John Lackey Outduels Justin Bieber... I Mean Verlander

Justin Verlander (not Justin Bieber, as Erin Andrews almost called him during a post-game interview) entered this game with all the momentum and all the hype. And he lived up to that with a fantastic performance. However it wasn't quite as fantastic as the effort John Lackey put in. Verlander went deeper into the game and struck out more batters, but Lackey didn't allow a run at all. He also didn't walk anybody. The few times he was close to being in trouble, he pitched his way out of it. He needed to be absolutely magnificent for the Sox to win, and he delivered.

Mike Napoli also delivered. His 7th inning homerun was only his third hit of the playoffs. In postseason baseball you only need 1 hit to have a good series.

The bullpen continues to roll. The Tigers' starting pitchers have overall done better than their Red Sox counterparts in this series. The reason the Tigers aren't up 2-1 or 3-0 is because the Sox bullpen has significantly outperformed Detroit's. Detroit's bullpen has pitched 5 innings in this series, and allowed 5 runs, all in Game 2. The Red Sox bullpen has been asked to pitch 8.1 innings and has yet to allow a run.

The bullpen is the reason the Red Sox lead the series 2-1.

It's crazy to think that despite three brilliant outings by Tigers starters, and despite Red Sox hitters going 12 for 90 at the plate (.133), the Sox have the edge in the series.

Jake Peavy starts Game 4 for the Red Sox Wednesday night. This type of situation is the reason why the Sox traded for him. His purpose is to add depth to the rotation for moments like this one. Doug Fister will start for Detroit. Peavy has a good track record against the Tigers' lineup, except Miguel Cabrera who has 3 homeruns off him and Torii Hunter who is 7 for 14 against him. The Red Sox faced Fister twice this season. They were shut down on September 2nd, but knocked him around for 6 runs in 3.1 innings in June. Daniel Nava has crushed Fister in the past, going 5 for 12 off him with 3 doubles. Jarrod Saltalamacchia is 5 for 11 against him.

All three games have been incredibly entertaining. And close. If this series goes the full 7, it will be Lackey facing Verlander again.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Carlos Asorio

Bruins' Comeback Falls Short

Unlike the Patriots and Red Sox, the Bruins' comeback effort fell short Monday afternoon. And I'm blaming the power play for the lack of offense. The B's were 0 for 5 with a man advantage, including an extended stretch of 5-on-3 play.

I think the Bruins coaches are trying too hard to get the power play to work. Gimmicks and tricks like putting Zdeno Chara in front of the net and keeping forwards on the point seem like clever ideas in theory, but they don't work on ice.

All the good things Chara does in the crease are countered by things he doesn't do. He's a big body, he blocks the goalie's vision, he's impossible to dislodge. At the same time, his massive wingspan works against him when pucks are around his feet. He's not able to work his stick properly in the closed quarters phone-booth environment of the crease. You also lose his blistering slapshot from the point and all the other dynamic things he does as a defenseman.

I don't mind putting forwards on the point, so long as you have enough talented power play worthy forwards in traditional positions. Unfortunately, the Bruins don't have surplus forwards to station on the point. And a few of the Bruins that saw power play time Monday don't deserve to. Jordan Caron (1:07 power play time on ice Monday) is NOT a power play forward. Nor is Gregory Campbell (1:22 PP TOI). And I don't think Milan Lucic (3:42 PP TOI) is either. At least not for nearly 4 minutes.

Lucic reacts very well to scoring opportunities, but he doesn't do well trying to create them. He's like someone who has great comeback lines, but struggles telling the initial joke. Lucic hasn't scored a power play goal since March 3, 2012. Let that sink in. March 3, 2012. The one spot on the power play I'd like to see Lucic play is in front of the net. He's good at those reflex-based, so-called "junk" goals. Better than Chara.

On the bright side of things, being in the same division with the Red Wings should produce tremendous entertainment this season.

Being in the same division as the Florida Panthers probably won't. And that's who the Bruins are playing on Thursday.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Elise Amendola

More Red Sox Magic

How fantastic is it to have exciting playoff baseball back in Boston? Games 1 and 2 have been "stand-while-you-watch" games in the late innings. The games are so tense that you cannot stay sitting.

