Yet Another OOTP6 Dynasty, Year 2: One Flew Over the Pale Hose

[CTSoxFan]

Come on Pale Hose!

[BadluckinOOTP]

Oh God! I can't take it!

[BadluckinOOTP]

also, that's nuts how balanced the league is record wise.

[Vris]

And I thought I was bad!

But if anyone deserves to do what you did, it's you Craig.

Here's hoping! :crossesfingers:

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by CTSoxFan

Come on Pale Hose!

Originally Posted by BadluckinOOTP

also, that's nuts how balanced the league is record wise.

Word.

[cknox0723]

Once upon a time, there seemed to be a hole in my pocket, and the coins kept slippin' out. There ain't no way to stop that - this often causes me particular trouble when I would go out to get something to eat, which is why I have been brown-bagging lunch a lot recently. Even though the food satisfied my growling stomach, it seemed like such a waste when I could have made it myself and saved money...especially since I am the kind of guy that can get a metric ****ton of enjoyment out of a $10 CD or, heck, a $25 computer baseball game.

I think the Podsednik for Scarborough deal is going to turn out like that. We have a different perspective on that, now that there are five games left in the year. Yes, these Pale Hose still could well make the playoffs and that is the ultimate goal.

But old Scotty Pods, a .300 hitter with a .400 OBP four times in the last four years, crashed and burned after he was made the centerpiece of a July 21 trade.

MONTH	AB	AVG	OBP	SLG	SB/ATT
AUGUST	117	.248	.305	.299	9/13
SEPT	92	.196	.245	.250	4/8

Worst part is that I'm serious. You couldn't dream up a worse-case scenario for that trade, could you? Even if "Pods" had gotten hurt, odds are any clown (yes, the guys with goofy hair and big shoes) would have hit .215 with a .275 OBP. It is reasonable to say that the different between "Pods" and anyone, let alone Brian Anderson, has been the cause of our wild card lead shrinking to just one game. Remember, we were six or seven games up on the wild card in early August - not to mention a game or two ahead of Cleveland at that point. However, the bullpen deserves as much blame if not more than "Pods"; to a man, they have wilted down the stretch. "Mercurial Kiko" Calero had an ERA of almost nine in August; Joe Roa's got one over eight in September, including a few disastrous blown saves; Aki Otsuka has bit it and hard, as well. Only PJ Bevis has been reliable (read: pitching to an ERA under 5) in the last six weeks.

Meanwhile, Chris "Scarborough Fair" is fair no more. He bottomed out with a two-plus inning, seven-run disaster in Arizona August tenth, but since then he has allowed nine runs total in nine starts, including consecutive starts to open September with a pitching line of seven innings, two hits, zero runs, zero walks, and ten strikeouts. Usually the cause of such a turnaround for a young pitcher is attributed to meeting with an old coach; you make up the backstory for Scarborough if you're so inclined. Meanwhile his strikeout rate is 11.1 per nine innings. There are obvious flaws; he has allowed 12 home runs in seventy-something innings, and of course he is still just 22 years old and repeatedly throws a little ball very hard. Give it parsly, sage, rosemary, and most of all time before you burn me in effigy for the trade.

But the lesson is learned; Scarborough was a great draft pick, so pat me on the back for that. But trading him was not one of my finest moments. I understand why I did it, but the allure of Scotty Pods was illusory. He is a good ballplayer, sure, but his swoon down the stretch has shown that even good ballplayers have their lulls. And Scarborough was and is worth more than that.

Maybe "Pods" will smack some hits and steal some bases over the next five games; even better if he does it in the playoffs, which will give me cause to pump my fist in the air and something to hang up on the nonexistent mantle. That's certainly worth something.

But the Scarborough for Podsednik trade underscores a valuable lesson not only for cknox0723 the fake Pale Hose manager but cknox0723 the dude. And that lesson is not, "The manager's a ****tard," either.

Smart people do dumb **** sometimes, and good ballclubs lose ballgames. It's not necessarily worth deconstructing things further than that; that is, everything will have its flaws. Maybe we just should have accepted ours.

But no turning back now; I don't have a file backup from late July or the gumption to pretend the trade never happened. Let's hope the Pale Hose don't fall into the category of "good ballclubs losing ballgames" (mirroring their manager the ****tard). Though, if Boston loses five in a row I suppose it would be OK if we did, too.

