Tony LaRussa Calls It A Career

St. Louis Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa announced he would retire, ending a 33-year managerial career that places him third all-time in wins behind Connie Mack and John McGraw.

"Enough of the phone jokes!"

He leaves behind a stunning resume, winning over 500 games with three different teams, winning a World Series title in both the National and American Leagues, and managing more games than any other manager, save Connie Mack.

On another day we might have thrown in snide asides regarding his affiliation with accused steroid-users, his DUI, his dyed hair, his OCD managerial style, his lawyer-esque dialogue, and his overall tendency to just roll his burrito a little too tight.  However, if we ever meet his daughter Bianca, cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders, we'd like to have as pleasant a conversation as possible.

Sports Illustrated Strikes Again

On Sunday night, SI.com published a report that the New York Yankees had offered CC Sabathia an improved contract extension but that the lefty would opt out and seek other offers in the free agent market. The story was picked up by The Sporting News and other sports news outlets.

On Monday night, CC Sabathia announced he would accept the extra year and $30M, keeping him in Gotham through 2015 with an option for 2016.

SI.com could not be reached for comment.

And Gee Willakers

From 10.5 games out of the post-season race in the last week of August, the St. Louis Cardinals completed their ridiculous comeback by winning Game 7 of the World Series, 6-2, over the Texas Rangers.  It is the 11th for the franchise and the first since 2006.

Ready to go Robin Ventura on somebody

It looked like another grinder as the teams were tied 2-2 through the first couple of innings when Ron Washington took a page from the Tony LaRussa playbook and went to the bullpen early to remove Matt Harrison after four innings and three runs.  The Cardinals looked invigorated by Thursday night's improbable win while the Rangers, who had not lost two consecutive games since August, picked an unfortunate time to run out of gas.  They got their two runs early off Chris Carpenter, who started rough but quickly dialed in and found his groove, and from then on the Rangers were not much of a threat.

Texas bbq, St. Louis style

Lance Berkman, Allen Craig, and David Freese all had a World Series you would expect Albert Pujols to have, but for his contract negotiations, regardless where they take him, he needed this World Series win the most.  After slow starts the last couple of years because of injuries, Pujols's stock has slowed, if not flatlined.  A great player to be sure, the favorite of hack broadcasters who insist on handicapping early Hall of Fame votes, but for all his years only one championship ring.  Statistics are wonderful toys and even with his prodigious talent Pujols was still one ring behind Manny Rodriguez, whom nobody is extolling for class.  Teammate David Freese took MVP for both NLCS and World Series and arguably Chris Carpenter, Lance Berkman, or Allen Craig deserved the WS MVP just as much if not more.  But that puts Pujols not into even the top four performers for the Cardinals, and though his presence alone is problematic enough for the opposing team, it is not a lock that his play is consistently dominant as the talking heads would have you believe.  Mariano Rivera is continually posted as a can't fail, but even if that were true his team still didn't get past the first round.

"Rzepczinski?"

So now that nobody on the St. Louis side remembers the bullpen telephone incident, it's on to the off-season to enjoy a hard-earned trophy and to ponder what this team will look like next year, specifically LaRussa and Pujols.  For the Rangers, it will be the echo of "one strike away" for the winter months, hoping CC Sabathia opts out of his Yankee contract, wondering how their bank-vault closing pitching could let the big prize slip away, not just once in the same game, but the two final games. 

And the even bigger question, how do you face Nolan Ryan?

Golly

O'er the land of the Freese

The superlatives have all been taken, the cliches de-mothballed and paraded about, the dead horses brought out and beaten again, the comparisons all deepened with another re-etching. 

Yes, same guy

1975, 1991, 1986, look in record books, go through your ticket stubs, file through the memory bank, pick one, pick any.  2011 World Series Game 6 will stand as a worthy rival for craziest, wildest, ugliest, worst, nuttiest, awesomest Series game of all time.



