and given the game started at 54°F, it wasn't a surprise to me, anyway, that Johnson wasn't at his best. The loss was his eighth straight in division series.
One more, Kittycats, one more.
the latest scoundrel is a Dodger no less, (you've yet to opine on) (Beimel). Brett Meyers, Jason Gimsley and Albert Belle all come to mind just in 2006 with far worse behavior.
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