[cknox0723]

9/28

Mark Buehrle tallied a 6-2 record over an August and September that I mostly wasn't watching, so it's almost perfect that if he starts this first game against Detroit, he can start the one hundred and sixty-second Pale Hose game of the season if need be. It works out great, having him on the mound, especially since his opponent is Rich Harden of the 9-15 record, the same guy that we battered around two months and a week ago (link). This is all so foolproof, especially since arch-nemesis Boston will attempt to pick up the game they trail us in the wild card by starting Anastacio "The Lesser Martinez" (8-11, 5.77) against Cleveland's brilliant ace Josh Beckett (14-6, 2.54), who is due to hit the free agent market after this season and will not make another start in a Cleveland uniform in a regular-season game.

The only trouble is that your wayward guide on this wacky journey doesn't really believe in perfect, since he knows names. The OOTP game don't, so all it sees is that Buehrle is going on three days' rest. Throw in the fact that the 25 year old right-hander Harden is a hell of a lot better pitcher than his sad record indicates -- consider his 3.59 ERA this year or 3.50 career mark, for starters -- and while everything looks so peachy-keen on the surface, I'm just not so sure.

Harden makes quick work of speedy left-handed batters Ramon Vazquez and Scott Podsednik for two quick outs in the top of the first. While he runs into a jam when Magglio Ordonez singles and Vernon Wells reaches on a wide throw by shortstop Tony Giarratano, powerful third sacker Eric Munson takes a rather lame hack at a tough-to-handle slider and bounces one to the right side that's easily handled and turned into out number three by first baseman Carlos Pena.

"The Buehrle One" misses with his first pitch to Detroit's leadoff hitter, the young shortstop Tony Giarratano, bouncing the two-seam fastball just a few inches in front of catcher Yorvit Torrealba. His second offering is a little higher, but just as inaccurate - Giarratano has to peel out of the batter's box, for his body's sake.

The 2-0 pitch is finally over the plate...but also over Giarratano's head, and Torrealba squatting behind him, and the man in blue whom my younger sister likes to call "the second catcher." Three pitches, all off the plate. This is our ace:

And this is our ace on three days' rest, in the wonderful, flawed universe that is OOTP:

Any questions?

Just one.

"Yeah, I'm looking up at the scoreboard for the Cleveland-Boston game and the number of the pitcher just changed for the home Tribe. Why would they pull their ace in the bottom of the first?"

[Y0DA55]

Nice. We have a pennant race going here!

I WANT to see these guys in the playoffs!

[CTSoxFan]

I agree! Let's Go Hose!

[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by Y0DA55

Nice. We have a pennant race going here!

Not for long, the way this one was going. With Buehrle throwing the ball all over the place and worse, Cleveland ace Josh Beckett getting hurt, giving Boston more than a fighting chance even with "The Lesser Martinez" on the mound. But...

I WANT to see these guys in the playoffs!

By the grace of Buehrle, you will. The southpaw responded to a first-inning that looked like it was out of control by making just a few decent pitches, but that was enough. Tony Giarratano bounced out to his counterpart Ramon Vazquez on a 3-0 fastball. Wilton Reynolds hacked at a fat 2-0 heater, but got way under it, hitting an infield fly that Frank Catalanotto snagged. And Carlos Pena capped off an inning of lost at-bats by topping a three-oh pitch, hitting a weak bouncer that Adam Kennedy handled with ease and chucked over to first for out number three.

Frank Catalanotto led off the second with a triple. Two batters later, catcher Yorvit Torrealba brought him home with a thunderous double off the left-center field fence. Ramon Vazquez came through with a two-out base knock as he has so many times this season. Though Magglio Ordonez would strike out after a Scott Podsednik walk, putting the lead at two runs instead of three or four, the Pale Hose suddenly had some momentum.

And with that, Mark Buehrle coasted the whole darned way. The first Detroit hit was left fielder Reynolds' single to lead off the fourth; he'd be erased by Reed Johnson's inning-ending double play. There was an encore performance in the fifth, and then you had to know that the baseball gods were smiling down on us when Tony Giarratano lined into a double play to end the sixth, into the score books as 3U.

