Pic of the Week

Home plate umpire Jim Joyce had plenty of company
making the safe call on Jonny Gomes in the third inning
of Game Six on Wednesday,

This was a close play, and Jim Joyce got the call right. As he did at third base with the obstruction call that ended Game Three — a call controversial only to those who either don't know baseball's rules or who don't want those rules applied (to the detriment of the Red Sox and/or late in close games).

The Red Sox had very good World Series, which is why they are the champions. Joyce, I think, had an even better Series.

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This concludes the Pic of the Week series for another year.  Click here to review all my selections. There have obviously been some good ones, but my favorite from this year is the one of Torii Hunter tumbling over the outfield wall in vain pursuit of David Ortiz' playoff grand slam.

Game 6: Boston. Strong.

David Ortiz drew four walks (three)
intentional) and scored twice in
Wednesday's World Series clincher.

A baseball season lasts a long time -- a month or more of spring training (more this year with the World Baseball Classic), six months of regular season play, and October's postseason. 

A lot happens in that time. Some we forget almost immediately, some we think we'll remember only to see it fade away, and some sticks.

A lot from this World Series should stick. The bizarre ending of Game 3, when St. Louis got its winning run without the runner reaching home plate; the big bat of David Ortiz; the sturdy pitching of Jon Lester.

And as I think of Ortiz and the 2013 season, I can't help but remember an emotional moment back in April, when the Sox weren't well-regarded as a contender -- remember, they had finished last in the AL East in 2012 -- and Boston was reeling from the Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt. A stressful time indeed.

The Red Sox, of course, traditionally play a morning game on Patriots Day, a state holiday in Massachusetts. The game is scheduled with the intent that it will end in time for the Fenway fans to watch the marathon stream past the ballpark. In practice, with the Sox games typically dragging along, it hasn't worked that way in recent years. Still, there is a connection of long-standing between the Red Sox and the Marathon.

So the bombing happens, and the manhunt begins, and the shootout happens, and one bombing suspect is dead and another wounded and arrested. The Sox come back to Fenway after a road trip and hold a pre-game ceremony, and David Ortiz -- native of the Dominican Republic, naturalized American -- says something blunt and earthy and defiant that captures the moment, and the popular sentiment, perfectly:

This is our fucking city, and nobody gonna dictate our freedom. 

The Red Sox didn't win the pennant and the World Series because of the bombing. They won because they were the best team in the American League and because they played better than their rivals in three short series this month.

But this feels somehow righteous: Ortiz, who gave voice to the larger feeling in April, was the man the Cardinals simply could not deal with in October.

Game 5: A routine Boston win

Boston closer Koji Uehara
and catcher David Ross react
at the end of Monday's game.

Something odd happened in Game 5 Monday night: It was a routine baseball game.

There was no blown call reversed by the convention of umpires.

The winning run did not score on a wild throw.

There was no decisive call of obstruction.

The final out didn't come on a pickoff.

Neither team committed an error.

A rotation mainstay wasn't bought out in relief for a crucial inning.

Heck, the game didn't even last three full hours -- a major rarity for any game involving the Red Sox, and almost impossible in the World Series, given Fox's desire to cram in every possible commercial while inflicting histrionic performances of patriotic songs on its audience.

It was just a nice, normal 3-1 game with two quality starting pitchers. I'd almost forgotten that kind of game.

And now the Red Sox get to go back to their cozy, familiar home grounds needing just one more win to take its third World Series title in 10 seasons.

Games 3 and 4: An even Series

Boston first baseman Mike Napoli leaves the field
after tagging out pinch-runner Kolten Wong to end
Sunday's Game 4.

Two games played in St. Louis, two bizarre endings.

Game Three figures to be famous, or infamous, depending on how one views the outcome. I wrote the Monday print column about the obstruction call that awarded St. Louis the decisive run, so I won't rehash it all here. Suffice it to say that the wonderfully hilarious "Old Hoss Radbourn" Twitter feed summed it up beautifully within seconds of the ruling:

If you can't trip a guy at third base then I weep for America.
— Old Hoss Radbourn (@OldHossRadbourn) October 27, 2013

There still, however, remain nitwits like Ron Coomer — that he actually gets paid to "analyze" baseball is beyond comprehension — insisting it was a bad call. No, it was the right call. It was a bad play by Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Had Allan Craig not been tripped, he would have scored on Saltalamacchia's wild throw. He did trip, and the umpires awarded him the run. Which is as it should be, and which is as will always happen on such a play. (Coomer, a former third baseman, is perhaps identifying too deeply with Will Middlebrooks, the third baseman who was put in a hopeless position by his catcher.)

