1:35 AM Eastern

If the Philadelphia Phillies get to within one win of a World Series championship, watch Jimmy Rollins.  If he leads off the game by going deep, the series is clinched.

Just as he did in Game 4 against the Brewers, Rollins led off tonight’s game by taking it out of the yard, and the Philbos were never headed.  Chad Billingsley had his second straight ugly start, Rafael Furcal melted down in the 5th inning, the Dodgers couldn’t solve Colbert Richard Hamels, and the visitors earned themselves a whole week off before opening the Fall Classic in either Boston or St. Petersburg.  I can’t believe I just wrote that last part.

Congrats to the Phillies, who imposed their will upon the Dodgers right from the get-go, using the long ball to win Games 1 and 4 and to get them off to a big start in the clincher, and putting together a couple of big innings for their other win.

Hamels won the NLCS MVP with his two strong starts (14 IP, 11 h, 3r/er, 5 bb, 13 k, 1 hr), but you could have made a case for Matt Stairs, too.  OK, maybe you couldn’t have made the case for Stairs.  After all, Kirk Gibson didn’t win the 1988 World Series MVP with his even-bigger homer in his only at-bat of that series (20 years ago tonight, as I’ve been reminded approximately 173 times).  Still, Matty deserves some credit for this, and we’ll get to see him more in the World Series, DHing in the A.L. home games unless Jon Lester or Scott Kazmir is starting (in which case we’ll see Pat Burrell as the DH, with So Taguchi in the outfield, I would think).

I thought the Phillies were the best team coming out of the National League through 162, and I’m glad to see that they’ll get the chance to pick up only the SECOND World Series title in franchise history.  Think about that the next time you get down on the Blue Jays or, heaven forfend, the Maple Leafs.  The Philbos are a founding member of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, and they have exactly one championship to their credit.  The week off will be problematic, but if the Rays finish off the Red Sox tomorrow, they’ll have the same issue, so that’ll cancel it out.  I don’t expect that to happen, but it very easily could.

I feel for the Dodgers.  The addition of Manny Ramirez changed that team, but it was still a group that won just 84 games during the regular season, and finished tied for 14th among the 30 major-league teams.  Still, when the Cinderella story starts with the worst playoff qualifier taking down their league’s best so easily, it’s easy to get hopes up and figure that hey, it’s only one more short series and there you are playing for all the marbles.

The thing is, the Cubs handed L.A. that first-round win and the Phillies weren’t nearly as gracious.

There have already been a couple of mentions that Rafael Furcal may have knocked his free-agent value down with his case of the dropsies/kicksies/bad throwsies in the 5th inning, but don’t believe it.  Furcal is a guy who is going to make plenty of errors, but he’s also going to get to a lot of balls other shortstops won’t, and more importantly – he’s REALLY fast, he’s little, and he’s had a couple of years with a very good obp, including this one.  He’ll get a nice contract, which I hope won’t come from the Blue Jays.  Of course, the Jays’ first baseman himself disagrees with me on that note.

You can hear from him right here, from this evening’s BJADPPGS:

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Alex Rios is our scheduled guest for tomorrow night’s game (though I wasn’t able to confirm with him today) so make sure you tune in either to the Fan590 or to this very website at 7:05 PM Eastern.

And here, if you’re interested, is today’s post-post-game call-in segment.  Yes, Barry Bonds is better than Manny Ramirez.

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Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

WEDNESDAY’S BLUE JAY A DAY PRE-PRE-GAME GUEST  – LYLE OVERBAY

12:30 AM Eastern

The Boston Red Sox have come home to Fenway and been thoroughly, utterly and completely annihilated by the Tampa Bay Rays.

