Dirtiest Water

Yesterday, I said that the Red Sox might have appeared certain to win the World Series, but that you couldn't hand it to them quite yet.

Now, you can hand it to them.

In a mostly anticlimactic finish, the Red Sox shoved the Cardinals out the Fenway Park door and into the Charles River, bombing St. Louis Sensation Michael Wacha for 6 runs in 3.2 innings and cruised from there with a 6-1 victory to clinch the World Series Championship in front of their home fans who were bouncing off the walls probably since about 4 in the afternoon.

This will end up being remembered as a bit of an uneven World Series. The Cardinals got off the mat after a Game 1 beating and won a pair of thrillers, and the Red Sox responded with a pair of close victories of their own, bringing it back to Fenway Park on Wednesday night for the 6th game. Game 6 of the World Series often seems to be a haven for Baseball's most bizarre moments, and the Cardinals and Red Sox certainly have had their dalliances with such moments. But the Red Sox, who looked shot out of a cannon last night, stopped the Cardinals dead in their tracks before they ever had a chance to make the game interesting. Shane Victorino once again was the showstopper; his 3-run double that clanged halfway up the Green Monster broke the ice and in one fell swoop hung more Earned Runs on Wacha than he'd allowed all October. True, it was only three runs and we've seen much stranger things happened, but if a game ever felt over in the 3rd inning, that was certainly one of those moments.

Given the remainder of the game, that's not much of an arguable point. Stephen Drew led off the 4th with a Home Run, a few batters later Wacha was out of the game and the Red Sox tacked on a couple of more runs and the rest of the game was academic.

Ultimately, you'll be hearing stories focusing on the Red Sox formula of building around chemistry and character as opposed to simply buying the biggest names, and that's certainly proved itself a good means to success. But let's not ignore that these are talented players that the Red Sox bought in. Guys like Mike Napoli, Shane Victorino, Jonny Gomes are all players that are worthy of starting roles. There's plenty of good character guys out there and certainly many of them have come across the radar of the Mets. Hell, Joe McEwing and, more recently, Alex Cora just for a couple of examples, were wonderful clubhouse guys. They were also generally useless as everyday Major League ballplayers.

The point here is that it doesn't always take a complete makeover to bring a team from misery to a Championship. The Red Sox lost over 90 games in 2012 and were worse than the Mets. In 2013, they're World Series Champions. The Mets still stink and who knows what they're going to do this offseason (probably something stupid like deal talented character guy Ike Davis and hand useless loaf Lucas Duda the 1st Baseman's job), but if the 2013 Red Sox have shown us anything, it's that if you look in the right places and bring in legitimately talented players who can play together, anything's possible. You hear me? ANYTHANG'SPOSSABULLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!"

On The Precipice

Baseball's funny. At the beginning of the season, I predicted the Boston Red Sox would go 76-86 and finish last in the American League East.

The Red Sox now stand one win away from a World Series Championship.

That's not to hand it to them now, because that one win is often tough to get. Red Sox History is dotted with moments when they were one win away and never got it. Recent History shows the St. Louis Cardinals being outs away from losing a World Series before storming back.

But for whatever reason, I don't see a Cardinal Miracle happening this time. Not the way this series has played out. Yet on Sunday morning, I couldn't have been blamed for feeling differently. After Saturday night's sloppy affair that saw the Red Sox come up with a game-saving miracle and a game-losing mistake on the same play, the Cardinals looked every bit like they were going to stop the Sox and their beards dead in their tracks, win all 3 games at home and finish off a quick Series. That seemed to be the Cardinal Mojo, the one I thought belonged to the Dodgers but was really the Cardinals' all along. Think about it. The Red Sox wipe the floor with the Cardinals in the 1st game, but pluck and grit and guile rule the day in Games 2 and 3, with guys you never heard of like Michael Wacha and Matt Carpenter and Carlos Martinez and Kolten Wong and it just boggles the mind.