Here's a positive thought, Detroit's starting pitching has been stellar. Like freakishly stellar. And the series is tied 1-1. For how well Detroit's starters have done, being tied 1-1 is a fantastic result for the Sox. Detroit's SPs have been nearly perfect and the series is even.

Sunday night I realized something about these Red Sox. I want to go out and drink with them. Or hang out with them even if alcohol weren't involved. But preferably involved. And the key thing is that I want to GO OUT with them. Josh Beckett and the 2011-2012 Sox STAYED IN and got drunk while eating chicken and playing video games. We didn't want to go anywhere with them. We did want to go out with Kevin Millar and the '04 Sox. We did want to go out with the idiots of 2007.

How fun would it be to go to a karaoke bar with Koji Uehara and Jonny Gomes? Then go clubbing with Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz? Then go to Supreme Pizza on Mass Ave at 2:00am with Shane Victorino and Mike Napoli?

I also think that the energy of the fans in Fenway plays a part in how the Red Sox perform. Detroit has pitched so well in this series that each time the Red Sox manage a basehit, the crowd releases several innings worth of pent-up energy. And the crowd sees how hungry this team is, and the team feels how hungry the crowd is, and they feed off each other's energies. It's a vicious cycle.

David Ortiz's grand-slam was one of the biggest hits in his storied October career. And it was, importantly, a line driver homerun. In the cold air, high fly balls that arc upward are more likely to be slowed by the cold air and fall in the outfield. Warning, physics lesson approaching: in cold air, air molecules are packed closer together, so a baseball has to push through more of them as it flies from the bat through the air. Each molecule slows the ball down and causes it to lose speed which then causes it to lose height. A high fly ball has a longer path through the air than a direct line-drive, so it has to push through more air molecules. So Ortiz's line drive went through fewer molecules than a fly ball homerun, and that's why it was able to get out. Physics lesson over.

If the series were 2-0 in Detroit's favor, going back to Detroit, I wouldn't like the Red Sox chances. Now at 1-1 the Sox aren't up against any walls. We'll see if Verlander pitches like he did in the regular season or like he did in the ALDS against Oakland. We'll see if Detroit's starters fall back to earth. The series is still wide open thanks to Sunday night's insane drama.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Charlie Riedel

NFL Will Force Teams to Do Hard Knocks

The NFL owners agreed on a new policy regarding the League's HBO reality show Hard Knocks. If no team volunteers to be the subject of the behind-the-scenes show, the NFL will simply pick a team to be featured. And that team will be required to be the show's subject. Teams that will be exempt from selection include those with new head coaches, teams that have made the playoffs in the previous two seasons, and teams that have been on the show in the previous 10 seasons.

It sounds unfair to force a team that doesn't want to grant that kind of access to do it. I also think the playoff provision is unfair. Why should playoff teams be free of such scrutiny but the struggling teams be forced to deal with it?

What I would do if I ran a team is volunteer to get it out of the way. Then I'd get creative. I'd hire screenwriters from the best soap operas, acting coaches, makeup people, special effects gurus, the whole nine yards. I would make a complete mockery of the series and show fake stories about fake issues. I'd give the cameras enough artificially generated meat to sink their teeth into so they didn't pay attention to what was really happening within the team. Fake fights, fake confessionals, fake incidents, fake rivalries, fake enemies that become friends, fake friends that become enemies.

It would be like Wag the Dog meets the NFL.

Either that or I would volunteer and make the most boring show on in the history of television. I think if somehow the Patriots found their way onto the show, and fans rated it as the most boring season in series history, that achievement would satisfy Bill Belichick more than any of his Super Bowl titles.

Red Sox Coming Back to Boston, Rays Staying in Tampa Bay

This was why the Red Sox got Jake Peavy. They wanted a good pitcher to anchor the bottom of the rotation. And Peavy came through for the Sox last night. So did Craig Breslow, Junichi Tazawa, and of course Koji Uehara. Those 4 pitchers combined for 9 innings, allowing just 1 run, 6 hits (only 1 for extra-bases), 0 walks, and struck out 10.