The Cardinals returned the favor on Sunday, albeit less crucially, when rookie Kolten Wong, pinch-running in the ninth down two runs, got picked off first base. As one of my brothers was prone to saying back in the day, dum with a capital M. His run was only important if other Cardinals could score also, so why take any sort of chance?

It was a sizable mental mistake, but even if Wong hadn't gotten picked off, the Cardinals were likely to lose.

So the Series is even, two games apiece, and one thing we know for sure: There will be a Game Six in Boston, and the home plate umpire for that game will be Jim Joyce — the umpire who made the obstruction call in Game Three. I predict the Fenway fans will continue to embarrass themselves.

Game 2: Ex-Twins rise and fall

Craig Breslow threw 13 pitches in his disastrous
one-third of an inning Thursday, just six for strikes.

There are two former Twins involved in this World Series, and both play for the Boston Red Sox.

David Ortiz, of course, is Boston's DH, cleanup hitter and unofficial face of the franchise. Craig Breslow, left-handed reliever, is one of the bullpen arms manager John Farrell relies on.

On Thursday night, Ortiz homered in the sixth inning to give Boston a 2-1 lead in Game 2. In the top of the seventh, Breslow came in with two on and one out; he allowed a double steal, yielded a walk, gave up a sac fly to tie the game, committed a throwing error to put St. Louis ahead, and allowed a single to plate yet another run.

And that was all St. Louis needed, because Boston got nothing more. John Lackey is the official losing pitcher, but Breslow — who had a terrific regular season (5-2, 1.81) and had not allowed a run in seven innings in the playoffs — should bear more of the blame.

Breslow has a 2.82 career ERA, slightly better than the 2.89 mark he put up with the Twins in 2008-09 before they blundered by putting him on waivers. I have long believed (and frequently written) that the Twins lost out on the 2008 division title because Ron Gardenhire wouldn't use Breslow in game situations. I've never understood why Gardenhire didn't trust Breslow more, or why Breslow had such a short leash in '09.

A familiar sight over the years: David Ortiz
gestures to the sky as he reaches home
plate after a home run.

More Twins fan complain about how the Twins gave up on Ortiz than about the Breslow fiasco, but it's worth remembering that when the Twins cut Ortiz loose after the 2002 season, nobody wanted him. He cleared waivers and signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox just before spring training began.

Ortiz has fueled the second-guessing over the years by criticizing Tom Kelly in particular and the Minnesota organization in general for insisting that he learn to hit to left field. In the Ortiz version of history, he got to Boston and the Sox let him pull the ball, and the rest is baseball history.

It's not that simple, and Thursday's home run — hit to left field, over the Green Monster — is a good example. Ortiz has become a legend in large part because he's not simply a pull hitter. He actively looks to go the other way, especially in Fenway. The cozy old yard has long been a boon to lefties with that approach, and Ortiz realistically should be grateful he encountered Kelly's philosophy in his formative years. (And perhaps he is, and clings to the slight of being cut loose as incentive.)

There are valid grounds to criticize how the Twins handled Ortiz, specifically the decision that he wasn't a good enough defensive player to DH. Boston made him a full-time designated hitter; that's something the Twins were unwilling to do.

Would Ortiz have become a star had the Twins stuck with him? He has a career slash line of .313/.409/.591 in Fenway; in all other games, his slash line is .268/.361/.519. That's certainly good enough to play, but not the stuff of legends.

Game 1: Sloppy defense and phantom calls

How not to turn the double play, by Pete Kozma.

It sure didn't take long for the St. Louis Cardinals to make my World Series prediction look silly.

