October baseball in September
October 1, 2008Great tie breaker game yesterday between the Twins and White Sox to decide the division title. Isn’t it amazing that two teams can play 162 games and come out in the end with the same 88-74 record? I think that’s something else. Anyway, some random thoughts about the game…Great collision at home and a nice play by Pierzynski to hold on to the ball. If you paid attention though, you’d of noticed that he made the typical catcher mistake of “wandering off” of home plate and made the play much harder than it had to be. He ended up about 4 or 5 feet in front of the plate and had to make a quick snag of a short hop from Griffey on what would have been a nice long hop if he would have stuck around home. There also wouldn’t have been a collision because they had the runner by so much. Oh well, it was fun to watch A.J get run over. How bout the swing of Alexei Ramirez? Very Alfonso Soriano like. Powerful and whippy. And how about that turn he made on the last double play? Solid. Holy Cuban Missile Batman. I’ve only seen him play a couple times but I’m calling star. Joe Mauer…how the hell do you hit .330 and catch everyday? Awesome. His defensive game is about as exciting as watching paint dry though. Not bad technically, just hella boring. Two unreal pitching performances with huge pressure by a couple of kids. Both Blackburn and Banks came right at guys, established the fastball on both sides of the plate, changed eye levels by throwing up in the zone effectively, mixed speeds really well, and didn’t walk guys. Excellent poise. What is with all of the Twins pitchers by the way? They all look and throw identical. Like they were made by a machine. Simple windup, calm demeanor, sideburns, locate well, sinker, slider, change, not overpowering, throw strikes, white kids that look like they came out of Stanford. Am I wrong on that one? Two Chicago teams in the playoffs for the first time in like 100 years! The city will be a rocking beer drinking mess. I wish I was there. Not for the drinking part but for the rocking part. The only bummer about the Sox winning?…..now we all have to put up with A.J Pierzynski for a few more games. And with dyed blond hair no less. If he can’t get under your skin, nobody can. See you in the playoffs…..
A.J. in this photo with the blonde hair looking like a young Cris Cron from Placentia, Ca.