The Baseball Desert

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Double the fun

The Sox won, twice. And better than that, they won whilst hitting the crap out of the ball.

I watched the first game in its entirety (alongside my Dad, who lept me busy for nine nnings with questions like "Why is that a strike? Why is he not running? Why so many commercial breaks?") His questions meant I wasn't paying as much attenton to the finer points of the game as I should have been, but I vaguely remember a couple of key hits that weren't quite off the meat of the bat.

I had hoped to watch Game 2 live, but the first game went on for so damn long that I just couldn't physically do it, so all I saw of it was the MLB.TV condensed game first thing this morning. I usually avoid the condensed game format, because it gives you no real idea of how the game was actually played out - it's just a loosely-connected series of hits, outs and runs. But watching hit after hit after hit this morning allowed me to realise that almost every single hit in Game 2 was a rocket. You could see - and hear - the ball being belted all over the field, and it was a fine. I'll take a win any day of the week, but a win built on solid pitching and solid hitting is soothing for the Red Sox soul.

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Also soothing for the Red Sox soul: a Yankee loss in Detroit. On a walk-off home run. In the 11th inning. At 3:30am. Our hats should be tipped in the direction of Carlos Guillen, who is, to quote Sam,
a unicorn being ridden by an entire litter of small kittens down a road made of cupcakes.
It's almost enough to make you feel a little sympathy for the Yankees.

Almost.