St. Louis displayed the worst infield defense I've seen since the Twins dumped Tsuyoshi Nishioka. Just about everybody had a hand in it, or an iron glove:

• Shortstop Pete Kozma failed to catch the initial throw on what should have been an inning-ending double play. Despite the worst efforts of second-base ump Dana DeMuth, the Cards got nothing out of it. The Red Sox turned it into three runs.
• Pitcher Adam Wainwright and catcher Yadier Molina talked each other out of catching a routine popup. (In an awe-inspiring display of incompetence, the official scorer deemed it a single for Stephen Drew. Apparently the scorers have decided to ignore the part of the definition of error that says the play can be made "with ordinary effort." There was extraordinary lack of effort on Wainwright's part.)
• Third baseman David Freese displayed less range than Trevor Plouffe on an RBI single. The range of some third basemen is described as "a step and a dive." Freese had neither.
• Later in the game, Freese lollypopped a throw on a routine grounder. It bounced before reaching first baseman Matt Adams, and Adams channeled his inner Prince Fielder. Poor throw, worse scoop. Error goes to Freese, but Adams truly made the lesser play.

How not to catch a pop up, by
Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina.

I didn't notice second baseman Matt Carpenter bollix a play, but there's time.

To make a weak defense of my prediction (which would still be stronger than the Cardinals' defense), it was based on the notion that the Cardinals pitching would handle the Red Sox hitters. Wainwright was more effective than his line (five innings, three earned runs). But one of the misplays was his own fault, and of course Carlos Beltran saved him a lot of runs with his catch off David Ortiz.

Most of the attention has gone to the first Kozma error (he was charged with another) because DeMuth blew the initial call, which the rest of the umpiring crew overturned. It is my belief – which I voiced last night on Twitter — that underlying the bad call is the reflexive habit of giving the pivotman credit for the out at second base. Umpires routinely rule that an infielder dropped the ball during the transfer. Ball hits glove, catch is made — that's the way umps call it, and that's why DeMuth ruled the way he did.

Ball-hits-glove-equals-catch is the way umps make the call at first base, but the first baseman at least has to hang on to the ball. The middle infielder trying to turn two is hurrying not only to get a throw off, but to avoid the oncoming baserunner as well. This phantom call, much like that of the "neighborhood play," may be an umpiring concession to player safety.

It's understandable. But that doesn't mean I like it.

A quick World Series prediction

Fenway Park is gussied up for the World Series, which
open there tonight.

I don't particularly like either of the teams playing in the World Series this year. I don't have a rooting interest in this matchup.

But I recognize this: The best teams in their respective leagues are playing for the championship. That doesn't happen every year. It didn't happen every year when there were just two divisions per league — the 1987 Twins are testimony to that fact — and it has rarely happened in the wild card era.

So kudos to the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals. Despite the pitfalls built by Commissioner Bud at the behest of TV to create artifical suspense, they got to the showcase.

So who wins? I think St. Louis does.

I'll boil it down to this simple matchup: The Detroit Tigers starters demonstrated in the previous round that power arms overmatch much of the Red Sox lineup. The Cardinals have some power arms in their rotation. Unlike the Tigers, the Cardinals have power arms in the bullpen to boot. The Sox survived the Tigers series by outlasting the Detroit starters and preying on the Detroit relievers. That isn't likely to work against the Cardinals.

The conventional wisdom has this being an evenly-matched series that will go seven games. Maybe it will. But I think it might be over in St. Louis.

Pic of the Week

Torii Hunter tumbles over the right field wall in
Fenway Park in vain pursuit of David Ortiz's
grand slam in Game 2 of the ALCS.

Pic of the Week? Pic of the Year, really, at least as far as baseball is concerned. Hunter's legs, the cop's arms...

What struck me, really, about the play was that it was very much the kind of play that made Hunter famous more than a decade ago — charging the wall to take a home run away. But this one he overran — as we all saw on the replays, he was going to his right to intercept the ball, then had to reach to his left at the wall.

He just missed it. Excruciatingly close. And, of course, had he caught that ball, the Tigers probably — almost certainly — win that game. And they would have taken a 2-0 lead in the series, and who knows what might have followed that. Instead, the Sox evened the series, and today they are champions of the American League and headed to the World Series.

Hunter's been a right fielder for a few years because first the Angels and now the Tigers have younger legs for center field. The advanced defensive metrics aren't very kind to him at this point in his career; Baseball Info Systems estimates that he cost the Tigers 10 runs (approximately one win) with his defense this season.

Maybe the young Hunter would have made that catch. But then, the young Hunter would have been playing center field, not right.

The Yasiel Puig Rorschach test

Yasiel Puig misplays a base hit in the fifth inning
Friday night for his second error of the game.

The Los Angeles Dodgers played a really bad, no-good, horsebleep, rotten game on Friday night. Yasiel Puig was part of the problem.

