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.

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.

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.

Political delay for game six

Forget rain delays, we'll potentially experience our first political delay for this year's World Series. Barack Obama's campaign has a deal with Major League Baseball in place for a 15-minute ad that will push back the start time of game six of the World Series from 8:22 p.m. to 8:35 p.m., or later.

This massive hypothetical inconvenience to the world of baseball fans is notable for a few reasons. First, this would be the first time a network has moved the start time for an event back due to political advertising. Second, the World Series will likely involve the Phillies (already in) and the Tampa Bay Rays, both of whom sit in key swing states in this election; whether the Obama campaign will be willing to take the marginal risk of offending the public of either state in exchange for "roadblock" coverage on all four major networks for their ad is a legitimate question. ("Roadblock" meaning on all four majors at once, meaning you'll have to flip to the Food Network for a few minutes to get away from it.)

I have to say, this is probably a good move on Obama's part, especially considering that a very small segment of the audience will be upset by a later start time. Game six is no guarantee, however, so John McCain should work on snapping up games one through five, asap.

Kazmir to start game five

The Rays have every advantage in their favor, including the ability to throw Scott Kazmir Thursday in game five of the ALCS in Boston and save James Shields for game six back in St. Petersburg. That's exactly what Joe Maddon is doing, giving Kazmir a chance to finish off the BoSox at Fenway.