Wow, That Sucked!

Honestly, I didn't see that coming.  I thought the Angels would win last night's game easily, continuing this season's regular season dominance of the Red Sox into the post-season on their way to a World Series championship.  But the Red Sox had other plans.  Jason Bay's clubbing of a John Lackey mistake made the game 2-1 in Boston's favor, and the inability of the Angels to do anything against Boston's starting pitcher Jon Lester sealed the Halos fate. 

(FYI, I spent last night watching the game at home and following the game thread on the Halo's Heaven fansite.  Since there are few Angel's fans where I live, I follow along on the game threads and interact with other Angels' fans, so I'll be referencing things written there a few times.)

The low-lights included:

• Gary Matthews Jr. botching of a routine flyball for a 3-base error.  Uh, Gary, that thing on your hand that smells like leather, it's called a "glove".  Use it.
• Vlad Guerrero thinking he was an olympic-class sprinter trying to go first-to-third on a bloop hit behind first and getting thrown out by 15 feet.  He must have forgot he left his legs in 2002, or as one of Halo Heaven's posters wrote, "maybe the 7 pounds of gum in Vlad's mouth is slowing him down?"
• Scot Shields giving up 4 hits and two runs in his one inning of work.
• And the biggest low-light of the night was the 0-for-20 spectacle the bottom half of the order and Chone Figgins in the lead-off spot managed to choke their way to.  I mean come on, 9 strike outs in 20 at-bats?  And leaving 8 guys on base?  Unacceptable, to say the least.

As disappointing as last night's game was, it was made worse by having to listen to TBS's broadcasting team of Chip Carey and Buck Martinez's game-long, incessant verbal suck job of the Red Sox team.  It was ridiculous as to how much time they spent going on and on about Lester, Ortiz, Ellsbury, et.al.  Last night, for whatever reason, one of the frequent HH commenters who goes by the screen name of PhiSlamma used a stopwatch to track the amount of time the TBS guys talked about the Angels.  Here's what he posted:

"I spent tonight timing the time the announcers spoke about the Halos in any way. The broadcast is now at the three hour mark.
I started the stopwatch whenever they started talking in anyway, besides just using an Angels player name in a sentence while talking about the Red Sox.
Three hours +, haven't deducted the time for commercials.
Total time TBS has talked about the Angels:
27 minutes."

The amount of time he came up with was surprising.  I would have guessed it was a lot less.  In the top half of the inning the guys in the booth talked about how great the Boston hitters are and during the bottom-half of the inning they creamed all over themselves talking about Jon Lester.  With comments like, "They (Red Sox) can manufacture runs at will" and the constant repeating of the fact that Boston had won 9 straight against the Angels in the post-season, I thought we were listening to some of the Red Sox's girlfriends cooing over their boys.  It went something like this:

Buck Martinez:  Jon Lester's a good pitcher.
Chip Carey:  Well, I think he's a great pitcher.  And he's a fine looking man.
Buck Martinez:  Now that you mention it, Lester's the greatest pitcher in the American League.  And he cured cancer.
Chip  Carey:  Sorry, Buck, I'll have to disagree with you.  He's the greatest pitcher in the major leagues.  And not only did he cure cancer, his jock smells like freshly baked cookies.
Buck Martinez:  You know Skip, Jon Lester just may be Jesus Christ.
Chip Carey:  Jon Lester is God.  Oh, and by the way, the Red Sox have beaten the other team 9 straight times.
Buck Martinez:  Who are the Sox playing again?
Chip Carey:  I forget.

Oh, and who was the guy wearing the blaze orange jacket with the rod kill on his head?  Craig Segar?  Where did they dig that guy up from?  And why is he talking?

And if I have to see another Frank Caliendo commercial I'm going to puke.  (I do like his impression of a fat, non-funny comedian though...he's got that one down pat.)

Okay, enough of the negativity.  Here's some positive notes. 

• Darren Oliver was awesome, pitching the Angels out of a first and third jam in the 7th inning by striking out David Ortiz and then getting 2 more outs in the 8th.
• The Angels 2-3-4-5 hitters went a combined 8-for-15 after being a non-factor last year against Boston.
• John Lackey pitched well enough to win the game, making only the one mistake to Jason Bay, giving up just 4 hits and striking out 5 in 6.2 innings.
• On of my favorite HH commenters who uses the screen name Zu Long posted this stat:
      Angels record in ALDS games where we lose Game 1: 2-2.
      Angels record in playoff series overall where we lose Game 1: 4-3
      Angels record in playoff series overall where we win Game 1: 0-3
  That makes me feel a bit better.  Apparently the Angels like to play with their backs against the wall.

Now a day of rest and then Game 2 - Daisuke Matsuzaka vs Ervin Santana.