Another Notch for The Death Wish Kid

As cool as a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce, Arroyo sent the D-Rays packing and secured the Red Sox first postseason berth since... 2003. Over 6 1/3 IP he surrendered only two earned runs on two hits, a walk and two HBP (for a MLB_leading 20 on the season. Does he get black ink points for this?) and lowered his ERA to 4.10.

Leading the charge offensively were Manny and The Caveman, who each uncorked moonshots into the Tampa night sky.

For the second day in a row the Sox launched a new strategem that gives me great hope for the play offs: they baited the opposition into to getting a pitcher and the manager ejected for retaliating for hit batsmen. DWK first plunked Tino Martinez in the ass and in typical Tino fashion, he crumpled like a spent tissue. He followed that up with a shot to Huff's knee that drove him from the game. The umpires, reasonable men by nature, chose not to issue warnings to the dugouts, giving the Rays the opportunity to get their pound of flesh.

Sure enough, Scott Kazmir took the hill looking for redemption. He promptly put one on Manny, who showed rare restraint. But then he pushed his luck, feeding Millar a steaming bowl of hide-and-go-fuck-yourself. Benches emptied as the teams, in the words the Tampa radio guys put it, lined up facing each other like a civil war re-enactment waiting for someone to yell "Charge!" Is there anything gayer than a baseball fight? OK, a basketball fight is pretty gay, but still...

What's truly sad about Kazmir and Pinella's reaction was they completelt lost interest in winning the game. Kazmir, a young stud stolen from the Mets in a desperate attempt by NY to beat out Montreal for fourth place, had been cruising. He had a no-no, 6 strike outs and a 2-run lead through 3 1/3.

But what's really important is the THE SOX ARE IN THE PLAY OFFS! THE SOX ARE IN THE PLAY OFFS! THE SOX ARE IN THE PLAY OFFS!


Just for laughs: as I write this I still have the Devil Rays' broadcast feed streaming in from MLB.com. Someone should explain to them that their mike is still live for a spell after the broadcast. I'm guessing I wasn't supposed to hear this: "Really, you could just play a loop of 'Devil Rays suck' for 45 seconds. Devils Rays suck, Devils Rays suck, Devils Rays suck, Devils Rays suck... Oh, God... More bad baseball tomorrow night at 6:45."