Journeyman reliever Nelson Cruz would wander into seventh-inning trouble by giving up two quick hits to Buehrle (of all people) and Ramon Vazquez, but he would wander out after a sacrifice bunt would waste an out that we need not have thrown away, as "Buddha" whiffed. Eric Munson would make the third out by popping off a can of corn to right.

The lead was still two-nothing, but again we'd muffed an opportunity to make it more, and it looked as though that was something to regret when left fielder Reynolds and pinch-hitter Chris Shelton each knocked one-baggers into left to start the seventh. "The Buehrle One" is no Nelson Cruz, for sure, but the Tigers are not the Pale Hose, either. And apples are not oranges.



Regardless of what Mark Buehrle is (a bona fide ace) or isn't (a Cy Young candidate), he did get out of that seventh-inning jam, first by striking out Reed Johnson, and then Mike Hessman after loading the bases. Ty Wigginton hits into the fourth Detroit double play to erase Junior Spivey's single to lead off the eighth, and Buehrle gets a standing ovation from one guy sitting on a piggy bank in front of a computer screen as he departs after fanning Jason Alfaro to end the inning. Pinch-hitter Enrique Wilson draws a leadoff walk batting in Buehrle's spot in the last frame, and Ramon Vazquez follows with a two-bagger. Both of those guys end up coming home, giving the visitors a 4-0 lead and their de-facto manager enough comfort to bring in old friend Jon Rauch (remember him?) to get the last three outs. He has his speed bumps, and of course Scott Podsednik makes an error in left field, as though his oh-for-two day at the plate isn't lousy enough. But "The Hypothetical Power Forward" retires "Pudge" Rodriguez on a comebacker for the twenty-seventh out, keeping the shutout intact.



CHW 4 DET 0

WP: M. Buehrle (17-8) - 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 4 K, 89 pitches on three days' rest
LP: R. Harden (9-16) - 5 IP, 6 H, 2 R (maybe we will get lucky and Detroit will trade him because of his undeserved lousy won-loss record)

Game Ball Goes to... "The Buehrle One" was OK, I guess. What the hey.

But the best part is... Cleveland beat Boston! 7-3, thanks to another late-inning bullpen meltdown. Proven Closer (TM) Keith Foulke has frequently been the culprit this year (31 saves, but 5.11 ERA and 4-11 record), but this time it was seventh-inning middleman Bartolome Fortunato who poured gasoline on the fire, serving up a two-run Molotov to center fielder Corey Patterson, who upped his September batting average to approximately .973 with that blast. Actually it is .455, and that's impressive enough in its own right, even for a month. Four fifty-five! Southpaw JC Romero came in and couldn't really do much better, in the end battered for a couple of singles and a couple of doubles, which is really just a couple too many.

Division mates Minnesota won their seventh in a row to stay mathematically alive for the wild card, and the same for the third-place team in the East, Baltimore, but Boston is still the only one in the rearview mirror. And at two games out with five to play, I have an inkling that they are going to be "The Other Sox" this year.

[ifspuds]

I think you should know that I can't listen to disc 2 of Being There without singing along with "The Buehrle One".

[cknox0723]

33 year old Mark Redman is 2-0 against us this season in three tries, which begs the unanswerable question, "What kind of playoff team can't beat a left-hander with a record of seven wins and eleven losses against real major league teams?"

On this day Mark Redman shuts us out for eight-and-two-thirds, which is eight-and-two-thirds longer than our man Ryan Franklin, who started off his afternoon by walking the first two batters and then throwing a fat one that first baseman Carlos Pena cracked into left-center for a run-scoring single. There were many more of those to come for the home Kitties, and had Franklin not been removed in the second inning, there may have been thousands. As it was, there were a hand's worth in just an inning and a third, thanks to six (!!!) walks. "DSM-IV Jorge" DePaula (remember him?) would continue the walking and run allowing clearance sale in three-plus innings of long relief; "Wild Thing" Ankiel, strangely enough, did not walk a batter in the three innings he worked. Predictably, the hard-throwing left-hander was brilliant in the time he was in the game, dropping his season earned run average to 3.99 in 29 innings (mostly accumulated in June). It planted the seed in my mind to carry him on the postseason roster should we get there, but that is probably wishful thinking.

