Ray Pride Part X - Taking 2 of 3 The 'Hard' Way

Tonight, I'm not going to take a stab at the TBS crew who took care of the Rays-Sox game. I'm not going to go over the highlights of the ballgame, nor am I going to discuss how I envision the remainder of the American League Championship Series capping off. Rather, what I am going to do is remind everyone of the nice showing of Rays fans at Fenway and the 'Fenway Faithful'-those who bailed before the game was over-have they not seen Fever Pitch?

Actually, scratch that...

"Nobody on the Rays in thinking that this series is over"

Obviously. It is 2 to 1 and they just regained home field advantage, which hasn't been so advantageous. While the Rays were certainly thrilled to be winning the game, and had the ever important 'shift in momentum', the club still had to win 2 of the remaining 4 games.

And an old/terrible baseball quote,

"The Red Sox are down to their final strike..."

What exactly does this ever mean? Interestingly, the moment after the commentator made this comment, Mark Kotsay fouled a ball off. In other words, he had committed a strike-but apparently not the final one.

But what if the Sox would have gotten aboard? Would they have had only ONE strike to work with? If that's the case, Edwin Jackson should have allowed the hitter to get on base and simply dust the edges until he grabbed a strike, thus, ending the ballgame.

"Bill [James] points out that people like simple explanations, and LOVE simple explanations that are actually partially true."