Not the reason, but not helpful

Box scores, highlights, the written paragraph, none of that will help you understand the game if you didn't see it.  The sloppy defensive play was not to be believed.  Every home run, every lead change was apparently the back-breaker.  The managers were running out of maneuvers.  Twenty-seven outs wasn't enough to decide it.

Oh, sorry, pardon me...

The theme for the game will be "one strike away."  The Rangers could have, should have, put it away twice with two out and two strikes.  The Cardinals shouldn't have been here anyway, so to have two strikes with two out on two separate at-bats in an elimination game was to them like having lunch at noon.  St. Louis manager Tony LaRussa rode the razor's edge of brilliance and catastrophe, the difference of course riding on David Freese's 11th-inning walk-off homer.  Ron Washington had who he wanted where he wanted them, but the players have to play the game.  An infielder has to field his position, a closer has to make his pitches.  Even LaRussa, in his quietest moments between games, has to acknowledge that as fact.

Not clutch

Heroes and goats lined up to have their credentials punched -- Michael Young committed two fielding errors and Matt Holliday and Freese committed one each.  Nelson Cruz appeared to have misplayed Freese's triple in the 9th inning.  Josh Hamilton appeared to put the game to rest.  Lance Berkman was clutch.  Albert Pujols let his presence do the work. 



If you haven't seen the game, find a way to do so.  If you weren't available or had no interest in a midwest and Texas series, redeem yourself and find that someone who has it on tivo or MLB.tv archives or somewhere you can return to the rails of historic baseball.


Nolan Ryan's Facebook status

Exciting Game 6's have a tendency to belie a pedestrian Game 7, but if the 2011 post-season continues in its current state, Friday night's game will be no slouch.

Eric Karros Looks Like Mayhem

Wha ?

St. Louis Cardinal manager Tony LaRussa explained in a post-game press conference that crowd noise caused bullpen personnel to not hear his requests for reliever Jason Motte, not once, but twice, resulting in a mismatch with Mike Napoli, a tie-breaking double, and ultimately a loss in Game 5 of the World Series.

"Is that my phone or yours?"

LaRussa claimed that in his first call to the bullpen he asked for Motte and Rzepczinski and eventually brought Rzepczinski to face David Murphy, whose double-play grounder ricocheted off Rzepczinski's hand to become a bases-loading single.  LaRussa said he again called bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist to get his closer throwing, and seeing that Motte was not throwing, left Rzepczinski in to throw to Napoli and the rest will now be history.

We're not sure what to make of this.  LaRussa took full responsibility for the mix up, admitting that he should have actually looked to see who was warming up in the bullpen.  He guessed that the crowd noise was sufficient to make phone conversation difficult. 

"One ringy-dingy..."

Having never managed a World Series game, we are loath to second-guess only the second manager to win World Series in both leagues, but if after the first time your directive to get a pitcher up was not followed, wouldn't you double check to make sure after you called the second time?  And since you had been to a World Series before, wouldn't you anticipate home crowd noise and other visitors' hazards?

"Can I what...?"

We have not heard from the bullpen coach and nobody had directly contradicted LaRussa's story, but it sounds somehow not quite right.  LaRussa had earlier declared Rzepczinski not available, so would anyone answering the bullpen phone get Rzepczinski throwing without question?  Why not send someone down to the bullpen to make sure Motte was warming up after the first botch-up?  And considering what a control-freak LaRussa is he seemed very not angry about such a colossal disaster that cost him Game 5 and quite possibly the Series.  It seems ludicrous to think LaRussa was making up a story to cover up a bad pitching choice; then again, just the Cardinals being in this year's World Series seemed ludicrous six weeks ago, but here we are.  Don't even get us started with Albert Pujols supposedly calling for a steal during his at-bat which resulted in a game-ending strike-em-out throw-em-out double play.

"Can you hold?  My other shoe is ringing"

Many observers have found the joke in this story with equipment that was invented when the National League was born, why couldn't they text, has nobody not heard of a cell phone, etc., but the problem wasn't with hardware or technology, it was the personnel using it.  Somebody screwed something up and LaRussa is handling it like a lawyer.