It is wishful thinking to make Ankiel a postseason pitcher, but not to think of our club as a postseason ballclub. "How?" you ask. "You just got your rear handed to you by the 75-win Tigers, a club led by SUPERSTARS like Reed Johnson and Jeff Suppan. You just lost to Mark Redman again. How could this club possibly make any postseason?"

Well, whoever you are wondering these things, there is a reason this thread has 800+ posts. And it ain't 'cause of the fancy color scheme.

We may have been bested by some lousy lefty again, but Boston got shutout by C.C. Sabathia (and the Sunshine Band, featuring guest vocalist Scott Eyre, a fellow southpaw), with home Cleveland getting offense from Jody Gerut's fourth-inning home run and some smallball or whatever it is called in the sixth. Our hated division rivals may have gained about fifteen games on us in the past month to go from in the rearview mirror to in the next county, but they've also all but put us in the playoffs. We're two up in the wild card with just four to play.

[BadluckinOOTP]

Originally Posted by cknox0723

33 year old Mark Redman is 2-0 against us this season in three tries, which begs the unanswerable question, "What kind of playoff team can't beat a left-hander with a record of seven wins and eleven losses against real major league teams?"

On this day Mark Redman shuts us out for eight-and-two-thirds, which is eight-and-two-thirds longer than our man Ryan Franklin, who started off his afternoon by walking the first two batters and then throwing a fat one that first baseman Carlos Pena cracked into left-center for a run-scoring single. There were many more of those to come for the home Kitties, and had Franklin not been removed in the second inning, there may have been thousands. As it was, there were a hand's worth in just an inning and a third, thanks to six (!!!) walks. "DSM-IV Jorge" DePaula (remember him?) would continue the walking and run allowing clearance sale in three-plus innings of long relief; "Wild Thing" Ankiel, strangely enough, did not walk a batter in the three innings he worked. Predictably, the hard-throwing left-hander was brilliant in the time he was in the game, dropping his season earned run average to 3.99 in 29 innings (mostly accumulated in June). It planted the seed in my mind to carry him on the postseason roster should we get there, but that is probably wishful thinking.

It is wishful thinking to make Ankiel a postseason pitcher, but not to think of our club as a postseason ballclub. "How?" you ask. "You just got your rear handed to you by the 75-win Tigers, a club led by SUPERSTARS like Reed Johnson and Jeff Suppan. You just lost to Mark Redman again. How could this club possibly make any postseason?"

Well, whoever you are wondering these things, there is a reason this thread has 800+ posts. And it ain't 'cause of the fancy color scheme.

We may have been bested by some lousy lefty again, but Boston got shutout by C.C. Sabathia (and the Sunshine Band, featuring guest vocalist Scott Eyre, a fellow southpaw), with home Cleveland getting offense from Jody Gerut's fourth-inning home run and some smallball or whatever it is called in the sixth. Our hated division rivals may have gained about fifteen games on us in the past month to go from in the rearview mirror to in the next county, but they've also all but put us in the playoffs. We're two up in the wild card with just four to play.

Oh boy!

[CTSoxFan]

Sweet

[cknox0723]

Game number one hundred and fifty-nine of the 2007 Pale Hose season features two of the most unlikely fifteen game winners around - 32 year old journeyman Jeff Suppan (of Kensington Gardens) had a very inauspicious debut season in Detroit last year, posting a won-lost of 5-8 with an unsightly 5.18 ERA, a full run over the league average and then some. But a new grip on the circle changeup has given the right-hander control over the little white sphere that he's never had before; though his arm has tired a bit as summer has turned to fall, "Fwendy" still has an earned run average well below 3.50 and a run average solidly antes the league average of around 4.00. Our moundsman Jon Garland can't make quite the same claim, but the just-turned 28 year old was on the verge of the independent leagues after a 4-15 season two years ago and a 2006 that was heading in much the same direction...until August. Since then, Garland's won 21 games -- 21 more than he had before.

