1) We do not shoot our friends. (Even a chum with 11 blown saves.)
Last week, I wanted to compare Brad Lidge with a champion race horse that could no longer run. Christine outvoted me 1-1, and the insensitive metaphor wasn't published. Since then, she has said I should say the same thing about Jason Varitek. I don't disagree, except for the fact that we have a longer relationship with the Captain, and he has been supplanted as starting catcher by Victor Martinez.
I say all this as background because Charlie Manuel doesn't think Brad Lidge should be shot:
"I don't want to shoot Lidge. I think he'll get back to where he's at," Manuel said yesterday when asked about the status of the closer's job. "He needs a little break."
Maybe Cholly is just a better person than me.
2) The Phillies aren't playing as poorly as you'd think from Christine's reaction. Yesterday I heard they played .500 on their last road trip. Watching Christine mope all weekend, I thought they were 2-12 or something. Cholly says we're both right:
The 5-5 trip was not easy for manager Charlie Manuel. "As bad as we played, we played .500, didn't we?" he said. "Bad as we played, is that accepted? It will have to be, I guess."
3) It's OK to celebrate the Wild Card. It still feels wrong, but several Red Sox said some things to convince me. Here's a SoxandPhil quoted in coverage of his former team:
"You don't want to take [getting to the playoffs] for granted," said the Red Sox' Terry Francona, the only manager since 2000 to take a defending world champion to the postseason the following year. "Because it's tough. You want to get excited, but you also don't want to lose sight of your goal.
"We always like to say that every year is different. So why shouldn't you celebrate?"
Here's the players' take:
"As of right now, obviously (the Yankees are) the better team," left fielder Jason Bay said. "Once the postseason starts, everything else is kind of thrown out the window."
Didn't it sting just a little watching the Yankees celebrate?
"I don’t care," Kevin Youkilis said. "I want to get into the playoffs. Once we get there, it's a whole other game."
[...]
"I was a wild card once and got a World Series," (David) Ortiz said. "That means I don’t care."
4) It still would have been nice to clinch in New York.
"Damn, man," David Ortiz sad. "It gives the carpet a smell a few days later. It kills me. That's why I want to do it here. But it's not going to happen."
Patience, big man. You can stink up their new jaunt once you beat them 4-2 in the ALCS.
Tonight's games: Days after Jon Lester took a ball off his knee, Josh Beckett was scratched from tonight's start with a bad back. Perhaps the baseball gods aren't happy with a team that was setting up its playoff pitching rotation at least a week before it clinched.
In game action, it's like the SoxandPhils are playing chicken with each other to see who can clinch last.
Emergency starter Michael Bowden gave up seven runs in three innings. The Red Sox trailed the Blue Jays 11-5 in the 7th inning when downpours delayed the game. In case they don't resume this one, it will be up to the Angels to beat the Rangers if the magic number is to be reduced from two.
Cole Hamels gave up six runs in 6 2/3, increasing Christine's concerns that the baseball gods are putting the Phillies on the opposite end of the historic collapses they've dealt the Mets in recent years. In the 9th, Astros 8, Phillies 2. Magic number expected to remain stuck at three.