It's a wacky post-season.  Texas Rangers owner Nolan Ryan may have been right in his prediction of victory in six games.  Stay tuned.

Alberta Finds His Groove

Nyjer Morgan would be proud, if he were only here at Game 3 of the World Series.  But his team was the previous casualty of the St. Louis Cardinals juggernaut, who are plowing through Titanics like an iceberg in the night. 

"That's the second time he's done that."

Albert Pujols, or "Alberta" as Morgan had referenced him during the NLCS ages ago, cashed in his tickets at the World Series Whallopujolsza for three dingers, two singles, six rbi's and five runs as the Cardinals hammered the Rangers and took Game 3 from them, 16-7.

It was a splendid night for stat mongers who immediately hit the World Series record books to see Pujols tied Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson for homers in a game, now leads total bases in one game (14), and probably two or three other records that we struggle to overlook.  We missed both of Ruth's appearances in '26 and '28, and The Machine is no spectacle like Reggie Jackson was in '77, but on this night he was still suitably impressive. 

"They're doing fine without you, Blue."

Other than that, it was a bomb-fest, as starters for both teams got ran in their fourth innings, followed by a reliever pitching for two and the rest going for an inning each.  There was an inexplicably blown call in the fourth inning when first baseman Mike Napoli tagged the batsman running up the line but the runner was called safe.  While this officiating gaffe opened the gates for four Cardinal runs, there was a sense of destiny in this night, and frankly we found it refreshing to watch the Rangers get bludgeoned at their own game in their own ballpark.

"Get out...and work on that arm..."

During the game a fan threw a baseball onto the field in the general direction of the St. Louis left fielder as he was settling under a fly ball.  The catch was nonetheless completed and the fan and his party were removed from the stands, but not for fan interference, as the ball must be touched by a fan in order to call interference.  Simply throwing an object onto the field is grounds for dismissal but we attribute it to Texas pride and the offensively lame throw made by the fan.  We had never seen that before and hope to never see such a weak toss again from either team or any other fan.


We do hope we get seven games in the World Series this year. 

"If I can just...oh boy..."

Jason Motte Gets His Apples Sauced

Yes we know it's a stupid pun but all the real sports writers are out getting paid, so you get us.

The point is, anyway, that last night's closer could not repeat the glory tonight, just as manager Tony La Russa, the wise old sage playing his brilliance out on a baseball diamond last night, looked like a guy trying to light a match at the beach.  He eventually got the cigar lit, but it dropped into the surf.

That is to say that his 1-0 lead was snuffed out when his bullpen finally let him down, giving up two runs in the top of the ninth inning, his defense got sketchy including a rare moment of fielding ambivalence by Albert Pujols.  Neftali Feliz blew smoke to close out the Cardinals and the series-evening 2-1 score was booked.

Actually, we don't get the brilliance part that a lot of those high-paid sports guys were talking about.  We see that Tony pulls a lot of levers with line-ups and match-ups and positioning and we see that he wins a lot, but for our money, it's a lot of hair-pulling for, well we can't say nothing since La Russa ranks as the third-winningest manager of all-time, it just seems fidgety and compulsive.

We know it's a stretch.

Nick Punto, who was called out for running out of the baseline around third when he finally came back into the stadium, failed to execute a bunt in the bottom of the ninth inning and eventually struck out, helping to foil La Russa's will.  Relievers Arthur Rhodes and Lance Lynn also contributed to the St. Louis vacuum that allowed Texas to score a pair quite handily in a game they struggled to make contact off Cardinal starter Jaime Garcia. 

The Rangers have a knack for one of their guys coming out with a monster game at various times her in the playoffs: Beltre had his three-dinger game, Nelson Cruz destroyed the Tigers, and tonight Elvis Andrus and Ian Kinsler lit the infield up with two dynamic and momentum-killing plays, diving and scooping and flinging or shoveling but in any case demoralizing.

There's always room for pie.

Friday is a travel day and the Cardinals will ponder the home-field advantage they lost while they gear up for warmer weather in Nolan's backyard in what is now a best-of-five series.