Early in Game 4 Sunday night, it appeared that the same pattern was occurring. Carlos Beltran drove in an early run and Lance Lynn was shutting the Sox down again. John Farrell had to have been sweating; his hook of Clay Buchholz after 4 innings reeked of panic as much as anything else. It didn't work—Mike Carp pinch hit and grounded out—but maybe it did light a fire under the team because one inning later, Jonny Gomes' 3-run Home Run turned the game in their favor and, if the Sox do wrap it up tomorrow night, may stand as the biggest hit in the series. Ultimately, the Sox had to have felt that they stole Game 4. Their bullpen did an outstanding job in finishing out the game; the group of Felix Doubront, Junichi Tazawa, John Lackey (whom Farrell was able to squeeze an inning out of in the 8th) and Koji Uehara (who's clearly emerged as the breakout star of this Postseason), and punctuated it with a bizarre finish of their own when Uehara picked Kolten Wong off 1st Base to finish the game and leave Carlos Beltran standing at home plate.

No theft was involved last night, just the outstanding pitching of Jon Lester and some timely hitting from David Ortiz and David Ross. Lester, who seems to get lost amid the characters dotting the Red Sox roster, came through with his second strong outing in the series, standing toe to toe with Adam Wainwright until Wainwright faltered in the 7th. Lester also gave his bullpen a break, pitching into the 8th and bridging straight to Uehara, who picked up a drama-free 4-out Save.

Even after Boston came back to win the 4th game, conventional logic would have dictated the Cardinals would win Game 5. The Cardinals played exceptionally well at home this season and, of course, it was the last game of the year at home. You'd be hard-pressed to think the Cardinals, who didn't lose a home game in the NLCS, would drop 2 at home in the World Series, but that's what happened. Though before you think it's a demoralizing loss, remember that this is the St. Louis Cardinals we're dealing with and you need to smash them several times in order to kill them.

That being said, having to win two games on the road in front of a Fenway Park crowd that's guaranteed to be whipped into a complete frenzy—particularly given the going rate for tickets to the game—is no easy task. Particularly considering what the Red Sox accomplished just to get to this point.

Smash The Flea

Sunday saw the 49ers travel clear across the Atlantic Ocean to play a football game in London against the Jacksonville Jaguars. No matter the venue, it was clear that the 49ers were superior to the winless Jaguars in all respects, and only a series of catastrophic breakdowns would cause the 49ers to lose the game. This didn't happen. The 49ers went out and smashed the proverbial flea with a sledgehammer, and the end result was a 42-10 49ers rampage.

With the Gnats and Eaglefeathers playing a virtually unwatchable affair on local TV, I was relegated to streaming the game on my phone with KNBR's own Ted Robinson and Eric Davis. The broadcast is less fluffy than the TV call (which featured the wonderful Chris Meyers/Shecky Shenandoah team), and they even played some charming British-style bumpers to lead in and out of commercial breaks. I've mentioned that my luck when streaming games has been somewhat spotty, but that obviously wasn't the case today.

There really wasn't any drama in this game. The 49ers took the opening kickoff and ripped right down the field. Colin Kaepernick hit Bruce Miller (who surprisingly is the 49ers 3rd leading receiver to this point this season) for 43 yards, Frank Gore converted a 4th and 1 and 2 plays later ran through a canyonlike hole that was opened for him by Mike Iupati and Jonathan Goodwin for a 19-yard Touchdown. The next 3 49ers possessions were similarly successful. In succession, Kaepernick ran a read option down the left sideline for a 12-yard score, in a play almost identical to the one he scored on last week in Tennessee, and allowed him to perform his first International "Kaepernicking." Next, Kaepernick moved the 49ers down to the Jacksonville 2 and with the Jaguars selling out on a run, Kap threw over them to Vernon Davis for the score. Finally, Kaepernick took another one in himself on a 9-yard run where Miller and Frank Gore pancaked a few defenders to clear a path. By this point, it was 28-0 and essentially a noncompetitive game.

The Jaguars only particular hope was that they could somehow sustain drives behind Maurice Jones-Drew running and Chad Henne hopefully not making any mistakes. But the 49ers defense barely gave them a chance. Drives for the Jaguars appeared over before they started on multiple occasions, and in one instance, I left the room after the 49ers kicked off and when I came back, the 49ers had the ball again. The Jaguars didn't cross midfield on offense until late in the 2nd Quarter in a drive that culminated in a cosmetic Field Goal.