It’s been as amazing to watch as it’s been unexpected.  22 runs on 27 hits in two games, seven of those hits home runs, two of those home runs actually exiting the boundaries of Fenway Park itself.  I said last night’s win was a major statement for the Rays, but tonight’s was an even bigger one.  Sure, Tim Wakefield’s knuckleball wasn’t knuckling, but the Rays took advantage not only of him but of the bullpen as well, and the Sox had no answer for Andy Sonnanstine (!), just like they couldn’t do a thing with Matt Garza last night.

If there was such a thing as momentum in sports, you could look forward to a Tampa-Philly World Series, with both series ending in five games, because there would be no way that either the Red Sox or the Dodgers would be able to pick up a win in their respective next games. But we know better.  It’s going to be exceedingly difficult, but not impossible, for the Sox and/or the Dodgers to come back.  In fact, the Red Sox had to overcome a three games to one deficit in the ALCS in each of their World Series Championship seasons of the LCS era, coming back on the Yankees in 2004 (when they’d been down 3-0 – I know I don’t need to remind you of that, but it’s so much fun), and the Indians just last year.

Ahhhhh, but this is different, you say.  This time they’d have to win Games 6 and 7 on the road!  True,  that makes it different from last year, but not from 2004, when they went into Yankee Stadium and beat the Bombers.  If history holds, the Red Sox will come back and win the series, then sweep the World Series.  It’s just what they do.

Of course, the Rays have turned history upside down.  As I mentioned last night, everytime they’ve been written off, they’ve done an incredible job of rising to the challenge. They’re in complete control of the series right now, though that doesn’t mean they’ll win.  I think they will, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t.

Fifteen times a team has been up three games to one in the ALCS, and only four times has that team lost.  Three of those times, the Red Sox have been the team that has pulled off the comeback (2007, 2004 and 1986).  We don’t need to mention the other time a team has come back from 3-1 down.

The Blue Jay A Day Pre-Pre-Game Show made its return to the airwaves tonight, and Joe Inglett was a terrific lead-off guest.  Here’s the programme, for your listening pleasure:

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Remember, tomorrow night it’s Lyle Overbay, Inglett’s teammate at the University of Nevada-Reno, and Thursday night Alex Rios will be joining us.  The next BJADPPGS after that might not be until the World Series, depending on the Phillies and Rays.

In Blue Jays news, the back to the future trend continued today when the Jays named Paul Beeston their “CEO on an interim basis.”  For some reason, they seemed to really want to avoid saying “Interim CEO”, still not sure why.  The Beest will run the show, with complete autonomy, with Paul Godfrey remaining the club’s President until his contract expires on December 31st.

It’s a great hire, without question.  Beeston was a fantastic president the first time around, and has really kept his finger on the pulse of the Jays since he left, having maintained an office at Rogers Centre and attended most of the Jays’ home games the past few years.  He doesn’t believe that 2009 will be a write-off since, as he said, the Jays have the best pitcher in baseball and the off-season is still ahead of them.  He agreed with J.P. Ricciardi’s assertion that bringing A.J. Burnett back should be the team’s top priority, and said he was willing to do whatever J.P. needed to help make that happen.

Tony Viner, who is the President and CEO of Rogers Media, under the auspices of which the Jays fall, said that Beeston has already asked him for more money for the Jays’ payroll.

It was important to see Viner at the news conference, not just because he said that my name was “in the hat” for the full-time president’s job (I’m assuming that particular hat has a big hole in it), but because it was a chance to hear about Rogers’ plan for the team from a Rogers “suit”.  Viner said that, of course, the Blue Jays are great for the Rogers brand, and for programming for Sportsnet and this very radio station, then added that Rogers is “deeply committed” to winning.  That he’s satisfied the team is making the kind of progress it needs to make in order to become a champion, though he wishes the Jays were in the LCS right now.  Viner also said that the idea that the payroll will stay the same or rise slightly is a”reasonable hypothesis” but he left the door open to raising payroll significantly if the right case was made.