So was just about everybody who took the field for L.A. — the Dodgers got just two hits, and likely Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw was ineffective — but Puig made some early and obvious mistakes in the field as the Cardinals jumped to a fat lead and carried away the NL pennant.

Had Puig played a perfectly clean game in the field, the Dodgers would still have lost Game 6, and with it the National League Championship Series. He didn't play a clean game. And because he is who he is, it was noticed.

Puig spent the season in the spotlight — his controversial contract as a Cuban defector from the free-spending Dodgers; his dominating spring training; his call-up in early June; his .391 batting average at the All-Star break; his .273 batting average after the break. He came to the Dodgers when the team was in the basement; the team's emergence as the power in the NL West largely coincided with his arrival.

His admirers love his gusto, his enthusiasm, his exposed emotions on the field. His detractors deride his frequent mental errors and, yes, his exposed emotions on the field.

Puig is a rare talent, somewhat reminiscent of Bo Jackson. Jackson did things we'd never seen — and could also look like he'd never seen a baseball game. For all his magnificent talent, Jackson was never a truly great baseball player. A great player doesn't just do one spectacular thing a week. He grinds out good play six or seven days a week and mixes in the did-you-see-that stuff.

Puig might get to that point someday. He's not there now.

The reaction to this man and his emergence was been interesting. There are the old-schoolers — self-righteous "protectors of the game"— who want him reined in and forced into a cookie-cutter mold. On the opposite side are his defenders, who often come from a sabermetric camp that routinely scoffs at talk of "doing the little things right." They frequently come off as having decided that chronically missing the cutoff man is no problem — and that any mention of Puig's blunders borders on ethnic insensitivity.

People look at Puig, and see what they want to see. An out-of-control "wild horse" on one hand, a refutation of stodgy baseball tradition on the other. It all says more about the viewer than about Puig.

Puig isn't a problem. He's a challenge. For the Dodgers, the challenge is to get him to refine his play, to strip out the miscues while keeping the passion and aggressiveness. For the rest of the league, the challenge is to cope with the talent he brings to bear.

Everything else is just nonsense.

The aces are falling

Adam Wainwright shut down the Pirates to clinch the
Division series for St. Louis, but he couldn't beat the
Dodgers in Game Three of the NLCS.

Aces ruled in the four Division Series. In the two League Championship Series, not so much.

There have been nine games played so far (five in the NLCS, four in the ALCS), which means there have been 18 starts. Six of those starts have been made by pitchers who have won Cy Young Awards (Zach Greinke, Clayton Kershaw, Jake Peavy, Justin Verlander) or who are about to (Max Scherzer). Peavy, whose Cy dates to 2007, isn't what he once was, but even if we leave him out there's Adam Wainwright, who hasn't won the award but has had three seasons in which he could have. None of those starts have been against each other.

Greinke, Kershaw, Scherzer, Verlander, Wainwright. An impressive set of pitchers there. And their teams have gone 1-5 in their starts. The Dodgers got a win out of Greinke's start Wednesday. If you want to include Peavy, the teams are 1-6 with the big gun arms. If you want to include Jon Lester, the best of the Red Sox rotation — a fine pitcher but not quite on the level of the five names who led this paragraph — the teams are 1-7.

It isn't that the aces have pitched poorly. Verlander and Scherzer allowed just one run each, but the Tigers got shut out in Verlander's start and their bullpen imploded in Scherzer's. Kershaw (one run allowed) and Wainwright (two runs) were shut out in their starts, as was Lester (one run).

It's just been two series dominated not by the established aces but by the lesser names. Greinke got the win in his second time around; we'll see if that holds for the other stars as they begin to repeat the rotation cycle.

Contemplating a bullpen meltdown

Beginning the meltdown: Jim Leyland
sends Jose Veras back to the dughout and
awaits the arrival of Drew Smyly.

Back in 2008, when this blog was on a different and far less useful (or searchable) platform on the Free Press website, I started tracking the Twins' multi-pitcher bullpen meltdowns.

Do you remember that season? The Twins wound up losing the division title in a Game 163, but had the bullpen not coughed up a number of big leads, that game wouldn't have been necessary. I can't readily find my tally from that season, but I believe the Twins lost at least four games that year when the starter left with at least a three-run lead and at least three relievers combined to allow a crooked number inning.

