I just saw a replay of the game winning hit for the O's. It looked like the ball was catchable, am I wrong?
Nope. We'll have to get JCA's take on it, after they talk him out of jumping.
Blame up here is pretty wide spread. Favorite targets include Theo (did not make any moves down the stretch other than Bedard), Francona (generalized griping mostly focused on listlessness of team and passivity in moves), Crawford, starting pitchers, "everyone except Pedroia, Aceves, Scutaro, and Ellsbury," Ortiz (turned into a singles hitter and bonehead baserunner), and anyone making a lot of money.
Not that much anger at Papelbon (he was gassed). Fair amount of sentiment to bring him back rather than turn things over to Bard.
Biggest target is probably Theo right now. Lack of depth - Why is Kyle Weiland pitching? Are you serious about bringing in Bruce Chen if we have a tie breaking game? Poor talent evaluaition - Crawford is getting a $4.5 MM raise next year? 3 more years of Lackey? Conditioning - What are we paying a trainer for if these guys are this out of shape?
Crawford's catch? I'd love to see how UZR grades that one. Was it an uncatchable ball that he got his glove on due to great range or was it a pathetic drop that an outfielder should have made? Critics are all over him. As for me, I did not see what kind of jump he got. It is the second similar drop in the past week. I think the other was either in a Beckett start or Lester's last start when a catch would have choked off a big inning. It bears mention that his previous worse season was 2008, when he was with the Rays. About the only guy to have a down year for that team. I know at the time I said I wished he had been signed by the Nats and the Sox had signed Werrth. After watching a lot of games this September, no way would I put any faith in this guy. Rizzo made the better call, even if Werth is an overpay.
I went to sleep early last night, around 11:20. I saw the Johnson homer, Kimbrel blow his save, and maybe the top of the 8th in the Os game. Dog tired after the prior night (11:30) and getting up at 5 AM for the drive north. I pulled out the Game 4 ALCS strategy of going to sleep with the game on the line, figuring that if it is a win there is a game tomorrow and if it is a loss, I don't want to see it.
As for me, I saw this one as a real possibility about a month ago. I think both BP and Coolstandings, using modeling based on variants of season long pythagorean equations to get 98+% odds on every leader except the Rangers, were foolish at the time and so posted here in the the "playoff lock" thread. Any model that was based on a healthy Youkilis, a healthy Beckett, and one of Buccholz and Bedard being rotation regulars, and a Rays team without Desmond Jennings, Matt Moore, Brandon Guyer, and an unsettled bullpen just was not going to reflect reality. I did not buy projecting the last 10 day schedule based on the 25 man roster performance during the year either. Buck showed what he could do to a lefty line up when he had rostered 4 lefty relievers. As for the Braves, starting pitching.
Not to diminish the absolute numbers of the Red Sox collapse in terms of lead in the won-loss column, but that 99.6% estimate by Silver is so full of it that he should use it as a call to examine his models. Note, by the way, that ZiPS used a different model and when CS was still over 95%, Szymborski was around 75% because he used Rest of Season projections for players and runs created / allowed rather than season long numbers.