As far as J.P. Ricciardi’s future is concerned, Beeston referred to J.P. as a “great general manager” – so don’t get too excited if you’re a J.P.-hater.  I’ll give you this nugget to hold on to, though:  Beeston also said that just because he is a Ricciardi supporter doesn’t at all mean that whoever he hires to be the full-time President/CEO will have to be one, too.  Beeston said that Peter Hardy, his original boss with the Jays, taught him that it’s important to be loyal only to the team, not to certain individuals either in uniform or in the front office.  The new guy, as Beeston does right now, will have complete autonomy.

Before I go, I just wanted to thank Stormin’ Norman Rumack and Roger Lajoie for giving me the opportunity to stick around after the post-post-game show and take part in their conversation with John Gibbons, who yesterday was named the Royals’ bench coach.  I hadn’t had the chance to talk to Gibby since the Jays fired him – my fault, the season can slip away so quick and you go from giving someone a few days before calling to thinking that’s it’s too late to call – so I got to wish Gibby well and thank him for being so great to work with over the time he was here.

Remember, Lyle Overbay at 7:05 pm Eastern Wednesday on the Fan590 and this very website!

Reasonable, rational comments are always welcome!

TUESDAY’S BLUE JAY A DAY PRE-PRE-GAME GUEST – JOE INGLETT(scheduled)

1:03 AM Eastern

Who among  you, when you saw Matthew W. Stairs come to the plate against Dodger closer Jonathan Broxton in the 8th inning of a tie game with a runner on and two out, thought “it doesn’t matter how hard Broxton brings it, if he throws one thigh-high on the inner half, Matt’s going to destroy it.”  We’ve seen Stairs do it dozens of times over the last couple of years (yes, 2 2/3 dozen counts as “dozens”), but rarely have we seen him go quite as deep as he did in driving in the winning runs, giving the Phillies a three games to one lead over the Dodgers in the NLCS.

Stairs has had all of 21 plate appearances since the Jays traded him to Philly on the final weekend of August, and that was his third home run.  The argument could be made pretty easily that he’s never hit a bigger one (it was his second career post-season hit, the other one a double, eight years ago), and thousands upon thousands of Phillies fans – the ones who were asking who that guy was as he came to the plate tonight – will now say that they loved him from day one.

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy, without question.  Good for Matt for coming through, and with such authoritah.  We’ve seen the huge Stairs swing hundreds of times, often with such force that we wondered what would happen if he actually connected on one of those massive rips.  Now we know.  Check the replay if you haven’t seen it, Stairs imposed his will upon that baseball, and now the Phillies can close out L.A. on Thursday night.  Will they?  Maybe.  Remember, the Red Sox came back from 3-1 down in the ALCS last year.  Coming back from 3-1 down happens more often that one would expect.  It helps, though, that the Phillies are the better team here.

By the way, the Phils’ win was the first for a road team all season between the two teams.  The Phils are 6-0 against the Dodgers in Pennsylvania, and the Dodgers had been 5-0 against the Phils in L.A. going into tonight.

As for the American League game, that was a pretty large statement by the Tampa Bay Rays right there.  If you’ve read my stuff or listened to the radio programme, you know that I’m not at all into the intangibles of the game, the idea that personality plays a part, courage and all that crap.  However, I do believe that a team can be beaten mentally and can play like it (see the Baltimore Orioles, September, 21st Century or the New York Yankees, Game 7 2004 ALCS for quick and easy examples.)  It would not have surprised me one bit if the Rays had come out this afternoon and gotten their clocks cleaned.

The Rays had their home-field advantage pierced by losing the opener of the ALCS – they’d been 8-1 against the Red Sox at home during the regular season.  Now, they were off to play their first-ever playoff game at Fenway Park, where not only are the playoffs an entirely different animal, but where they’d gone 2-7 during the regular season.  Against Jon Lester who had been unbelieveable at home this year, going 11-1, 2.49 (remember, we’re talking aura and mystique here).  The likely result, I thought, was a Boston win, and an emphatic one.  Instead, we got the opposite.