The frustration of that season reverberated Sunday night as the Tigers bullpen melted down in the eighth inning. Four relievers combined for 25 pitches and four runs in that frame as Jim Leyland searched for the outs he needed:

• Jose Veras got Stephen Drew to ground out, then allowed a double to Will Middlebrooks.
• Drew Smyly entered, walked Jacoby Ellsbury.
• Al Alburquerque entered, struck out Shane Victorino, then allowed a single to Dustin Pedroia.
• Joaquin Benoit entered, gave up a home run to David Ortiz.

Enter pitcher No. 5 for the game, and No. 4 for the
eighth inning. Exit, one pitch later, the lead.

And a 5-1 lead turned into a 5-5 tie.

All this matchup playing pretty much follows current managerial convention, except that I doubt that in the regular season Leyland would have used Benoit, his closer, to try to get that last out. Regular-season Leyland might have deployed Phil Coke instead (even though Coke isn't really a lefty killer and Benoit actually has better numbers against lefties.)

It all reminded me, as I say, of Ron Gardenhire's struggles in 2008 (which were, frankly, somewhat self-inflicted; Gardy simply would not use Craig Breslow in game situations and spent months trying to get big outs from Brian Bass, who had no big outs in him).

But it also reminded me of how much the game has changed since I started my fandom in 1969. Managers of my youth didn't indulge in this kind of pitcher shuffling.

In the baseball of my youth — even the baseball of my young adulthood — Max Scherzer doesn't come out of the game after seven innings. Two hits and one run allowed in seven innings? Managers in the 1970s and long into the 1980s would have kept him in the game. I can't imagine Earl Weaver or Walter Alston pulling a 21-game winner pre-emptively like that. They may or may not have been aware of pitch counts (Scherzer was at 108), but they didn't manage with that in the forefront of their minds.

And even if they had felt it best to go to the pen, they wouldn't have made repeated moves. Most likely Benoit, as the best reliever on the staff, would have gotten the call and told to get six outs.

This stuff didn't become managerial convention until the late 1980s and early '90s. The managers who did the most to make it convention were Tony LaRussa and ... yes, LaRussa's buddy, Jim Leyland, who was then managing the Pirates.

If Leyland appeared a slave to managerial convention Sunday night, it's appropriate. He helped create that convention more than 20 years ago.

Pic of the Week

Detroit's Anibel Sanchez celebrates
after escaping a bases-loaded jam in
the sixth inning with his 116th
and final pitch.

I said in the Saturday morning post that I was rooting for the Tigers over the Red Sox, and I suppose I am, but my heart's not really in it.

One way I know that is how relieved I felt when Daniel Nova got his single in the ninth inning to break up a five-pitcher no-hitter. Had Joaquin Benoit finished off the "gem," it would have been one of the ugliest no-nos ever.

I reflected on Twitter during the seventh inning that 10 years ago, Anibel Sanchez would almost certainly have continued pitching, but not in today's game. Sanchez at that point had thrown 116 pitches  — 66 strikes, 50 balls, which is not an impressive ratio.

Jim Leyland made the right move on many levels in pulling Sanchez. I suppose there are some who think he should have left his starter in to pursue the no-hitter, but I certainly didn't see any criticism on my Twitter feed. If anything, I got a sense that people felt Leyland should have pulled Sanchez in the sixth, that the Detroit manager had gotten away with one by letting Sanchez get out of his own jam.

It seemed pretty obvious that from reaction after striking out Stephen Drew to end the sixth that Sanchez knew that was his final inning. Chicken or the egg: Did Leyland pull Sanchez because Sanchez expected to be pulled, or did Sanchez expect to be pulled because he knows that's what Leyland would do in that situation? My guess is the latter.

Picking a rooting interest

Zach Greinke, who went eight innings for the Dodgers
on Friday in Game One of the NLCS, is one reason to root
for Los Angeles. There aren't many.

I can't complain about the quality of the four teams standing in the baseball playoffs. There's not a wild-card pretender left in the field, and there's a good case to be made for any of the four as the best team in baseball.

There's just not a team left I really want to root for.

The route espoused on Twitter earlier in the week by friend of the blog Jim Crikket — that he'd stop paying attention — isn't feasible for me. Crikket likes football, or at least some specific teams; I'd just as soon the whole sport went away. There's only so many baseball games left to 2013 (maximum now of 19 to be played). I'm not going to ignore them.