He'll probably have to wait 'til next year for number twenty-two, because "Jon Moo" gets clocked for four hits and two runs in the bottom of the first of this one, his thirty-fifth start of the season, a hole that only grows after Carlos Pena's third-inning long ball and deepens in the most unmerciful of ways in the fourth, when the opposing pitcher Suppan comes around to score after a double to leadoff the inning. I guess the four inning, four run line from Garland is a bit of deja vu, maybe a polite nod to the lousy pitcher that he ceased to be just over a year ago.

If there were ever a time for it, it is game one hundred and fifty-nine of the 2007 season, 'cause the Boston offense was stymied by Cleveland pitching once again, dropping our wild card competitors two games back with three to play. Never before has a two-game losing streak provided such a rush of momentum.

[cknox0723]

We ride the wave of a two-game losing streak into Cleveland, the site of three consecutive pastings of our chief wild card contenders. With Esteban (no last name necessary) on the mound, you can almost expect a fourth consecutive pasting, except with our side being on the sticky end this time, perhaps giving the Other Sox the slimmest of possible chances at the wild card.

But this is not the Esteban of a year ago, the guy who went 8-16 with an ERA of 5.32 and a run average over 6.00 in one hundred ninety-nine and two-thirds miserable innings. And this is not the team that struggled from start to finish and mostly stumbled across 69 wins in accidental, occidental ways.

After a 1-2-3 1st inning for both sides, center fielder and cleanup man Vernon Wells leads off the visitor's half of the fourth and connects loudly with a soft Fausto Carmona fastball, clobbering it down the right field line and into the corner, giving him ample time for a couple of extra bases in addition to the usual. Two batters later, another one of those new guys comes through for the game's first run - Frank Catalanotto knocks a single into left and gets the RBI after Wells taps home. Second baseman Adam Kennedy -- also not on the team last year -- steps in next and smacks a hard comebacker, but Carmona snares it cleanly to start a nifty inning-ending double play.

Esteban's not getting the same rally-killers when he's on the rubber, not today, but that's only 'cause he don't need 'em. Joe Crede's single to left with one out in the third gives the home team their first baserunner of the ballgame, but he's the eight hitter, and so the pitcher Carmona follows by making a quick second out. Leadoff man Corey Patterson bounces harmlessly to third to end the inning; it's only about the second out he's made in the last month, as he's hitting .450 since August, but good timing on his part.

Third baseman Eric Munson, a longtime minor slugger, keeps the fourth inning alive with a two-out single. Then "Wildcat" Catalanotto bops one over Ben Broussard and makes right fielder Jody Gerut play fetch, and we're up two-nothing. Adam Kennedy is up next; he's another left-handed batter whose talents were wasted elsewhere before coming to the South Side, and never was that more apparent than on one swing here. Carmona leaves an offspeed pitch out over the plate, and the second baseman clobbers it -- far and away into the left-center field night. It's such an admirable blast that I scarcely notice the fleet of foot Corey Patterson streaking across the outfield to meet up with the ball's path, just a few strides away from the fence. So it's almost a surprise when he's underneath the ball as it's coming down, there to squeeze it in the leather for out number three.

"Shucks," I can't help but actually mutter out loud, but then I look up at the scoreboard and realize we won't have anymore dead Kennedys, for there ain't going to be no depression over lost home runs when you're about to clinch a playoff spot.

And Boston's down three-zip to Baltimore in the third. 15-game winner Burnett is getting chased.

Even the Pale Hose can't possibly mess this one up...

Right?

[cknox0723]

Even the Pale Hose can't mess this one up, I think that is true, but damned if we don't try.

Esteban cruises through a one-two-three fourth inning, setting down the batsmen who are ostensibly three of Cleveland's most dangerous (#2 hitter the catcher Martinez, "Odysseus" Gerut, and mediocre first baseman Broussard). So with that in mind, it is almost no worries when we squander an opportunity to add to the two-nothing lead, as Magglio Ordonez bounces into an around-the-horn double play to completely waste a nice bases loaded, one out situation.

There should have been some worries then. After all, who am I to say that the Pale Hose can't mess this one up? But Esteban rolls through the fifth and we don't score negative runs in the top of the sixth, sp we're still clinging to our big little lead.