B.J. Upton, who has found his power stroke in the playoffs, belted a three-run shot with nobody out in the 3rd to turn a 1-0 lead into 4-0, and Matt Garza pitched like he was facing the Blue Jays, so it was pretty much over right then.  The Rays went deep four times, and Akinori Iwamura smacked a pair of doubles off the Green Monster and, lo and behold, the Rays have now won three straight in Boston and are firmly in the driver’s seat in the ALCS, despite losing the opener at home.

Upton hit just nine homers during the regular season, fighting shoulder problems.  The shoulder seems just fine right now, the homer today was his fifth in seven post-season games.

The Blue Jay A Day Pre-Pre-Game Show begins Tuesday night at 7:05 PM Eastern right here on the website and on the Fan590, and we’re expecting to lead off with Joe Inglett – you know, since he was the lead-off man most of the season.  Lyle Overbay will stop by to take your calls on Wednesday night prior to Game 5 of the NLCS, and Alex Rios is scheduled for Thursday, prior to Game 5 of the ALCS.  I have calls in to Roy Halladay and Vernon Wells for later on in the playoffs, and I’m going to try A.J. Burnett, but given the circumstances with the impending opt-out and all, I doubt he’ll do it.  If there’s someone in particular I haven’t mentioned from whom you want to hear, let me know and I’ll try to get him on.

Finally, John Gibbons has a big-league job once again.  Mark your calendars for the weekend of June 5th-7th, because that’s when the Kansas City Royals pay their one and only visit to Toronto, complete with Gibby serving as bench coach.  It’d be nice if he got a warm welcome, I know I’m certainly looking forward to seeing him.  Good for Gibby for getting back in the bigs so quickly – he’ll be a great help to Royals’ manager Trey Hillman.

Oh, and by the way, there was a call on one of the weekend post-post-game shows about Canadians who have won World Series rings as players.  I couldn’t answer at the time, but I did give the answer Sunday night.  If you missed it and are interested, there are eight:

Eric Gagne (Montreal – BOS 2007), Rob Butler (East York, ON – TOR 1993), John Hiller (Toronto – DET 1968), Ron Taylor (Toronto – STL 1964, NYM 1969), George Selkirk (Woodstock, ON – NYY 1936-1939, 1942), Jack Graney (St. Thomas, ON – CLE 1920), George Gibson (London, ON – PGH 1909), Bill O’Neill (St. John, NB – CHS 1906)

Five other Canadians have played in the World Series with the losing team:

Jeff Francis (Vancouver – COL 2007), Larry Walker (Maple Ridge, B.C. – STL 2004), Reggie Cleveland (Swift Current, SK – BOS 1975), Johnny Rutherford (Belleville, ON – BKLN 1952), Larry McLean (Fredricton – NYG 1913)

This year, of course, Jason Bay, Russell Martin and tonight’s hero all have a chance to become the next Canadian to win a ring.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

UPDATE – 2:15 AM Eastern

I just realized that we’ll be broadcasting the Argos game on the FAN590 on Friday night, and will be joining Game 1 of the ALCS in progress, so we won’t have the Blue Jay A Day Pre-Pre-Game Show then, as I wrote lower down in the post (since fixed) and as I mentioned on tonight’s post-post game show.  I don’t know what our broadcast schedule is going to be for Saturday or Sunday, so the BJADPPGS may not debut this season until next Tuesday night, which would be prior to Game 4 of the ALCS.  Sorry about the misconfusion.

1:25 AM Eastern

Earlier in the afternoon, the Tampa Bay Rays advanced to the ALCS with a relatively easy win over the White Sox, taking down a Chicago team that one would think had all the momentum heading into the series in just four games.  As our fine producer Ken Rodney so aptly put it, “B.J. Upton has finally figured it out.”  He’s right – when you hit two home runs, you don’t have to bother hustling on the basepaths.  Congrats to Bossman Junior for his big day, and to Carlos Pena – three hits, a pair of RBI singles and two stolen bases?  And caught stealing once?  It’s as though he was channeling Carl Crawford.  Andy Sonnanstine did enough over 5 2/3 to get his first win in eight decisions, and that incredible (2008) Rays bullpen took it from there.  The Rays are heading home to open the ALCS Friday night against the Red Sox.  In nine games at the Trop against Boston this season, the Rays went 8-1.

