BoSox survive

The battle of solo homers is won with the help of two non-home run scoring plays as Boston beats Tampa Bay 4-2 to force a seventh game in the series.

Justin Upton smoked a solo homer in the first off of Josh Beckett, but then Kevin Youkilis ripped his own in the top of the second for a 1-1 tie. After Youkilis knocked in the go-ahead run on a ground out, Jason Bartlett tied things up with a solo homer in the bottom of the 5th. The very next inning, Jason Varitek sent out his solo shot, giving Boston the lead for good. David Ortiz singled home an insurance run later in the inning.

Boston lives to fight another day, and on paper earns the advantage in the pitching matchup with Jon Lester facing Matt Garza in game seven.

Upton's upswing

B.J. Upton is Mr. This October after hitting his seventh home run of the postseason. Here's what he's accomplished so far in the 2008 playoffs.

What happened, TBS?

I guess TBS wouldn't tell the AP why they couldn't broadcast the beginning of ALCS game six.

The Boston Globe says it was a router issue.

(T)ypically (B)ad (S)tuff

TBS continues to bungle the postseason. You might disagree, but their coverage has been less than good.

Tonight, due to technical difficulties, there's no baseball on right now from the Trop. Insanely bad.

You can watch a live feed at MLB.com.

CC you in Milwaukee?

The Brewers will go after CC Sabathia this offseason, contrary to many reports saying they had no chance to sign the free agent pitcher. Money is not the only motivating factor for Sabathia, and he seemed to enjoy playing in Milwaukee.

Gross in the lineup

Apparently Joe Maddon doesn't believe in momentum like our previous MLB story on the Red Sox lineup. Maddon put Gabe Gross in the lineup tonight, who not only hasn't hit in the postseason (1-15), Gross has also struggled against the Red Sox (.204 this year), although he did hit three of his 13 homers against Boston and went 2-4 against tonight's Red Sox starter Josh Beckett.

ALCS - game six going Rays way

Forget a Rays collapse. I'm picking Tampa Bay over Boston tonight. The reason is two-fold. James Shields dominates at home (9-2, 2.59 ERA at the Trop in the regular season; 1-0, 3.29 ERA in the postseason), and Josh Beckett hasn't been his dominant self since September 16th (11.57 ERA, .400 BAA in the postseason).

There are, however, a couple of caveats in this prediction. Beckett's last dominant start came at Tampa Bay, going eight innings with seven strike outs and one earned run in a no-decision. Beckett went 2-1 with a 2.09 ERA against the Rays this season. Shields struggled twice against the BoSox in Boston this year (5.85 ERA), but pitched well against the Sox the two times he faced them at home (15.1 IP, 2 ER, 2 W). Don't forget his solid performance in game one of the ALCS (7.1 IP, 2 ER), when he was simply outperformed by Daisuke Matsuzaka in a 2-0 Boston win.

Sticking with Shields, I think. Yes, Shields and the Rays it is.

Update: Daisuke can pitch tonight if needed. This is going to be a great night of baseball.

Final Yankee Stadium HR ball yanked

The final home run ball hit at Yankee Stadium wasn't much of a hit at an auction.

It was expected to fetch up to $400,000, but was pulled after offers fell short of the suggested opening bid of $100,000.

The reason it didn't go for much? Quick, who was the guy that hit it? That's why.

Update: That's not the only piece of Yankee Stadium memorabilia not going for the assumed value. Perhaps fans picked enough paint chips off the left field foul pole for everyone.

Three AFL amigos

No surprise that three of the five pitchers leading the Arizona Fall League after just a couple of starts each are players who got a cup of coffee in MLB this year.

Phil Hughes and Clay Buchholz have combined to give up one run (Hughes' run) in 18 innings. Max Scherzer has given up three runs in 12 innings and struck out 12.

Scherzer looked pretty strong at the Major League level this year, and might've stayed with Arizona for longer had he not experienced some arm troubles. Hughes struggled, although he, too, wasn't healthy. Buchholz showed a couple of flashes with the Red Sox, but there's a good reason he's not on the postseason roster: he wasn't very good (2-9, 6.75 ERA) most of the time.

