Yes, the Red Sox are dangerous. And Dan has all the details in his Page A1 piece.
A pretty good wrapup (although I still don't understand why the much better Bob Ryan doesn't get the high profile gigs). There was a funny (and original) line, "Eddie Cicotte of the 1919 White Sox didn't do that badly and he was trying to lose", and none of the extraneous crap that Dan likes to throw in.
Dan continues, though, his trend of taking the most recent results and extrapolating from there. The playoffs began with the Red Sox World Series favorites, and they looked great after Game One of the ALCS, but doom and gloom soon returned until the Red Sox righted the ship and roared into the World Series. Dan might want to look back to the beginning of the ALCS. The Red Sox got off to a very similar start.
Fact Check
This sentence, in addition to being awkwardly written, is incorrect:
"In the bottom of the first, Dustin Pedroia hit Jeff Francis's second pitch over the Green Monster and the Sox put three on the board before making two outs.
Dan also has the 5,467th article about Yastrzemski and the '67 Red Sox written in the last year. It is pretty good. It captures the humble nature of Yaz and his uncomfortable relationship to his fame.
Could it be that Shank is the sports journalistic equivalent of Derek Lowe or JD Drew? Horrible during the regular season but turns it on in the play-offs.
ReplyDeleteToday's recap was quite good and the White Sox line was (dare I say it) original and funny.
Shaughnessy changes his opinion daily, depending on whether the Sox are winning or losing. If they are winning they are unstoppable and shoe-ins as champions; Francona is a god who can make no wrong decision; the batting lineup is impregnable; the starting rotation is lethal; the bullpen is deep; and the opponents are woeful. On the other hand if they are losing (like they were 3-1 down to Cleveland last week) then Francona is an idiot; the batting lineup is brittle aside from Ortiz and Ramirez; the pitching staff is crap aside from Beckett; the bullpen is not up to it etc etc. Wasn't it just last week that this guy was calling for heads to roll after the Sox went down 1-3 in the ALCS?
ReplyDeleteMario - you are totally correct. He blows with the wind. Forget that, he just blows
ReplyDeleteShank should get the "flippity floppity floppity flip flip flip" bit played on The Big Show.
ReplyDeleteWhat will Shank write after this 2-1 grinder of a win over the Rockies? Will he say Schilling sucks because he was scuffling early in the game? Will he go after Theo Epstein because the Sox didn't force in more runs? Oh, Francona must suck because of substitutions he did or didn't make. And Shank must be slipping with his irrelevent historical references - I haven't found a Denver Broncos-New England Patriots referecne yet.