The home side's number eight hitter, third sacker Joe Crede, singles to right to lead off the sixth. That's quite a change from the million outs he made for some Chicago team last year, but good for him, making something of himself. The pitcher Carmona bunts him to second, and center fielder Corey Patterson follows by replacing him at second, blasting a ball into one of the outfield corners for a two-bagger. It's almost as if "Mr. September" is playing pinball or some other sort of button-mashing game; that hit is his forty-eighth in the thirty-one day span since September 1.

There's no shame in becoming his umpteenth victim, but we can have a goat in Ramon Vazquez, who boots a grounder up the middle off the bat of Victor Martinez to complicate the inning quite a bit. Jody Gerut's subsequent worm-burner (to the right side, mind you, not in the direction of "Whipping Boy" Vazquez) burns my ass, because the forceout at second doesn't end the inning, and so "Mr. September" trots home, tying the game at two. The reliably mediocre Ben Broussard strikes out to end the inning, but our lead is gone, just like that.

As will be Baltimore's, in a few minutes - the renowned Boston offense is apparently making a seventh-inning comeback, having already scored one run and squeezed out lefty starter Erik Bedard.

You know, all's we need is for this to happen two more times, and then we'll be the Other Sox.

[cknox0723]

You know, all's we need is for (catastrophe) to happen two more times, and then we'll be the Other Sox.

Except thunder doesn't crash and lightning don't strike, not this time, not this year.

Loaiza gave up the lead in the sixth and then clouds my already-clouded mind further by giving us a seventh-inning baserunner with a sharply-hit one-out single to left-center. Angel Berroa boots Ramon Vazquez's hard-hit bouncer, a rather unassuming error that allows one to assume much more this late in the juncture. But Scott Podsednik continues to make me look silly for trading for him, hitting an easy bouncer to second instead of driving in runs. Only his catlike quickness saves us from an inning-ending double play, but even that becomes irrelevant, as "Buddha" Ordonez, supposed superstar, grounds to first to end the inning.

We failed. But Loaiza soldiers on unfazed, pitching a one-two-three seventh, and much to my amazement, I look up at the scoreboard and see that Baltimore right-hander Steve Woodard did the same, pitching out of a seventh-inning jam against Boston.

Cleveland starter Carmona and Loaiza match each other with quick, ground-ball filled eighth innings; elsewhere, Jorge Julio was bailed out not by Proven Closer (TM) Mo Rivera, who's saved seventy-six in his three years in MD in this universe, but by the man trying to earn his stripes in the relief ace role, 26 year old Jacobo Sequea. If his breakthrough performance this season (68 IP, 56 H, 18 R, 25 BB, 72 K, 2.16 ERA) is any indication, "Tremolo" will be a good one. If Sequea's grand test was an eighth-inning save situation, with Manny Ramirez on first base, Kevin Millar batting followed by Garciaparra, two batsmen who have accounted for about 200 of Boston's 700 runs this season, then he aced it. The first sacker whiffed on three pitches, the third being a 95 mile an hour fire-breather, and Garciaparra bounced the second pitch to third baseman Bautista. Boston's lesser lights were just as blinded by the brilliance of "Sequea Trees" in the ninth, and even if the Pale Hose can mess things up, the fourth straight loss by the Other Sox has all but sealed their playoff fate.

Back in the Second City (actually, since we are playing at Cleveland, it is more like the Fifteenth City), Joe Roa had all but sketched out his ninth loss of the season, entering in the bottom of the ninth of a ballgame that was still 2-2 and throwing a fat one to "Odysseus" Gerut, who smashed it deep into the outfield night. The only reason the game didn't end there was because right-center stretched on for a little while. But one base hit in three tries still would have ended it, with Gerut straddling second after his long hit. When Roa's 1-1 sinker to Ben Broussard didn't drop but a tear or two, it looked as though Cleveland would only need that one try. Broussard stung the unsuccessful pitch like mosquitoes to my arm, smacking a howling line drive right past the right of the mound. Tearing towards third was Gerut, and how Vernon Wells would ever throw him out at home, I don't know. We'd have to wait another day to clinch our playoff spot.

Except the ball never got into center field. The incomparable "Gumby" Kennedy had Broussard shaded up the middle just a bit, but even that couldn't explain how he timed his reflexive face-first dive towards second base just right so that the ball somehow met the webbing of his glove. I doubt he could explain it, either, even if he was more than a few bits of code; maybe Juan Uribe would know, but he's hitting .170 in Seattle now.