The Red Sox are in thanks to their highly controversial 3-2 win over the Angels, a walk-off victory on Jed Lowrie’s two-out single to right that scored Jason Bay.  Bay reached on a bloop double that bounced into the seats after Reggie Willits dove for it and missed.  Had Willits pulled up, he might have been able to corral it and hold Bay to a single, and the game could still be going on.  Maybe.

Of course, the Angels probably should have taken the lead in the top of the 9th.  Kendry Morales led off with a pinch-double off the centre-field wall, and pinch-runner Willits was bunted to third by hard-luck Howie Kendrick.  The next batter was Erick Aybar, and Manny Delcarmen missed with his first two pitches.  Mike Scioscia put on the suicide squeeze with the count 2-0 and Aybar bunted through it, leaving Willits hung out to dry 2/3 of the way down the line.  Jason Varitek chased him back towards third, lunged at him, tagged him, slid on one knee for three or four beats then fell, and when he landed on his left arm, the ball popped out of his glove.  Third-base umpire Tim Welke ruled that Varitek had possession of the ball long enough for the out to be recorded.

I have never seen anything like that play before.  I’ve seen contact between runner and fielder that has resulted in the ball coming loose, but I’ve never seen the ball come loose so long after the tag had been made.  Varitek was in complete control of the ball when he tagged Willits, and he was in complete control of the ball after he tagged Willits, right up until the point when his elbow hit the ground a few seconds later.  I don’t know, though, if that matters.

Here’s the rule, from the official MLB rulebook:

“A TAG is the action of a fielder in touching a base with his body while holding the ball securely and firmly in his hand or glove; or touching a runner with the ball, or with his hand or glove holding the ball, while holding the ball securely and firmly in his hand or glove.”

Obviously the part about touching the base is irrelevant, so only concentrate on the bold part.  Nowhere does it say anything about how long the ball has to stay securely and firmly in the fielder’s glove.  But we’ve seen so many calls where the ball hasn’t been held securely immediately AFTER a tag is made, and the runner being called safe.  It’ll be very interesting to hear what, if anything, Tim Welke and MLB have to say either later tonight or in the morning.

So the NLCS features the Phillies and Dodgers, and the ALCS serves up the Red Sox and Rays.  As I have mentioned before, I think the Phillies and Red Sox are the better teams in each series, but as I have also mentioned before, that doesn’t really matter in a best-of-7.

We will have most of the games for you along the Fan Radio Network, starting with the NLCS opener on Thursday night.  Roger Lajoie will be at the controls beginning at 7:05 PM Eastern with the pre-game (it’s Yom Kippur, so I’ll be otherwise occupied), with the ESPN pre-game kicking in at 7:50 and the first pitch scheduled for 8:22.  I’ll be back for Friday’s ALCS opener, which will air in its entirety on the Fan Radio Network, but will be joined in progress on our flagship station, the Fan590, after the conclusion of the Argos game.

Before I go, I want to thank everyone for voting for Tom Cheek in the Ford C. Frick balloting last month.  Tom wound up finishing third among all vote-getters, which is pretty terrific given the competition, with 8,992 votes.  It’s a disappointing total – I honestly thought we could get him close to 100,000 – but thank you all for your efforts nonetheless. I’ll be doing my best in the next few weeks to try to raise awareness about Tom with the Frick voting committee, and hopefully this will be the year that he finally gets his due.  If not, we’ll do it all again next year, and again, hopefully we’ll get the vote out in greater numbers.