By the way, Jose Iglesias is 1 for 12 in the other ALDS. That trade's looking better and better.

The Rays played with fire for most of this game. Their pitchers enjoyed some fortunate double plays to get out of jams. Manager Joe Maddon went with an unorthodox strategy that seemed to work for a time. But how many different pitchers can you bring into a game before one of them just doesn't get the job done?

Joe Maddon has a bit of Bobby Valentine in him. He tries too hard to influence the outcome of the game through his managerial decisions. Sometimes the best thing a manager can do is step back and let his players play, choosing the right time to make one or two smart moves, instead of trying to make a dozen good moves every night.

John Farrell will get credit for pinch-hitting Xander Bogaerts in the 7th, but give the credit to Bogaerts for working a walk. He didn't look like someone who just turned 21 on October 1st and started the season in AA Portland. That was a mature plate appearance for such a young player.

Then the Rays made mistakes. Which they've done all series long. And the Red Sox capitalized on those mistakes. Which they've done all series long. The Sox used their speed to exploit Tampa Bay's miscues. Bogaerts scored on a wild pitch, Ellsbury advanced to third after stealing second on the play, then Victorino legged out an infield single. The Sox scored the tying and winning runs without a ball leaving the infield.

That's how they've won all season long. Whatever it takes, they'll find some way to win. The pitching was great, the offense struggled at first then took advantage of one mistake to score 2 runs. This team seems to will itself to victory.

Now they have a few days off, waiting for the Athletics/Tigers series to resolve itself. Jon Lester gets to rest while those two teams hopefully wear each other out.

Game 1 of the ALCS is Saturday at Fenway Park.

In conclusion, here's Jonny Gomes doing a crazy sprinkler dance...

Photo Credit:
Steve Mitchell - USA Today Sports

Dear Tampa Bay Rays, Your Ballpark Sucks

Tropicana Field is the stupidest, silliest ballpark in the Majors. The park's ground rules are like backyard wiffle ball rules. I remember in my backyard our porch jutted into the field of play, slicing across the imaginary foul line. So if a ball landed in the fair part of the porch, it was a ground-rule triple. It was a stupid, silly rule and we knew it. Tampa Bay is a Major League facility with stupid catwalks. If a ball hits them in foul territory, then the ball is dead. If a ball hits some of them in fair territory, it's a homerun. What the hell?

Then the white roof. What was wrong with a darker shade?

Fenway Park has its own weird set of nooks and crannies. But those have history, and were often out of necessity. There's a story behind each one of Fenway's quirks. The story behind each of the Trop's annoying oddities is that the stadium is poorly designed. Plain and simple.

Then there's the onslaught of noise pumped through the speakers. Listening on the radio and the artificial sound generation is obvious. The music blares, and it's relentless in both volume and frequency.

Everybody clap your hands...

Finally, the fans suck. The Oakland Athletic removed tarps in their park to accommodate the demand for tickets to their recent playoff games. The Rays didn't have to do that with their tarped off sections. For Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS, the biggest game in their franchise's history, a friend of mine was able to get tickets at face value the day of the game. That shouldn't be possible for a game of such magnitude.

Everyone always said that when the Rays became competitive, the people would come. That hasn't really happened. The people come when the Red Sox and Yankees come. The Rays were dead last in attendance this year. 18,645 per game. 900 more people per game went to see the 100-loss Marlins play. On average, 45.3% of Tropicana Field's seats are empty. And that doesn't include the tarped sections.

Worst ballpark in the country, worst fans in baseball.

Red Sox Can't Sink Rays

It was a game of mistakes. Fielding mistakes, pitching mistakes, maybe even some managerial mistakes. And the winner was the team that capitalized on those mistakes just a little bit more than the loser.

The play of the game was Evan Longoria's 3-run homer in the 5th. If Clay Buchholz is able to get Longoria out, or even hold him to a 1-run or 2-run hit, then the game plays out in a completely different way. All Buchholz had to do in that at-bat was not give up a homerun. Longoria won that battle.

