I'm back and I've got a lot of links - going to do some rapid fire linkage today:
Why the Red Sox lost to the Angels - THT
The fact of a short series is that anything can happen.
Why the Angels beat the Red Sox - THT
Sean breaks down how the Angels rode a strong defense and steady relief pitching to the ALCS.
Two different perspectives. I can still feel the hate coming from the Angels, and it feels good.
Of course, EVERYONE wants in on the Paps story:
Lester on Booing Papelbon: ‘It Was Uncalled For’ - Full Count
Sorry, Lester, but he deserves it...
Papelbon Messed With His Mechanics - Sox Tea Party
Loss Will Fuel Papelbon - Full Count
It had better - whatever issues that he seemed to have fixed by the end of the regular season need to be examined in depth this offseason.
Torii Hunter scolds boo birds - BostonHerald.com
"Papelbon, I got so much respect for him, man. I definitely think he’s one of the best closers in the game. That’s terrible, actually."
Your evaluation of him? Yeah, it is. The best closers in the game didn't consistently lean over the cliff this season.
Blown Saves vs. Fielding Independent Pitching: Graph of the Day - Beyond the Box Score
Not entirely sure that I get what was trying to be shown here... Perhaps that Paps should have had more blown saves, based on his FIP? Seems like more of an anti-saves point.
After the jump, more links wrapping up the season and unwrapping the next season - we like our holidays to come early, apparently.
The Real Kevin Youkilis Is Missing - Sox Tea Party
Youkilis scratched out one double in 12 ABs en route to a .083 BA. Throw in his mental miscues in Game over at first base and you have reason to wonder what was going on? How can Youkilis play so poorly?
Because you're judging a player based on the equivalent of, say, 4 paragraphs? Forgive me if I have to check the previous Tea Party link to make sure this guy knows baseball, especially when you blame Youk for the errors/blown calls at 1B, when he should be credited with saving runs.
Boston Red Sox's Weak Record Outside of Division Foreshadowed ALDS Sweep - Bleacher Report
Decent breakdowns until they got into looking at records against individual teams - WAY too small of sample sizes...
BtB Power Rankings Season Review: AL East - Beyond the Box Score
Yes - the Rays had a better team than us. This is one of the many reasons why I'm not COMPLETELY pissed about the results of the series. That said, it was fun to rant when people made fun of me for wearing a Sox shirt yesterday.
Beckett wants his Tek-nichian back in 2010 - Full Count
Sorry, Beckett, but the only way he's coming back is as a coach. Check previous posts for more on this.
Astros to interview Bogar, Mills - Full Count
Good luck guys - just wish we could have polished their resumés with a nice World Series ring.
Bay plans to test free-agent market; Wakefield headed for surgery - The Providence Journal
Tim Wakefield will have surgery this week on his back to repair a herniated disk.
Get well soon, Timmeh.
Bay Contemplates ‘Uneasy’ Future - Full Count
Theo and Tito look ahead to 2010 - Full Count
Guess who they talked about? Let's follow my facial expressions as I read this:
Lowrie is an important factor for us as well.
:D - R.E.S.P.E.C.T. (sorry Aretha)
[T]his is a young player we really believe in who has been hurt as a big league player. We’ve not seen the type of player he can be yet at the big league level because he’s been playing hurt the entire team.
:/ - He was pretty good while playing with a major injury though.
At some point, the player has to get healthy to be able to show what he can do and to be able to help the organization. I don’t think we can hand a job to him because he hasn’t proved his health yet at this point.
:O - Blaming Jed for his wrist not healing when y'all held him back from getting surgery? Weak.
But at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re sitting here at this time next year, hopefully with champagne and not having one of these post-mortems,
:P
but looking back and saying, wow, he really got healthy and proved himself in winning that job or playing his way into a meaningful role.
@>~~~>~~~ - I mean, :)
So we’ll see. Now it’s on him. He’s got to get himself healthy and make an impact. We can’t stake our season on the hope that he’ll be healthy. We have to have other options."
: | - Well, dur, Theo. We have to have other options EVERYWHERE.
Did you see Sox failure coming? I did - Fire Brand of the American League
These posts never come off well. NG, you want to set the standard for the crazy-meter (and decide what we're doing about the bet)?
That's all I've got. Thanks again to USG and Randy for covering me while I took some personal time off. Looking forward to talking about how we dominated everyone we've played this time next year. For now, let's just talk and share some links, man.