Here’s tonight’s edition of the post-post-gametalk (sorry, I haven’t been able to come up with a good name for it yet), for your listening pleasure:

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Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!  See you Friday!

1:50 AM Eastern

It looked going into this weekend that we might not have any more first-round baseball after tonight, but the White Sox and Angels (L.A. of A., despite their best efforts) managed to extend their respective series at least into Monday.

Saturday, the Cubs once again rolled over to the Dodgers, and the National League’s best team over the regular season got swept by the worst team to qualify for the playoffs.  The Cubs, start to finish, were awful.  Let down in equal parts by their starting pitching, their defense and their offense.  I’m happy about that, first because it keeps the potential for a Dodgers-Red Sox World Series alive, and who wouldn’t want to see Manny go back to Boston, and second because a team can’t remain a lovable loser if it wins the World Series.  Let the Cubbies go another 100 years without winning – what a story that will be for our great-grandchildren!

It should be noted, and I mentioned this on the post-post-game last night, that Reed Johnson didn’t see the light of day in this post-season.  Not a single at-bat, not a single inning on defense – he never got out of the dugout.  Now, the opportunity to use Reed never really presented itself- the Cubs never had a lead to protect, they never faced a left-handed pitcher, but it should be noted for all those who hold Johnson up to be an integral member to a contending team that Lou Piniella couldn’t even find a place to use him in a series in which his team was swept.  Not to besmirch the good name of Reed Johnson, the man is a very, very good complementary piece and may be the best 4th outfielder in the game.  But that’s what Reed Johnson is.

The Brewers did a nice job to avoid the brooms on Saturday and get their fans all excited, remembering that the Brew Crew had come back from 0-2 down to win the best-of-5 ALCS over the Angels back in 1982.  But it wasn’t to be this time, and the series was over by the 3rd inning of Game 4, once Pat Burrell and Jayson Werth hit back-to-back homers to make it 5-0 Philly.  Not much could have been expected from Milwaukee this post-season, I don’t think, with their starting staff in shambles and their bullpen….ummm….not really good at all.  With CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets set to leave, and them rumoured to be dangling guys like Prince Fielder and J.J. Hardy this off-season, the Brewers are going to have a hard time getting back next year.  Hopefully the fans in Laverne and Shirley-land won’t have to wait another 26 years for a return trip to the post-season.

As for today’s games?  Well, the Blue Jays might not be able to hit Matt Garza, but former Jays don’t seem to have serious issues.  Dewayne Wise got the big hit that keyed the White Sox’ win, a two-run double down the left-field line in the 4th that made it 4-1.  The Rays made it interesting, but Evan Longoria (in the 7th) and Carlos Pena (to end the game), their two biggest power threats, struck out looking while representing the tying run.

Out of the four teams that went down 2-0, I thought that the White Sox had the best chance to come back to win a series.  Still not a good chance, but the best chance of the four.  It’d be cool if I said right here that I thought the Cubs had the worst chance, but I didn’t – that would have been the Brewers.  The Sox were going home, had arguably their best starter going in Game 3, and were playing a team that wasn’t nearly as good on the road.  They have to beat Andy Sonnanstine Monday afternoon – the easiest task they’ve had so far – in order to force a deciding game back in St. Pete on Wednesday.  They are going to need some of their bigger hitters to step up, though.  At the moment Wise has over 55% of their total RBIs, while Jim Thome, Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko are a combined 8-for-35.

As for the Red Sox-Angels game, it was amazing to see the best centrefielder in the game not take charge on a routine pop fly to shallow centre.  As it turned out, Torii Hunter’s brain cramp didn’t cost the Angels anything but three innings, a couple of hours, and probably the usage of Scot Shields in Game 4, but man, that was ugly.  Jacoby Ellsbury hit the pop-up, on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 2nd.  Howie Kendrick went out and Hunter came in, neither called for the ball, and it dropped harmlessly between them because Kendrick heard Hunter’s footsteps and pulled up.  Hunter, though, had stopped running and had decided to let Kendrick take it, even though that was very obviously the centrefielder’s play to make.  Especially a centrefielder of Hunter’s calibre.

