2008 Playoffs: Day 1

Man, if yesterday was not enough baseball to get your juices flowing, then you are reading the wrong blog. A trio of games, starting with the greatest pitching performance nobody saw by Cole Hamels, followed up by the worst pitching performance of the day by Ryan Dempster in a game everyone saw on the east coast but nobody on the West Coast, and then the Sox Jon Lester overcoming poor umpiring and awful announcing (what was his pitch count?) to help the Sox beat the Angels. Oh baby, we had baseball so good, that we needed a cigarette after. I'm rubbing October all over myself, and I'm loving it.

Philadelphia Phillies 3 - Milwaukee Brewers 1
The great pitching performance nobody got to see because the MLB decided never to have its games overlap even a little. So this game started at 3 PM EST, and ended tidily around 5:40. The big story of this game was Cole Hamels making the Brewers lineup look absolutely foolish. His line:

Cole Hamels: 8.0IP 2H 0R 0ER 1BB 9K

The Brewers Gallardo pitched all right, allowing only 3R, but they were all unearned. In the bottom of the third, Phillies catcher singled and Cole Hamels went to bunt him along to second. However, Rickie Weeks botched the play and Hamels was safe at first. Gallardo retired the next two batters (Rollins and Werth) but gave up a 2-Run double to Utley and walked the next three batters in what should have been (I think) an earned run. But it remained unearned and the Phillies went up 3-0 and never looked back. Lidge came on for the 9th inning and gave up a double, a single, a walk and a run because of it, however struck out three and got the save. Hell of a game, but thanks MLB, no one with a job, and only kids in school on the East Coast, got to watch that one live.

Player of the Game: Cole Hamels for the shut-down performance of the day

Los Angeles Dodgers 7 - Chicago Cubs 2
Ryan Dempster was one strike away from getting out of the 5th inning unscathed, despite loading the bases. One pitch, and he could have helped his team retain a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the 5th. However, he threw an inside change-up to James Loney who took him yard, and suddenly, a 2-run lead was transformed to a 2-run deficit. The Dodgers never relinquished the lead, and Mark DeRosa's 2-run homerun in the 2nd inning off of Derek Lowe was all the offense the Cubbies could muster. The Cubs did manage to get 9 hits, but could never string them together. Actually, the Dodgers had a hard time stringing hits together too. So how did they score 7 runs? Well let's look at Dempster's pitching line.

Ryan Dempster: 4.2IP 4H 4R 4ER 7BB 2K

Yes, 7 walks. In fact, Dempster walked the bases loaded before giving up Loney's big shot. As a pitcher, you cannot walk 7 guys and expect to win if your name is not Daisuke Matsuzaka. Aside from that, Manny hit one of those homeruns only he or Vlad Guerrero could possibly take out of the park, and Dodgers' catcher Russel Martin hit a 9th inning icing-on-the-cake homerun, and the Cubs could never get it going. Lowe looked very good in his first playoff start of the year, but he has pretty good playoff numbers and we expected that. What we did not expect was Dempsters meltdown at home. The Cubs will look to Carlos Zambrano to get it going in game 2.

Player of the Game: James Loney for a clutch homerun


Boston Red Sox 4 - Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 1
Ladies and Gentlemen: Allow me to introduce, Bona Fide Playoff Ace, Jonathan LESTER!!!! (pause for applause). In what was the most predictable performance by anyone who has watched this kid pitch this year, and in the playoffs last year, Lester threw 117 pitches over 7 innings and held the "new Angels offense" to only 1 run. Lester had a hard time of it, and fell behind a lot of hitters early in the game... and middle... in fact every inning but his last he seemed to fall behind hitters. But he fought through, got outs, and solidified his position as playoff-ace-caliber.

A couple more notes about his start (because we here were very impressed).
1) The umpire's strike zone was all over the place.
2) Lester got his fastball up to 97MPH in the 7th inning. Wow.
3) Did you see that (legitimately) knee-buckling curveball he threw to Garrett Anderson? Where Lester and Anderson both started heading to the dugout only to not have it called a strike. WTF mate!?

But not to take away from John Lackey, who also threw a nice game. He had great command of his two seam fastball away to right handers and was nipping at that corner all game to start hitters off. He also had a nice curveball that had Sox hitters chasing for over 6 innings. But eventually, he threw a high fastball that Jason Bay did not miss and after two strikeouts, Bay could circle the bases joyfully. The starters' lines:

Jon Lester: 7.0IP 6H 1R 0ER 1BB 7K
John Lackey: 6.2IP 4H 2R 2ER 3BB 5K

After Lester's 7 strong innings Masterson came out for the 8th. That's right, not Okajima, not Delcarmen, not Lopez, they went with the kid. Masterson gave up a base hit to Vlad Guerrero (OK) and a bloop single to Hunter. But on said bloop single, Guerrero got greedy and a heads up play by Youkilis had him gunned out trying to go from first to third. Masterson would get Howie Kendrick to ground out to end the inning. And a Papelbon 9th, and finally at 1:30AM, Sox fans could go to sleep.

Player of the Game: Jon Lester for a gutsy 7 innings


On Tap For Today

2:30 PM: Chicago White Sox send out Javier Vazquez and his 9.53 postseason ERA to face the AL East Champion Rays who counter with James Shields. Unfortunately, if you have a 9-5 job like most of America, you will not see this game.

6:00 PM: The Brewers send out ace CC Sabathia who looks to continue his dominance of NL hitting while the Phillies send out (dear God) Brett Myers. Advantage: Brewers.

9:30 PM: The Cubs send out Carlos Zambrano in a must-win game at home. The Dodgers look to go back to LA up 2-0, and send out 24-year old Chad Billingsly. Unfortunately ,if you have a 9-5 and need to get up to travel to work, you will either be in pain all day because you watched this game in its entirety, or you won't get to see the end. I'm gearing up for pain tomorrow.



Written by Kyle "Do October Baseball, Not Drugs" Baxter