The Rays continued to make fielding miscues and errors. Even the umps made mistakes. The Red Sox took advantage of most, but not all of these mistakes. The Sox never made any big hits on their own. They scored their runs off groundouts, a wild pitch, and a soft David Ortiz single. That run knocked in by Ortiz was the only Sox run driven in by a hit. The Sox were 2 for 14 with runners in scoring position.

The Rays took advantage of a glaring Red Sox weakness: the middle relievers. Franklin Morales and Brandon Workman combined to allow the Rays to take the lead in the 8th inning. Overall, the Rays bullpen executed slightly better (4 innings, 2 hits, 1 run) than the Red Sox bullpen (2.2 innings, 4 hits, 2 runs). And that was one of the deciding differences.

So Game 4 tonight at 8:37. That start-time worries me because Monday night's game took 4 hours and 19 minutes. If that happens tonight then the game will end around 1 o'clock in the morning.

Jake Peavy takes the mound for his first playoff start in a Red Sox uniform. He faces Jeremy Hellickson. Peavy has only made 2 career postseason starts, the last in 2006. He was lousy in both. Fortunately the Rays don't hit him very well. Unfortunately, the Red Sox don't hit Hellickson very well either. Except for Ortiz (.375 with 3 HRs in his career against Hellickson) and Saltalamacchia (.320, also with 3 HRs).

Expect another game decided by mistakes and the ability to capitalize on and minimize the impact of those mistakes.

Photo Credit:
AP Photo/Mike Carlson

Six in 'Nati (Get It? Like Cincinnati, and Also the Painfully Low Number of Points the Patriots Scored)

We should have known this type of game was possible. In the past we've seen the Patriots' offense fail to do enough to carry the team to victory. But Sunday afternoon they did NOTHING to help win the game. The defense played well enough for the team to win. The offense didn't. The offense lost the game.

The Patriots haven't been held to 6 points since 1996. That meaningless touchdown streak Brady had came to an end. The Pats were 1 for 12 on 3rd down. Brady threw 20 incompletions compared with 18 completions. The best non-defensive performers on the team were Stephen Gostkowski and punter Ryan Allen.

And I'm primarily going to blame Tom Brady. He just doesn't look sharp. Every catch seems difficult, miraculous at times. On Sunday he overthrew, underthrew, and completely missed receivers. There were occasions when Dobson didn't run the route that Brady expected, there were also occasions when Brady was horribly inaccurate when throwing downfield, especially in the middle of the field. Even when he and the receivers connect, the catches are hard and off-stride.

Smaller portions of blame go to Danny Amendola, who had a big drop in the 4th quarter (he's looking more and more like Wes Welker). Brandon Bolden dropped a few passes. LeGarrette Blount fumbled. Let's not forget all of that.

I'll also blame the play-calling. The wide receivers still don't seem to be on the same page with Brady. So maybe it's time to go with a simpler page. Especially in the 4th quarter when you're down by a score. I don't remember the offensive playbook being so complex when the Patriots didn't have Pro Bowlers running routes, back from 2001 to 2006. Maybe going back to basics wouldn't be such a bad thing.

And the Red Zone play-calling irritated me more than anything. A token jumbo package run that failed. By the way, I've been told that Blount isn't a very good short yardage back, despite his bulk. I believe that. The Pats then went from simple play to cute trickery, throwing a pass to Nate Solder. Why? The 3rd down play was a good call, it just didn't work. I would have liked to see the Patriots try that on 2nd down, then again on 3rd if it failed.

On the bright side, the defense continues to play well. They pressured Dalton, and sacked him at key times. They held Green, Gresham, and Eifert to 138 combined yards, which isn't bad at all. And they were a 4th down stop away from bringing this game into overtime, despite how Godawful the offense was playing. The defense gave Brady so many chances for a game-winning drive. Brady and the offense failed to deliver.

The Patriots host the Saints next weekend. That's kind of a big game. But as we've seen between the Pats win over Atlanta, and now their loss to Cincinnati, you're only as good as you play each week. So don't panic about this loss, and don't develop an anxiety disorder if the Saints come to town and win (and don't plan a Super Bowl trip if the Pats win). This is a week to week spot, take it one week at a time.

Photo Credit:
Marc Lebryk - USA Today