As it turned out, it was the first three-run single in post-season history and yes, a tainted one at that.

Credit the Angels, though – facing elimination and on the road they could very well have folded up their tents and gone home after that play, but Mike Napoli had other plans, belting a pair of mammoth home runs to first tie the game, then give the Halos a very short-lived lead.  But right after Napoli’s second shot, Jacoby Ellsbury hit a fly ball to deep left that Garret Anderson played into a double, and eventually scored the game-tying run on a Kevin Youkilis double off the centrefield wall.

From that point on, neither team wanted to close it out, from Ellsbury slipping off second base after stealing it in the 7th and getting tagged out to Hunter trying for second on a base hit down the left-field line that didn’t get to the corner and being thrown out by plenty at second to start the top of the 9th.  And why did it take until the 10th inning for the Angels to try to bunt their way on, taking advantage of Mike Lowell and his one good hip?  That bunt, by the way, couldn’t have been placed any worse by Kendrick, who has had an awful series to this point.  He’s 2-for-14 with six strikeouts, but began his road to redemption with a solid sac bunt to advance the eventual winning run in the 12th.

Good for Erick Aybar, who snapped an 0-for-13 with the RBI ground single that followed.  Bad for Coco Crisp, though, with the catcher running from second, Crisp had a great shot at throwing out Napoli at the plate, but his throw home was worse than the one from Johnny Damon that Manny Ramirez cut off in left-centre lo those many years ago.  Crisp’s throw got maybe eight feet in the air and barely made it to the shortstop.  The Angels won’t be starting a lefty again in this series, though, which means no more Covelli in the outfield, at least.

Here’s tonight’s post-post-game, for your listening pleasure.  These shows are pretty short, but it’s still a chance to talk baseball late at night, which I enjoy greatly:

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We will be carrying Game 4 of the Red Sox-Angels series on the Fan Radio Network, beginning at 8:00 PM Eastern, but there will be no Blue Jay A Day Pre-Pre-Game Show because of Raceline Radio on the Fan.  We’ll begin that either Wednesday, Thursday or Friday depending on how the rest of the first round goes.

Remember, Monday we find out how we did with the Vote For Tom campaign.  Keep your fingers crossed that everyone’s hard work will have paid off!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

2:05 AM Eastern

Well, I’m back.  For a week, anyway, until Yom Kippur takes me away for another day.

First off, thanks so much to those of you who spent the month of September voting for Tom Cheek.  I got an e-mail from Tom’s wife Shirley the other day, thanking me for providing the link and helping out, but the true credit goes to all of you out there for placing the votes.  The final tally will be announced on Monday, and I’m hoping that we got Tom up over 100,000, which would be the highest total in the history of the balloting.  With a vote total that high, Tom’s credentials would be impossible to ignore, I hope.

Anyway, some observations about the first couple of days of the post-season, though I’ll admit I didn’t see a lot of Wednesday’s action.

The Brewers have really surprised me with their lack of offense so far.  They’re a team that’s built on the power bats of Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Corey Hart and J.J. Hardy.  At least they are now that their rotation is CC Sabathia and prayer.  Mike Cameron has twice failed to chase down fly balls over his head, one of which was extremely costly (in Game 1).  Granted, those were two tough, tough plays, but Cameron is supposed to be one of the game’s best centrefielders, and the game’s best centrefielders make those catches.

Sabathia spit the bit in Game 2, but how long could he have been expected to keep going out and dominating on three days’ rest?  Credit Cole Hamels and Brett Myers for shutting down that Milwaukee offense, especially in the bandbox that is Citizens Bank Park, and a little Hawaiian Punch was all Myers needed today.  That Hawaiian Punch, though, shouldn’t have happened.  Shane Victorino got to the plate two batters after Sabathia WALKED THE PITCHER with two out.  You just can’t do that.