Will Jason Motte be apple pie or applesauce in the Lone Star state?
As they are certainly not saying in the St. Louis clubhouse, "Pie or die."

Motor City Runs Out Of Gas In Texas

Well, Tigers fans, the dream is over. Your Justin Verlander could not save you. Mags was not around to help. Papa Verde was burnt. Miggy, Ingy, and VMart were not enough.

Detroit fans are more sick of Nelson Cruz than they are of Brian Wilson and Taco Bell. They prayed for rain. But the Rangers hit too hard and they pitched too good. 

Many fans wonder about odd choices. Why be throwing over to first? Why send that runner tagging up on third on a fly ball? Why not take that pitcher out?  Why not walk that guy and then pitch to that guy?

Down, and now out

But those questions are meaningless really since in the overall picture as the answer to all of the Detroit Tigers' questions were answered by Adrian Beltre, Mike Napoli, and most emphatically by ALCS MVP Nelson Cruz.  Derek Holland and C.J. Wilson had a few responses of their own.  Overall it became deafening, like the hush at Comerica Park.

Would walk a mile for a lucky strike

It was a good year for the Detroit Tigers.  They commanded their division handily and looked scrappy in their brawl with the New York Yankees in the ALDS.  But again, they just didn't have all the tools in their box to finish the job, sadly, much like their stalled vehicle in the 2006 World Series.  They'll have some work to do this off-season, but they'll be back in the mix next year.  They survived the loss of Curtis Granderson better than the team who got Granderson, but they need stronger pitching and bigger bats.  Smarter bats would help -- the Tigers helped their opponents by swinging at pitches outside and away and couldn't lay off the junk sliders.  They were predictable from our Barcaloungers, we don't understand what they saw.  Apparently it was pretty good.

Catch two tigers by a ...

Actually, to a large extent, their pitching and offense would look better if they weren't playing against their own defense.  While the number of men left on base is a staggering total, the number of dropped balls and bad throws is mind-blowing, considering any thought of championship trophies.  The Idiots of 2004 may have been idiots, but theyheld their leads and got 27 outs more than anyone else did, and that's all there is to it.

The Rangers?  They're off to finish a job of their own, returning to the World Series for the second consecutive year to take on another out-of-the-blue National League champion. 

Cruz Control

Nelson Cruz not only tied Game 2 with a home run in the 7th inning against Detroit starter Max Sherzer, but won the game in the bottom of the 11th with a grand slam of Ryan Perry, giving the Texas Rangers a 2-0 ALCS lead.

The Tigers, now without Delmon Young and Magglio Ordonez due to injuries, come back home to Comerica Park to see what they can do about slowing the Arlington juggernaut.

Jim Leyland sent Sherzer back out in the 7th for what looked to be one final batter when the Tigers led 3-2; Brad Penny and David Benoit were warming up in the bullpen.  However, Cruz belted his solo homer and the two teams wrestled with the tie for four more innings.

Texas reliever Scott Feldman picked up after starter Derek Holland in the third inning and the bullpen carried the game, with Mike Adams picking up the win for his work in the 11th.

The Tigers left bases loaded in the 2nd and 9th innings and in total left 13 men on base, and were 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position, the one being Ryan Raburn's 3rd-inning three-run shot.  The Rangers were 3 for 13 RISP, but it was a big 3 for 13. 

Second-guessers were already at work combing over the debris before the game was over, questioning Sherzer's presence in the 7th inning and third base coach Gene Lamont holding up Ramon Santiago in the 9th.  However, Sherzer was pitching a good game and still looked good coming out of the 6th, and Santiago was held at third with two out and Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez due up.  Of course with a base open obviously Cabrera would be walked and Martinez would be the intended out. 

