I pity your soul, Eric. You crossed the line from favorites to chumps in my mind today. Today on First and 10 you were critiquing the ALCS and pointing out holes in each team's line-ups. I am in no way naive enough to believe that the Red Sox are invincible, have no weaknesses, or are even immeasurably better than the Indians or anyone else for that matter. That's baseball. And that's why we love it.
However, you pointed out a few facts that are inexcusably wrong. You brought up that Manny Ramirez was still injured. Wrong. Where were you last Friday night? Obviously, not in Boston because you would have seen an object launched into space that still has not returned to Earth's surface.
I understand that you are often forced to up the ante with such a blowhard sitting across from you. Skip Bayless may be one of the most narrow-minded sports commentators and reporters I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. I would have expected his attitude from a bigot or a politician, but not someone getting paid to write about sports.
But you on the other hand are different. You fill in for people on ESPN Radio and I actually prefer you to many of the regular hosts and religiously listen to The Sportsbash. But to accuse the Red Sox of having inadequate middle relief is simply wrong. Try this: Manny Delcarmen, Hideki Okijima, Jon Lester, Javier Lopez, and Hideki Okijima. Heck, when we decide a game is hopeless we throw in a former-Cy Young-winning closer: Eric Gagne. Our bullpen (meaning all of them) was statistically the best over the course of the entire season. It's just a fact.
I am writing this because I labor away day after day and still follow sports religiously and am outright ashamed when commentators get stuff that wrong. And I'm writing this to make an observation about how excellent out bullpen is. So please, take some notice. We have a great bullpen and Manny Ramirez is a great hitter. And he is playing. If you want to pick on someone, go after J.D. Drew whose season averages look bad enough that its perfect for mid-afternoon sports talk fodder.
Nevermind that over the past two months he has had numbers similar to Alex Rodriguez.
Better luck next time,
A Blessed Red Sox Fan
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2 comments:
I didn't see the broadcast you are taking issue with, but if Manny is still injured, heaven help the rest of baseball when his health returns.
The only reason Manny isn't leading all postseaon players in quite a few offensive categories is because of a certain teammate that bats just ahead of him. Manny's postseason stats so far:
HR: 2 (T1 with Ortiz and 5 others)
RBI: 3 (T3)
OBP: .615 (2nd to Papi)
SLG: 1.125 (3rd to Papi and [Steven] Drew)
OPS: 1.740 (2nd to Papi)
RC27: 25.91 (2nd to Papi's unfathomable 92.96)
(That's right. A lineup of 9 Papi's would average over 10 runs an inning.)
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