By the way, thanks to Randy in Moncton for getting me to check out Sabathia’s career post-season numbers.  They’re incredibly craptastic.  After tonight, he’s made five starts in the playoffs and has pitched exactly 25 innings.  The quick math says that’s five innings per start.  In those 25 innings, he’s allowed 22 earned runs for an ERA of 7.92.  He’s allowed 33 hits and 22 walks for a WHIP of 2.20. He’s struck out 24, which is good on a per-inning basis, but not so good on a K/BB ratio basis, and he’s allowed four homers.  I know, I know, REALLY small sample size (25 innings relative to almost 1,700), but wow.

The Cubs have looked horrible so far, their ninth-inning too-little, too-late rally tonight notwithstanding.  All that rally did was extend the post-post-game from about two minutes to closer to an hour (thanks for keeping the phone calls coming!).  The Cubbies, with their “backs to the wall” having lost the first game of a best-of-5 at home, kicked the ball all over the field in a five-run Dodgers second, an inning in which no runs would have scored had the Cubs been able to turn a routine double-play ball.

I loved Rafael Furcal’s two-out bases-loaded bunt single in that big inning, but I still don’t think the Jays should sign him.  Nor do I think the Jays should sign Ryan Dempster, though his price may have come down after is seven-walk performance (including TWICE walking the pitcher) in the opener.

Despite the warm, fuzzy feelings that the ninth-inning rally has provided the Cubs’ faithful, and the warmer and fuzzier ones that a great start by Rich Harden on Saturday would provide, they’re in a WORLD of hurt right now.  Far more of one than the Brewers, who are at least heading home down two-zip.  But then, the Brewers don’t really have any pitching left.

Evan Longoria certainly was up to the task in the Rays’ first-ever playoff game this afternoon.  Gary Gaetti was the last player to homer in each of his first two post-season at-bats.  Here’s hoping that Longoria doesn’t stray from the path of debauchery and lose all his baseball prowess,  as Gaetti did.  I can’t believe that a team can win in the playoffs with Dan Wheeler closing out games, but we shall see.

And how about that young Jason Bay fellow, huh?

In case you’re wondering, I believe that the Red Sox and Phillies are the two best teams in these playoffs, which doesn’t mean that they’ll meet in the World Series or that I think the Red Sox will win it (I think they’re the best team).  It’s funny, I was having a conversation with someone here at the Fan during the Cubs game about the Red Sox, and the fine young gentleman to whom I was talking thought that Boston would win the whole thing.  He started talking about things like experience, and how they were a different team now that Manny was gone.  I asked him why the Red Sox couldn’t win simply because they have the most talent, the best players?  We don’t really need to look for deeper meaning in things.  Sometimes the best teams win because they’re the best.

I have no clue who is going to play in the World Series, let alone who is going to win it, because winning a seven-game series doesn’t prove a thing, let alone a five-gamer.  Just remember the 1985 Blue Jays.  In the first year of the best-of-seven League Championship Series, the Jays ran out to the three games to one lead that would have won them every other LCS played to that point in history.  But it was a best-of-seven, and they couldn’t close out the Royals.  So the Jays were better in the best-of-5, but the Royals were better in the best-of-7.

If you’re going to make me pick, I think it SHOULD be the Red Sox beating the Phillies, but I have my doubts that it’ll shake out that way.

There won’t be a Blue-Jay-A-Day Pre-Pre-Game show until at least the beginning of next week, due to timing issues, but I’ll keep you posted on that.  Friday, the Argo game means that we’ll be joining Game 2 of the Red Sox-Angels series in progress around 10:30 Eastern or so, and we’ll do phones afterwards.

Here’s tonight’s post-post-game “The Playoff Talk” (for lack of a better name), for your listening pleasure:

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Until then, reasonable, rational comments are always welcome!

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