Pitching looks like the name of these games and Texas' ability to slam is the trump card.  Team batting averages for the series are not monstrous, Detroit dragging a .208 and Texas wielding a less-than-daunting .246, and both teams fed by two or three players offensively.  Only three Tigers are batting above .300 -- Raburn (.333), Kelly (.667), and Santiago (.500) -- supported by Cabrera and Peralta averages of .250.  On the Rangers side only two -- Beltre (.444) and Cruz (.571) -- are north of .300, with Napoli having cooled down to .286, follwed by Josh Hamilton at .222.

Even with at the very least two games left, Jim Leyland may be buying himself not a carton, but a case of Marlboros to get through this series. 

Robin Ventura Named Chicago White Sox Manager

We forgot to mention that last week the White Sox announced Robin Ventura would replace Ozzie Guillen as their manager in 2012.  We haven't heard nor just really figured out why.

Nolan Ryan said it was a good hire.  We imagine it's because he knows Ventura can take a beating, and so will the White Sox next year. 

We applaud the move because we like to run this picture whenever we get a legitimate opportunity. 

Rainy Days In Texas Nights

In an attempt to avoid the rain-delays of yesterday's Game 1, tonight's ALCS Game 2 has been postponed until tomorrow.

It's been a heck of a post-season so we welcome the rest.  However just once we would like to see Justin Verlander pitch a full playoff game on his scheduled night.



image:  campus sports connection

Yes, It Really Was That Crazy

They dueled it out for 10 innings, but the Milwaukee Brewers, unquestionably led by Nyjer Morgan, outlasted the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-2 and moved forward to the NLCS. 

We expected a good series, but this was a killer Game 5.  The Diamondbacks had a great season and we fully expect to see them in the playoff hunt next year, however it is the Brewers who seem to be battle-ready this season now.

One For The Ages

Okay, yes we called these two teams out for leaving us a little empty in our baseball viewing, but Game 5 of this NLDS was one of the best contests of any sport we have ever seen.  Chris Carpenter, another source of eye rolls when the Cards come up in the TV Guide, was a monster through every pitch of a 1-0 grinder, outdueling Roy Halladay who went eight and gave up the only run in the first inning. 

It was brilliant baseball and to our satisfaction, only one of these teams could move on. 

Oh Brother...

It's Victor Rojas and Joe Simpson calling the Diamondbacks - Brewers game on TBS, and Chris Berman and Buck Martinez on ESPN radio. 

It's better than anyone on the Fox network, but gee whiz...




image:  the great charles schulz

But What About Moose?

St. Louis Cardinals fans reach for a souvenir squirrel at Tuesday's NL playoff game against the Philadelphia Phillies.




image:  chicago tribune

Hold That Tiger!

Well, Yankees fans, it's time to say goodbye to your $200,000,000 boys of summer.  They're dead meat.  They were eaten by Tigers.

Those bad boys from Detroit got you.  It happens. 

Any given week, any team could take three games from another team in a five game series.  A win here, a loss there, maybe a bad game, followed by a pitching duel, then one half-inning in a tie game, bam, all of a sudden you've won two, lost three.  Happenstance and bad luck aside, this still looks like Boss Tweed getting his wallet lifted on 14th Street at lunchtime. 

Let's not sneer at what $105 million buys you these days -- for Detroit it's a trip to the ALCS and a debate on whether a pitcher can win the season MVP trophy.  New York's payroll has bought them a rubik's cube of hard questions and sobering facts, among them that Jorge Posada and Brett Gardner and Robinson Cano outhit all Yankees, including Alex Rodriguez, Mark Texeira, Derek Jeter, and Curtis Granderson, four names costing $77 million this year who each failed to hit .300 in this series against the Tigers.  In fact Posada, el caballo viejo who spend an agonizing year being prepped for the pasture, had a phenomenal series by going 6 for 14 with 4 walks. 

Among the many question are what to do with Posada, what to do with General Manager Brian Cashman, whose contract expires this year, and how to deal with CC Sabathia who may parlay his option into another round of negotations for a price adjustment, and you can guess he won't be asking for less.  Cashman and the Yankees went through this before with their most expensive player Rodriguez a few seasons ago and ask any fan in the Bronx today what they think of that deal.  O Capitan!