Doubling Gerut off of second was the easy part; retiring pinch-hitter Brad Snyder was just a formality. I knew immediately after reading the play-by-play line "Kennedy dives...AND MAKES THE CATCH!" that I had just seen something. Despite effectively skipping a month and a half of this season by simming it, despite taking as long as it has to complete the year and despite not finding the new "Hacktastic Julio", I'd found whatever I'd been searching for with this team. It was an imperfect something -- never made more evident than the top of the tenth, when the supposed piece that was to put us over the top destroyed another inning, grounding into a fielder's choice to eliminate Ramon Vazquez's leadoff walk and then getting thrown out trying to steal second. That's the **** that Podsednik was not supposed to do; he's the guy that should be able to steal when everyone knows he's going to run, and he's the guy that should be able to hit when we know that Ordonez is going to hit into a double play and Wells and Munson are going to strike out. He hasn't been, and to boot he cost us a brilliant pitching prospect.

But here we are anyway, nine games over .500 with just a couple to play, on the verge of the playoffs. Ain't nothing going to stop us...certainly not Corey Patterson's double off of Akinori Otsuka in the bottom of the eleventh of a game that's still two-two. The catcher Martinez bloops one into left-center and if it falls, the game's probably over. Instead, Podsednik swoops in -- I guess he's good for something -- and makes the catch. Otsuka retires the young up-and-coming outfielder Grady Sizemore, and after passing over the reliably mediocre first baseman Broussard, "Aki" ends the inning for good by striking out the journeyman Brad Snyder.

Brian Meadows, a soft-tossing 31 year old journeyman, shows how he can sometimes earn his keep by pitching a one-two-three 12th inning, though Ramon Vazquez does make a long and loud third out. Otsuka does a quick and dirty dance after a quick and clean one-two-three inning, bringing on the thirteenth frame of a game that is still 2-2.

Cleveland goes to the 34 year old veteran Armando Benitez with Podsednik, Ordonez, and Wells due up in the thirteenth, figuring that he will be more likely to have success against our three best hitters than a pitcher who gives up a hit per inning. Benitez's ERA is safely over six, but predictably enough he strikes out "Pods" and "Buddha", who would infuriate me with their incompetence but for the painful memories of Joe Borchard in the outfield.

Plus, I barely have the time to process the back-to-back strikeouts before Vernon Wells steps in.

"Backstop Martinez is pounding his glove as center fielder Vernon Wells steps in, batting one-for-five today. Benitez hit the outside corner with his stinky cheddar for strike one to both Podsednik and Ordonez, and from Victor's setup it looks as though that's where he'll aim at for a third straight batter. The right-handed Wells taps the plate, wags the bat forward one, and carefully settles in as Benitez comes to the set. The right-hander kicks and delivers a heater, Wells hacks and puts a charge in it, deep to right field! Going back is Gerut...but he's run out of room. You can...PUT IT ON THE BOARD...YESSSSSS!"

27 year old PJ Bevis, a Rule 5 draft pick one year ago, pitches the bottom of the thirteenth, retiring pinch-hitter Franklyn Gutierrez on a fly out to left and then turning the trick again on "Mr. September", center fielder Corey Patterson. Victor Martinez falls into an 0-2 hole, fouls off a pitch and then takes one low, and then takes one that he shouldn't. It's a called strike three, giving the Pale Hose win number eighty-five and the wild card spot.



CHW 3 CLE 2 (13)

WP: A. Otsuka (4-6)
LP: A. Benitez (5-6)
S: PJ Bevis (4)

Game Ball Goes To... The bullpen. Only fitting that they'd pitch five scoreless innings in the game that clinched our playoff berth.

[cknox0723]

PS - It's been a long time since I wrote this, two years and four months. I never envisioned writing that last post -- most dynasties never even get there, and with a lot of others, who cares even if they do? But, man, has this one ever been some kind of wild and crazy ride getting there. And I don't even really remember half of it. May there be many more pitches and outs and trades and contracts.

To the Pale Hose. Thank you, all, for reading and commenting and joining me for one long and grinding season and then one that's been longer, more grinding, and somehow a success beyond my wildest dreams. The apple juice is on me tonight.

[BadluckinOOTP]