So I here try to pick the lesser of the evils:

Los Angeles Dodgers

Reasons to root for: Zach Greinke has been one of my favorite pitchers to watch since before he became a star. Vin Scully, the 85-year-old broadcasting legend, made the journey to St. Louis to do the games on Dodger radio (it's not in sync with the TV feed, but it's still an improvement over the TBS blather).

Ex-Twins: Nick Punto is on the active roster; Drew Butera is inactive.

Reasons to root against: It's Los Angeles, and one thing I've become increasingly certain of in 55 years of life is that little good comes from L.A. Biggest payroll in the game, and from all indications the new ownership intends to step it up further. Tommy Lasorda's still connected with the franchise.

St. Louis Cardinals

Reasons to root for: Midwestern city. In many ways, a model operation, fixing problems with home grown solutions. The Cards let Albert Pujols walk and got better.

Ex-Twins: None anywhere. Closest I can see is that reserve infielder Kolten Wong was drafted by the Twins as a high schooler and went to college instead.

Reasons to root against: Still soiled to some extent by Tony LaRussa's borderline insane belligerence. I've grown weary of the smug puffery about "the best fans in baseball." That they feel it necessary to repeat the claim ad nauseum suggests they doubt it.

Boston Red Sox

Reasons to root for: I need more time to come up with an active reason to root for them. Not being the New York Yankees is no longer enough, and the long drought without a World Series title is a thing of the past. OK: Bill James is part of the baseball operations. Best I can do.

First baseman Mike Napoli displays one
of the more unkempt beards on
the Boston roster.

Ex-Twins: David Ortiz in the starting lineup, Craig Breslow in the bullpen.

Reasons to root against: The untrimmed beards. "Sweet Caroline." The chronic smear campaigns against players and managers on their way of out of town. The spending. The obvious organizational ambition to be as unlikeable as the Yankees.

Detroit Tigers

Reasons to root for: Midwestern city. The hope, probably in vain, that if he wins a World Series title that aging owner Mike Ilitch will scale back the spending to a level that would appear economically sustainable. Miguel Cabrera is the best hitter in baseball; Justin Verlander is the best pitcher in baseball. Prince Fielder recently took a nacho from a fan's tray after chasing a foul ball.

Ex-Twins: Torii Hunter

Reasons to root against: Force of habit as a Twins fan. Jhonny Peralta was part of the Biogensis steroid scandal (and upon his return from his 50-game suspension hit a crucial, if disputed, home run against the Athletics in the ALDS). Cheater!

Conclusion

Tigers, Cardinals, Red Sox, Dodgers in that order. 

Into the postseason

David Price and catcher Jose Molina
celebrate after Game 163.

The official postseason begins in a few hours as I compose and post this, last night's Game 163 notwithstanding. (And a marvelous performance by Tampa Bay's David Price it was, a complete-game takedown of the Texas Rangers.)

What we get first, of course, are a pair of win-or-go-home wild card games. Tonight, Cincinnati at Pittsburgh; Wednesday, Tampa Bay at Cleveland. My thoughts:

NL: My rooting interest here is easy. The Pirates have Francisco Liriano starting tonight and presumably Justin Morneau at first base. The Reds have Dusty Baker as their manager and a fan base/media too dimwitted to comprehend the brilliance of Joey Votto. (The Votto bashing in the Rhineland is much akin to the Mauer carping here.)

So I'm rooting for Pittsburgh. But I think Cincy is going to win, because I don't trust Liriano to keep his composure under this spotlight. I hope I'm wrong. Liriano certainly had a superb year.

AL: I'll root for Cleveland, with misgivings. I would love to root for the low-budget Rays, who are testimony for the theory that tight budgets can be a blessing for sharp management; if you haven't money to burn, you don't make expensive mistakes. Parsimony has freed the Rays to make wise moves rather than splashy ones.

But the latest market inefficiency exploited by the Rays, to be blunt, is low-life scum. Tampa Bay's roster is dotted with people I wouldn't want hanging around, starting with convicted sex offender and bullpen piece Josh Lueke and moving on through the likes of Delmon Young, Yunel Escobar and Luke Scott. Cheering for these guys (and I very well may at some point this month if they move on)  will make me feel a bit slimy.

As for the game: Both managers are putting their team's season in the hand of talented but inexperienced starters — Alex Cobb for the Rays, Danny Salazar for the Tribe. A very intriguing matchup.

My sense is that Tampa Bay has the better team, so I'll pick the Rays to win Wednesday. But in one game, anything can happen.