Questions for the Detroit Tigers right now are limited to what time is the bus and what time to we play?

Get These Camera Guys Off The Field

Now that this guy has face-planted on national television, we'd like to address the whole issue of what we feel is an excessive amount of media people on the field.

One of the great things about being a player is owning the space you play on.  Four umpires, two coaches on the baselines, and that's it.  It's your mound.  You roam center field.  Fans stay in the stands, and it's great to be you.

Ask the Stanford marching band about the proprieties of entering the playing field.

Unfortunately nowadays there are more and more media people on the field.  When a team wins a playoff series and celebrates on the field, there are as many camera operators as pitchers.  You watch and you can see players having to weave through photographers and video crew holding shooting overhead or close-up, standing or mindlessly stumbling , bouncing off one player or coach or another and clogging up this 40-man happy dance.  Watching on tv, we see them getting jostled around and knocked aside and wonder, what the hell are you doing, get out of the way! 


One venerable handheld camera shot is from third base to home plate during a home run trot.  The angle is low to the ground and at a sharp upward angle and rattles alongside the runner all the way to the plate, and then tracks backwards as it follows the player(s) to the dugout.  It's an annoyingly useless shot but tv directors seem to love it, who apparently think their audience loves it.  Or should love it.

We here do not love it.  On our screen, it's irritating.  At the game the whole media circus looks more like a taping of "Pet Star"than a sporting event with cameras in the stands, wandering around the sidelines, interviewing whoever before and after the game, even going out to the mound with the poor schlep throwing the first pitch.  We get that's the way it is, but during the game, that is a crime.  We cringe at the sight of police and security that pops out onto the field between innings, standing still with their hands behind their backs, staring down the crowd, reminding us we're not having fun, we're a step closer to the real world.  But while there's live play, it's better when tv broadcasts a baseball game, not produces a baseball game. 

There's nothing like snapping a picture from your front row seats at third base of Adrian Beltre taking a historic home run trot, and having some camera guy in your shot.  Unless it was this camera guy, then you both took a good shot.

Please, all media people leave the field.  You're not needed.  Leave it to the players.

We'll See You Next Year

"...and here's one for Christmas..."

Finally, we must sadly bid adieu to Joe Maddon and the Tampa Bay Rays who left our playoff grid today with a 4-3 loss to the Texas Rangers in game four of the first-round playoffs. 

At least we think the Rays are done...

They've been run over and come back more often than the Terminator.  Cats only get nine lives.  Zombies get one reawakening.  A Rays season ends like the movie "Carrie"  --  you look at the grave and you wait for a hand to reach through the dirt.  The Tampa Bay Rays have made reappearing from the dead and raising hell not just an art, but a livelihood, and it's getting to be a year-end tradition.

"You talkin' to me?"

They raised the bar on themselves this year with their season finale, just one movement in an incredible four-game symphony that the MLB Serendipity Orchestra could never have written on their own.  Yet beyond the dramatics of game 162 lies a season that started 0-6 and stayed thereafter a series of scrambles within one big long climb.  Like the squirrel that fell down a well and made its way back clawing up three feet and dropping down two, up and down like that for an entire schedule.  After 2010's last pitch the script said the Rays would stay at the bottom of the well in 2011, that without Carl Crawford, with no payroll, they had no chance.  It would be a terribly painful rebuilding year, a suicide mission for any manager trying to make that franchise viable.

Joe would probably have asked for it no other way.  When the Rays won the American League pennant in 2008, they spent 2009 as the returning champions, the defender of their crown, the team to beat, which conflicted with their growing image as the anti-Yankees  --  "they're not lowly, they went to the World Series."  They would wind up 19 games out of first place behind the Yankees and Red Sox, yet their winning record was only the second of their existence.  In 2010 they won 96 games and the AL East crown and took the Rangers to five games in the ALCS before becoming resume material for Cliff Lee, and no sooner than that game was over the Rays were declared dead for 2011.

"Just ask us to stay, and we'll go..."

