Some Good News to Report — An All-Around October ’13 Update

I know it’s early Wednesday morning, and it’s been a week since my last blog.  But there’s been a good deal going on that’s taken my energy away from blogging — plus, there really haven’t been any stories that have demanded I write about them, either.

Let’s start out with the good news: The story I worked so hard on was bought.  I cannot tell you who bought it yet, as the contract hasn’t been signed and the editor hasn’t made a public announcement.  But I can tell you the story was accepted, and I’m looking forward to receiving the contract and signing it.

I also am nearly done with a book-length edit. I have three others in progress at this time, not counting my own final edit of the first half of ELFY, which is over 3/4 complete as of this writing.  As this is most of how I make my living, it’s obvious I’ll be spending a lot of time editing in the weeks to come (as I always do).

My plans for the week include a new book review for Ash Krafton’s BLOOD RUSH  over at Shiny Book Review (long-delayed due to my health), an interview with author Stephanie Osborn (it may be up next week, but I’m working on it right now), and continuing to write, edit, and comment as often as possible.

Now let’s talk about the World Series, which starts later today between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals.  I’ve already said on my Facebook page that I am underwhelmed by this matchup for two reasons: One, Boston is an older, veteran team without superlative pitching and thus doesn’t seem to have the wherewithal to stand up to St. Louis, a younger team with far better pitching.  And two, I’m really tired of seeing the same teams going year after year.

Look.  I basically lost interest in the National League playoffs once the Pittsburgh Pirates were out.  I really wanted the Pirates to go to the National League Championship Series because it’s been so long since they’ve been there (or to the World Series, either).  I knew that Pittsburgh had the best shot of knocking the Cardinals out — and if Pittsburgh couldn’t do it, it was likely the Cardinals would sweep everyone else out of the way and go to the World Series.

Which, of course, they did.

As for the American League playoffs, I lost interest there far earlier as what I’d wanted to see was a Cleveland-Boston matchup — the old Red Sox manager turned Indians manager Terry Francona against new Boston skipper John Ferrell.  But Cleveland lost the Wild Card game and was out right away.

After that, while I had a mild interest in Detroit as I wanted to see if Prince Fielder would be able to hit any better in the postseason this year (he didn’t), I wasn’t riveted.  I did think Detroit would go back to the World Series because the Tigers have two excellent pitchers in Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander and Boston’s pitchers, while still good in Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester and John Lackey (the latter victimized by poor run support), weren’t in the same class.

However, in a short series anything can happen.  Detroit was plagued by some poor defense, some baserunning miscues (poor Prince Fielder, getting caught off third base in a rundown), and just wasn’t able to handle the pressure of returning to the World Series.

My best guess as to what will happen — knowing full well guesses don’t mean much until at least one or two games have been played — is that St. Louis will win easily over Boston.  (I like Boston better.  But they don’t seem to stand much of a chance.)  St. Louis’s pitchers are far better, they have excellent hitters and their defense was among the best in the National League all year long.  I just don’t think Boston has enough to compete with the Cardinals.

The main questions remaining are: Does Boston have some fight left?  Or did they use it all up getting Detroit out of the way in the ALCS?

If they don’t, this particular World Series is likely to be a yawner for all but hard-core Cardinals fans.

Baseball Season Ends with Wild Finish

Last night’s major league season ended with a bang, not a whimper, as four teams still had an opportunity to make the playoffs as a wild card (the fourth and final seed), two in the American League (the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays) and two in the National League (the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves).  Both sets of teams were tied going into the final game of the season, and there was a lot riding on the end of the year.

First, St. Louis played their game, beating the hapless Houston Astros 8-0 behind a 2-hit Chris Carpenter shutout.  Which meant that Atlanta had to win to stay even with them, which would force a one game playoff to determine which of the two teams would continue on in post-season play. 

As for Atlanta, their team was in extra innings; the tenth inning went by, tied 3-3 with the Philadelphia Phillies.  The eleventh inning, still tied.  The twelfth, with no change.  And finally, in the thirteenth inning, the Phillies scored a run off a Hunter Pence RBI single (Pence was a member of the Astros until two and a half months ago, being a late-season acquisition by the Phillies) to go up 4-3, while Atlanta had nothing in the bottom of the 13th.

