The day after

I tried my best to avoid coverage of Roy Halladay's no-hitter, but it was impossible.

It still hurts. I still suck. And the Yankees still suck.

At least Christine has started talking to me. But Trent won't say a word, which is odd because he wouldn't have been going anyway.

Just great

What a day.

We wound up selling our playoff tickets at a whopping $10 profit because I couldn't take a day off on the first week back at work.

Then, I had to unexpectedly work late, forcing me to renege on a dinner promise to Christine, miss watching the game with her and Trent, and totally miss an evening with our son.

And, of course, to make matters worse, as soon as I got into the car I heard the announcers say, "I wonder if Don Larsen is watching this." I knew Roy Halladay would pitch a perfect game.

He didn't. Doc gave up a walk, but finished with the second no-hitter in postseason history in the Phillies 4-0 win over the Reds in Game 1 of the NLDS.

To recap: My family's upset, I'm upset, work's probably upset that I wasn't enthusiastic about staying late, and I cost Christine and myself probably our best shot at ever seeing a no-hitter in person.

What a great night.

Left out

MLB Network is previewing the playoffs. I can't say I don't feel a little left out. I guess that's sort of what Kyle Kendrick, Paul Hoover, Danys Baez, David Herndon and Jamie Moyer are feeling because they didn't make the Phillies first round roster, but they're traveling with the team.

I guess that means there's a chance that any one of them could wind up playing if the Phillies advance to the NLCS. I bet Jamie Moyer is lobbying to start the series against the Braves or Giants.

Meanwhile, they announced the starting times for the rest of the playoff games in the first round. I heard it on WFAN. Don't worry, Yankees fans - besides Thursday's 6 p.m. start, every game starts at either 8 p.m. or 8:30 p.m.

Yankees suck.

First-round predictions: Me - Phillies in four, Giants, Twins and Rays. Christine - Phillies, but won't put a number on it, Giants, Twins and Rays.

Yankees suck

Of course MLB wouldn't schedule the Yankees to play a game that's not in a prime-time slot. That wouldn't be fair to New Yorkers. They should never have to choose between work and watching a playoff game. That would be un-American.

We're not surprised that Phillies fans got the shaft, but we thought baseball would throw us a bone and give us a 6 p.m. start for Wednesday's game, not 5 p.m. We would have missed the beginning, but we still would have made it, unless Roy Halladay decided to set the record for the quickest perfect game ever. Unfortunately, it looks like we won't be attending an NLDS game for the first time since the Phillies four-year playoff run began - unless Trent's super-secret plan to get rich and allow us to retire occurs before Wednesday. He's been working very hard on it.

Rooting

I didn't think I'd care much about baseball today, but it was nice to see the Red Sox win the final two games against the Yankees, knocking them down to the Wild Card. Congrats to the AL East Champion Rays.

It was also nice rooting for the Phillies as they gave another scare to the Braves, who survived to make the playoffs. Finally, we were rooting for the Padres to win against the Giants and set up a three-way tie in the NL, but that also fell short.

Farewells

After six weeks, Daddy Daycare closed up shop yesterday. Sadly, it's time for me to return to work on Monday and for Trent to go to real day care after nothing but Mommy and/or Daddy for his first 12 weeks home.

I haven't been informed of any special ceremonies, such as the "Thanks, Mike Night" the Red Sox are holding today for the retiring Mike Lowell.

But Lowell won't be the only 2010 Red Sox not returning for 2011. Adrian Beltre, who took off for the birth of his child, cleaned out his locker, a sign suggesting he's one and done. Plus, there's always the speculation about the Red Sox ancient warriors, such as Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield, and those who may have just overstayed their welcome, such as Jonathan Papelbon and Jacoby Ellsbury.

So today, let's enjoy the present, remember the past and look forward to good things in the future. Of course, for the Phillies, there's no use worrying about 2011 yet when they have Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt and Cole Hamels lined up for the playoffs.

Red Sox postmortem

As it grew clear that the Red Sox would not make the playoffs this year, I could not decide whether to call this season a disappointment because it was supposed to be a transition year and they still won 87 games (with the possibility of reaching 90 with a sweep of the Yankees this weekend).

But Theo Epstein and Jon Lester made it clear that despite the rash of injuries, this season was an unacceptable disappointment:

Pitching and defense, the two expected strengths of this Red Sox team when it began play six months ago, were "not acceptable" this season, according to general manager Theo Epstein.

"We didn't pitch like we wanted to, we didn't play defense like we wanted to, and we allowed our opponents to just score way too much," Epstein said during an appearance on WEEI radio yesterday.

Lester, whose rare poor performance cost him his chance at win No. 20, said missing the mark wasn't as disappointing as not getting to compete in October:

"It's more disappointing not making the playoffs," he said. "Would it have been nice? Yeah, I'm not going to lie to you. But regardless of all that we didn't make the playoffs. We didn't meet our goal this year and that's more disappointing."

But even if this season is considered a disappointment, I'm heartened by two things today: 1) This team did not fracture and held together, as seen in Adrian Beltre and Marco Scutaro's desire to play for Lester:

(Terry Francona) intended to give second baseman Marco Scutaro a night off to rest his aching right shoulder and to use third baseman Adrian Beltre as the designated hitter. Both came to Francona and asked to play their usual positions to try to help Lester.

"After I thought about it, I was really kind of impressed," Francona said. "It made me feel good."

And, 2) That Theo knows the team needs improvement, but not a complete overhaul:

Epstein believes the Sox are "pretty close" to being a championship team again.

"I think this offseason presents us with a lot of challenges, but at the same time it presents us with a lot of opportunities," he said. "You have to sort of be reasonable about everything.

"In a year that ends like this, sometimes there's a tendency to look at all the issues and all the problems, and you think that you're nowhere close to a championship team. Certainly there are elements to a team that are close to championship-caliber.

"We have to completely fix the bullpen. We do have a lot of important position players eligible for free agency. We're going to have to keep those guys or replace them, or some combination thereof. You can't let the way things happened this year cloud your judgment about what you have."

So, forgive me for looking past whether the Phillies should go full bore at the Braves this weekend; I'm waiting for the SoxandPhils 2011 World Series.