The Jaguars had a pair of long drives in the 2nd half, both of which ended with the Jaguars failing to convert 4th down opportunities. Their only touchdown happened mostly by accident; a Frank Gore fumble, a play on which he fell before receiving a handoff, gave the Jags a short field and Henne was able to find Mike Brown for the score. Gore responded on the ensuing possession by scoring his 2nd TD of the game and on the following Jacksonville possession, Patrick Willis forced Marcedes Lewis to fumble, and Dan Skuta lived the Linebacker's dream by scooping up the ball and running 47 yards for the game's final Touchdown.

The London games are a rather bizarre setting. I understand why it's done, but it feels somewhat forced. London is a Soccer town and England is a Soccer nation and their interest in American Football is probably limited at best, but then again, the game drew over 85,000 fans and most of them stayed through the end of the game. That said, the crowd appeared to be largely in support of the Jaguars, which baffles me because there appeared to be more Jacksonville fans at Wembley Stadium on Sunday than there are in Jacksonville, Florida (and yet they can't spell the team's name correctly). Who knows. Whatever it is, the NFL didn't exactly send a marquee matchup across the pond, and sure, you don't know how a team will perform when these games are scheduled, but even if the Jaguars weren't 0-7 going into the game, they surely couldn't have been much better than 1-6 or 2-5. The 49ers, at 5-2, were about where you'd expect them to be. The 49ers win was surprising to no one. That they really wiped the Jaguars out at 42-10 is just a testament to a team that's really clicked the last couple of weeks and now goes into their bye on a 5-game winning streak. So, after a week in London (the team traveled directly there following last Sunday's game in Tennessee), the 49ers now get a week off to go home and get over the jet lag before returning to the field on November 10th against the Carolina Panthers.

We're On TV!

Being a 49ers fan in New York can often be frustrating. Rarely do I get the chance to watch them play on TV, unless they play one of the New York teams or are on one of the Nationally televised prime time games. But sometimes, there are odd instances where I happily find that the game is televised here. It usually happens on a day where the Giants or Jets are either on a bye or playing one of the aforementioned Prime Time games themselves. But in most of those cases, the 49ers are bypassed in favor of a game with more "interest," usually involving the Cowboys or Eagles or Broncos or Packers (or, more appropriately, any of the NFL's most masturbatory teams). But sometimes, there are those random weeks where the schedule breaks just right, and certain teams play at certain times, and the 49ers end up being televised in New York. Sunday was one of those days. With the Jets on at 1 and the Gnats playing Monday night, and the Eagles, Cowboys and Packers playing a bit of hopscotch, the 49ers game against the Tennessee Titans ended up being Fox's lone game at 4pm, and thus was televised in New York.

I know the game wasn't televised nationally. Fox usually sends their "A" team, the great Joe Buck and his sidekick Troy Aikman, to the week's marquee matchup. This game featured Fox's "G" team, Chris Meyers and some other weird guy with a deep voice. In fact, I think Chris Meyers intentionally spoke in a voice a few octaves lower than his normal timbre just to fit in. There was also a token disproportionately hot sideline reporter, trying to pull off a pale Cybill Shepherd look. When you're the "G" team, I guess you're just sort of winging it. The broadcast certainly felt that way. Meyers seemed more interested in speaking in his bizarre deep voice, while the color guy kept calling wrong players and making bad jokes and terrible predictions.

This is kind of a long-winded way of saying that the San Francisco 49ers/Tennessee Titans matchup isn't exactly a hotly contested game. The 49ers and Titans, being in different conferences, meet once every 4 years to begin with. They didn't play at all between 1999 and 2005 thanks to realignment, and yesterday was only the 4th time the 49ers have played the Titans at all, since they were the Houston Oilers prior to 1997. The Titans seem to be kind of stuck in the middle of the NFL landscape. Not bad enough to be a punchline, but not quite good enough to be a serious threat. The 49ers, having won 3 in a row, figured to have a relatively easy time of things, and for the most part they did, breaking out to a 24-0 lead en route to a solid 31-17 victory to run their record to 5-2.