The changes in personnel are part of why Joe Maddon's name comes up for Manager of the Year, but perhaps it is not despite those changes, but because of those changes.  Maddon loves redemption, extracting the good out of the negative, focusing on the essential and not the distractional -- all the classic elements of the true underdog, one who is not unknown, but once forgotten or disregarded.  While nobody considers Johnny Damon a down-and-outer considering his solid years in Detroit, his value is annually questioned while a clock ticks in the background, yet he grinds to play another day.  Casey Kotchman and Sean Rodriguez, cast-offs from his alma mater Anaheim Angels, are both products of the same philosophy he was brought to Tampa Bay to instill.  Can anyone imagine a bigger, more monstrous reclamation project than Manny Ramirez?  Joe Maddon actually had him on board for maybe fifteen minutes before the drug results came back and Manny resigned rather than serve a 100-day suspension.  Maddon actually sounded saddened by the situation, no anger, no judgement, no lesson for the kids.  Strange to think what the final 62 games would have been like for that team with a viable Manny Ramirez.

"It's 'Evan,' not 'Eva.'"

What they were like was a march to the sea, torches and flags carried night and day, feet on the ground game after game, moving forward because that's what they did and that's what they would do until they could not.  On game 162 in front of a home crowd of 29,518, and a national audience of millions, they made their mark again as the comeback kids, rallying not only over a season, but from another seven-run deficit made good in the ninth inning and golden in the thirteenth with a home run from Evan Langoria, himself to the brink and back with injuries.  Again, redemption.  Circles of life. 


Thanks, Joe Maddon and Tampa Bay Rays, it was fun.  We can't wait to see you run circles around them all come next spring.

Until then we'll have our Snuggie to keep us warm.

Adrian Belts Trey, Sends Rays Home

Adrian Beltre's three solo home runs helped the Texas Rangers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-3 and advance to the American League championship series.  Matt Harrison scored the win, Neftali Perez chalked up his third save while starter Jeremy Hellickson took the loss for Tampa Bay, who were closed out of the playoffs in four games of a five-game series.

Bloggers and sports hacks everywhere celebrated the chance for a once-in-a-lifetime headline pun.

Nolan Ryan says "good job"

Beltre became just the sixth player to hit three home runs in a playoff game and just one of four to hit them in a series-clinching game.  We couldn't care less about playoff record-keeping since the post-season now takes up an entire month of baseball, but we tip our hat to a guy who had a helluva day.

Nolan Ryan says "do better"

Ian Kinsler homered the second pitch of a game in which the Rangers would never trail.  Overall six Rangers were held hitless and the rest were held to one hit, leaving Beltre to carry the day.

Beltre's success depended primarily on two factors, the first being young Tampa Bay throwers who left pitches out over the plate and up in the zone too often for the Texas slugging staff to overlook.  The second factor was the unconsciously clutch Mike Napoli giving it a rest, going only 1 for 4 for the day. 

"I thought they said he was 1 for 11"

The game for Tampa Bay looked better on paper as they outhit the Rangers 7-6 and were 2 for 4 with RISP but left six men on base, one less than the Rangers, and never led in the game.  The lack of long ball and failure to move runners were sorely evident as Texas's advantage rested solidly in the bat of their third baseman, who came in to Tuesday's game 1 for 11 in the playoffs.

Hellickson was tagged for three homers, lasted four innings with a walk and a strikeout.  He was replaced by Matt Moore who struck out two and walked one in his three innings but also served up Beltre's third big fly in the seventh.  The Rays scored in the bottom of the ninth inning with a man on second but ran out of outs and sensed deja vu as they exited the playoffs in the same round and to the same team as last year.

Johnny Damon, Evan Longoria, and B.J. Upton all went 0 for 4.  Angel alums Sean Rodriguez and Casey Kotchman did well, Rodriguez scoring three runs and Kotchman knocking in three RBI's. 

Those guys are pretty good...

The Rangers now await the winner of the Yankees-Tigers series to decide the American League entrant into the World Series.