Fantasy Update:Scherzer deserves a serious look from the Diamondbacks in spring training. The other two have the stuff to be MLB starters, but if the Yankees and Red Sox do some offseason spending on their respective rotations, they might be left out of the mix. Does that make them trade bait?

Brewers stale on Dale

Baseball Musings makes a good point that Dale Sveum as manager of the Brewers makes more sense than Jerry Manuel as manager of the Mets. Sveum will not be considered to lead the Brewers next year while Manuel kept his job after New York failed to make the playoffs.

The Sveum firing, however, makes me wonder if the Brewers were not impressed with the postseason fallout. He only has about of month of managerial experience, and if Milwaukee still thinks it is close to competing for a World Series, it probably wants a manager with a long postseason resume.

Manuel, at least, is a known quality to the Mets, as he led the Chicago White Sox to an A.L. Central crown in 2000.

Big mo - no, not that Mo - with Boston?

The Red Sox will stay with the same lineup for game six as they did with game five of the ALCS.

The article talks about having offensive "momentum" going from game five to six. I'm not sure I can buy into the idea of momentum from game to game in baseball. Teams score 10 runs in game one of a double-header, then turn around and score one in the next game. I'm not sure there are any statistics to back me up on this hunch, but just from my time playing the game, there is little momentum from one game to the next in baseball.

Maddon out of context

One more note out of the Chicago Tribune today. Phil Rogers scolds Rays manager Joe Maddon for this comment:

"Of course, if we had won it, we'd be in the World Series by now," Maddon said. "We'll just have to wait one more day, hopefully, to get that done."

He meant one more game, as Friday was a travel day. And he did add an important qualifier with the word "hopefully." But still …

When your team gets as close to the World Series as the Rays were—seven outs away, seven-run lead—and then unravels, the task ahead is about a lot more than waiting "one more day."

The Red Sox had to wait 18 years to get it right after that grounder went between Bill Buckner's legs in Game 6 at Shea Stadium. The Cleveland Indians are at 11 years and counting since Jose Mesa couldn't hold a lead over Florida in Game 7 of the World Series.

Then there are the Cubs. They are at 79 years and counting since failing to protect an eight-run lead in Game 4 of the 1929 World Series —the last time anyone lost a bigger lead than the 7-0 margin Maddon's Rays held in the seventh inning.

They are at 24 years and counting since the grounder went through Leon Durham's legs in San Diego. They are at five years and counting since Florida's eight-run eighth inning in 2003.

OK, I get it. There have been precipitous falls after meltdowns like the Rays had in game five. Maddon, however, was merely stating that his team is in good position to clinch in the next game. What do you want him to say? The sky is falling? I think this is a non-issue, and the article is better left unwritten.

On Manny being a Cub

Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune ponders what it might take the Cubs to land Manny Ramirez.

Manny Ramirez won't be going to Boston for the World Series. No one knows where he will wind up in 2009, including Ramirez or his agent, Scott Boras, both of whom are the cleanup hitters of their businesses.

Despite unprecedented production under the brightest lights, the baggage Ramirez carries is so heavy that it's unclear if the Los Angeles Dodgers will pay to bring him back. His fit elsewhere is equally unclear, as is the outlook for improving a Cubs team that has gone 0-6 the last two Octobers.

...

If there's a fan base ripe for that pitch, it's the fans in the bars in Wrigleyville. They have watched Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez go a combined 5-for-51 in the crushing first-round losses to the Dodgers and Arizona and are hungrier than ever for the full ride, not just the big tease.

There's no way the Cubs can play two left fielders, so Soriano would have to go for Ramirez to come. Soriano seems to be essentially an immovable object with six years and $106 million left on his contract, but the Dodgers will need two things if they don't re-sign Ramirez—power hitting and another buzz guy.

Could Soriano soften the blow of losing Ramirez?

Up until this rumorville article all the talk was of the Cubs going after a left-handed bat like Adam Dunn. That, and the potential devaluation of the Cubs franchise as it is sold should make it pretty tough to pay Manny. He's 36, and if he wants a five- or six-year contract, he'll be well past his prime by the end of the deal.