It was one of those games where the 49ers were once again slow in getting going on offense, but their defense never allowed the opponent to take advantage of it. A lengthy first drive ended in a Phil Dawson Field Goal, but pinned back at their own goal line on their next possession, the 49ers could only muster a few yards before punting. Colin Kaepernick wasn't playing poorly; in fact, he'd gotten off to a better start in this game than he'd had in several weeks. But it wasn't until the 3rd drive that the 49ers really kicked into gear. Starting at their own 20, Kaepernick spread passes around to Frank Gore, Anquan Boldin and Vernon Davis, and even mixed in a little running of his own. The drive appeared headed for a disappointing end when Kaepernick was intercepted by the notorious assassin Bernard Pollard, but the pick was negated by a penalty on the Titans. Given new life, Kaepernick found himself in the End Zone for the first time this season 3 plays later on a nifty read option rush, where he picked up a block, juked a couple of defenders and raced down the left sideline virtually untouched. He then took a dramatic pause before his first "Kaepernicking" pose of the season.

The 49ers got the ball back quickly, as a Jake Locker pass on the ensuing drive was intercepted by Tramaine Brock. This time, the 49ers raced down the field mostly on the ground, with Kaepernick and Gore sharing the load before Gore punched it in from 1 yard out. This put the 49ers up 17-0 as the game moved to Halftime, with the Titans barely making a dent against the 49ers defense.

The 3rd Quarter was pretty much a continuation of the first two. Gore scored his second TD of the game on the 49ers first possession, which ate up about half the clock in the quarter. The Titans could generate nothing, as the usual suspects, Patrick Willis, Navorro Bowman, Justin Smith et al basically wreaked havoc all afternoon. The Titans didn't even cross the 49ers 45-yard line until Locker hit Nate Washington on a deep bomb at the end of the quarter.

To their credit, the Titans did try to make it interesting. After getting a Field Goal to make the score 24-3, the 49ers, who had moved to a run-heavy attack once they took a big lead, kind of called off the dogs on offense and had begun to put in some backups on defense. The Titans took advantage of this as Locker and Chris Johnson turned a short screen pass into a 66-yard Touchdown. The Titans had an opportunity to get even closer, forcing a punt on the 49ers next possession, however Darius Reynaud, who earlier fair-caught a punt with nobody near him, had the bright idea of not calling a fair catch with Darryl Morris bearing down on him. Reynaud muffed the punt, got his clock cleaned by Morris and the ball ended up getting kicked into the end zone where Kassim Osgood fell on it for a Touchdown. The Titans got an academic late score from old friend Delanie Walker to close out a 31-17 game that probably wasn't as close as the score might lead you to believe.

There was no particular standout performance from anyone in this game. Kaepernick broke out the read-option more, which was good to see, although I have to believe this is one of those things that the 49ers are only going to break out in certain instances. Anquan Boldin had a fine game, making multiple highlight-reel catches, including one in which he basically snatched the ball out of the air with one hand and held it cleanly all the way to the ground, which managed to confuse Chris Meyers. The Special Teams, which is always the least-appreciated unit on the team, continued their usual stellar level of play, particularly out of guys like Anthony Dixon and C.J. Spillman, who continually stifled the hotshot Reynaud from getting any sort of consequential return yardage, in addition to the Osgood TD.

The 49ers have gotten into a good groove, winning 4 consecutive games against 4 teams they should be beating, and the general panic and turmoil surrounding the team after the losses to Seattle and Indy has more or less evaporated and the 49ers have re-proven themselves among the NFL's best teams. Indianapolis has to be considered among this bunch as well, having not only beat the 49ers, but also currently sit as the only team to have beaten Seattle and Denver as well (but the NFL being what it is, they've lost to San Diego), so maybe it's not just them. Next up for the 49ers is a trip to London, where the NFL will be holding its annual Cash Grab International Game against the 0-7 Jacksonville Jaguars. I'm sure this isn't quite what the 49ers had in mind for a road trip, but they went straight from Tennessee to London and are across the pond at the time of this writing, so by time Sunday comes around, they should be well-acclimated. Chris Meyers dropped an offhanded comment at the end of the game yesterday that he'd be making the trip to London as well, so that should speak to how well-regarded these London games are. They're sending one of the league's only winless team (assuming the Gnats don't blow their lead tonight) and the low broadcast team on the totem pole. It seems to me the 49ers may be the only draw to this game, simply because they're showing up.