This meant that the Cardinals won the National League Wild Card; they will now face the Philadelphia Phillies in the first round of the National League Division Series.

As for the American League, there was a great deal of drama there also.  First, Boston was playing Baltimore and they were in a very long rain delay, up 3-2 in the 7th.  When Tampa Bay fell behind 7-0 to the New York Yankees, it looked all but assured that Boston would go to the playoffs.

But there was more baseball to play, as Tampa Bay showed by scoring six unanswered runs in the bottom of the 8th; the Yankees still led, 7-6.  As the Red Sox continued in their rain delay, Tampa Bay was down to their last strike in the bottom of the ninth, when pinch hitter Dan Johnson, who’d hit only 1 HR all year and had a batting average of only .108, hit a game-tying HR to force the game into extra innings.

So the tenth inning goes by, with the Yankees and Rays being tied, 7-7.  The eleventh inning, still tied; by this point the tarp is being taken off the field in Baltimore and the game between the Red Sox and Orioles was about to resume.

As for the Orioles, former Brewers shortstop JJ Hardy shut down two Yankee offensive threats all by himself, as in the top of the eighth Carl Crawford hit a double to the deepest part of left-center; the Red Sox runner on second base was sent home, but Hardy’s strong arm in relaying the pitch from the OF (from five or six steps deep into center) was sure and the Orioles catcher hung on to get the third out called there without a fourth run being scored.  While in the the top of the ninth, JJ Hardy started a nifty double play that took the Red Sox out of a promising situation and they again failed to score; between Hardy’s game-saving defense and the 2-run HR he’d hit earlier in the game, it’s obvious that Hardy was the MVP of that game.

At any rate, Jonathan Papelbon, the Red Sox’s closer, was brought in against the Orioles.  He struck out the first two guys, then gave up back to back doubles and was wild in the strike zone with the fourth and fifth batters.  The Orioles were down to their last strike when Chris Davis hit the first double, Nolan Reimold hit the second, and Robert Andino, who’d been 0-for-the-game before this, hit the game-winning single to end the game and the Red Sox’s post-season hopes. 

Note that Boston OF Carl Crawford attempted a sliding catch in the ninth on Andino’s single which, if successful, would’ve sent the game into extra innings; instead, Crawford trapped the ball and wasn’t able to get up and get his throw in from shallow left field.  Had Crawford, who is a former Tampa Bay Rays standout, played that ball on a bounce instead, the Orioles runner would’ve been held at third and the game may well have ended up in extra innings if Papelbon had somehow mustered up enough energy to get the third out.  Crawford is now being called a “goat” in Boston for what amounted to him trying too hard to send that game into extra innings, when the real “goat” for the Red Sox should be Papelbon — who had the Orioles right where he wanted them until Papelbon ran out of gas.  Papelbon blew the save, lost the game, and ended the Red Sox’s season.

So, we go back to the Rays, who are now batting in the bottom of the twelfth.  Evan Longoria was up; he hit a pitch well, but it looked like a double to me off his bat.  Longoria was fortunate, though; he hit it to the shallowest part of left field by the foul pole, at the 315 foot sign, and just barely got it out of the park.  So within three minutes’ time, the Red Sox had lost to the Orioles, while the Rays had beaten the Yankees in 12 innings to advance to the post-season as the American League wild card seed.  The Rays will play Texas in the first round of the playoffs.

I have never seen a baseball season finish like this before, where teams had to step up and play well at the end with two teams forcing extra-innings games, with one team winning (Tampa Bay) and the other team losing (the Atlanta Braves).  So there are two really good teams — the Red Sox and the Braves — who will be joining me and many other spectators by watching the post-season at home, while two other really good teams who played exceptionally well in September (Tampa Bay and St. Louis, respectively) will continue their excellent seasons.

Compared to that, the Milwaukee Brewers and Texas Rangers needing to win their final game in order to clinch the second-best record in their respective league to get home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs doesn’t seem as dramatic.  But the Brewers and Rangers, too, showed the value in refusing to concede anything in September, and played well in pressure-filled situations in the final week of the season . . . any other year, these teams would’ve been the stories, not the Rays and Cardinals.