This Game's Fun

I'd hemmed and hawed a lot over who to pick in the ALCS if only because it pitted a pair of teams that on paper were quite evenly matched. I had to dig a little deeper to arrive at the decision to pick the Red Sox, if only because they're a team built of real grinders, guys who peck and scrape and battle tooth and nail to the end. The Red Sox went out and proved this to a tee in their 6-game series win over the Tigers. Though the Tigers starting pitching proved every bit as good as they're written up to be, the Sox hitters ground them down and eventually forced tight games into the hands of the Tigers excessively shaky bullpen, and ultimately they found ways to prevail.

It was a different hero every day for the Red Sox, which is generally how the most successful teams do it. David Ortiz, who's made a career out of big hits in October, did it last Sunday night, hitting a spectacular game-tying Grand Slam in the 8th inning that sent Torii Hunter flying into the bullpen and setting the stage for Jarrod Saltalamacchia's winning hit in the 9th. In Detroit, the Sox beat Justin Verlander 1-0 on a Mike Napoli Home Run and in Game 5, they relied on their bullpen to carry home a 4-3 victory.

This set the stage for last night's Game 6, a real Major League ballgame that featured a little bit of everything; great pitching, clutch hitting, controversial plays, serious momentum swings and one huge, memorable moment, which was provided by Shane Victorino. I could tell it was that kind of game when it had hit the 3 hour mark in the top of the 7th inning. By this point, Max Scherzer had done just about everything he could to try to carry his team to a 7th game and a shot for Verlander (or, more appropriately, the exact opposite of the complete bed-shitting Clayton Kershaw did on Friday). His offense had done very little in support of him, save for a 2-run single from Victor Martinez. This was promptly followed by the rarely seen 4-4-2 Double Play, where Prince Fielder completely vapor-locked on an infield ground ball, allowing Pedroia to tag out Martinez and then throw home to get Fielder in a rundown, which he ended by pulling a Lucas Duda and belly-flopping not particularly close to 3rd Base. But, despite all that, the Tigers still had a 2-1 lead.

Unfortunately, Scherzer's weakness is that he's only been conditioned for 7 innings or so of work. Jim Leyland has never nursed him further. Plus the Red Sox, as is their wont, had made him throw an awful lot of pitches, and in pressure situations. So, after he walked Xander Bogaerts in the 7th, he was gone, and the game unraveled for the Tigers from there, culminating with Victorino's Grand Slam that ultimately won the game and sent the Red Sox on to the World Series. 

I'd mentioned at the beginning of the ALCS that the Red Sox were sort of unlikeable, and that I get why people don't like them. But I don't consider myself one of them. I'm not a great lover of Boston, and maybe the main reason I like the Red Sox is because of the common dislike of a particular team. But I didn't have a hard time pulling for them against Detroit, and I'm certainly going to be pulling for them in the World Series. They have a similar team to the Cardinals, built around unheralded pitching and hitters that bug the hell out of you. Hell, they've even made me admit appreciation for my main man Shane Victorino, who I've spent years trashing because of how many times he got clutch hits or made important plays when he played for Philly. The difference is, I like it a lot more when he's not doing it for the Phillies. When he hits a Grand Slam and pounds his chest around the bases for the Red Sox, it's OK. He's an emotional guy and that's always been his game, and that's absolutely a double-standard because I hate the Phillies.

That should illustrate the difference between these two teams. A friend said to me after Saturday's game ended that "The Cards look like a team of quiet professionals. The Red Sox look like a team of destiny." The Cardinals seem to have taken on the feel of a particular team I don't like very much, and given that I didn't like the Cardinals much to begin with, it makes me like them even less. The Red Sox play the same kind of game, but you can see them enjoying it. I'm sure that if the Cardinals spent so much time bitching and moaning about the Dodgers, someone will chime in about the bunch of ragamuffins on the Red Sox. Maybe. One of the problems these holier-than-thou teams have is an inability to keep their mouths shut. Sometimes it can backfire. It didn't happen to the Cardinals in the NLCS. But the Red Sox have proven they're a better, headier team than the Dodgers. This will be a really interesting World Series to watch. It's probably going to come down to whatever team blinks first on any given night. But I don't think much guesswork is involved when it comes to who I'm picking: Sox in 7.