38 Bitches

I'm not a professional baseball player. I've just been watching baseball since I was, well, old enough to watch television. As a child baseball was my life. I had baseball curtains, baseball sheets, baseball everything. My room was covered in Angels memorablia. Hell, to this day it still is.

After game four of the American League Divisional Series between the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Boston Red Sox, after the Angels were eliminated, an ESPN reporter asked John Lackey about how he felt about being eliminated yet again by the Bo Sox. He said "It's way different than last year, we are way better than they are. We lost to a team not as good as us." Curt Schilling responded to Lackey on his blog by saying "I disagree with (Lackey's) comments. The better team ALWAYS wins in October. Like it or not the better team wins, always. I don’t care what your regular season record is, it means zero other than to determine where we are playing." I have to disagree with Mr. Schilling.

In 2007 the Angels were clearly undermatched by the Red Sox. Boston was just better all the way around. Josh Beckett, Manny and Papi, Papelbon, it was just a nightmare series for the Angels who, even if they were healthy, were still far behind Boston. They were the best team in baseball that year, and there was no doubt about it. I bring this up to clear any thoughts of being biased.

This year, however, the Angels were the better team. They added Torii Hunter, Mark Teixeira, and John Garland. Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders came into their own. They won 100 games for the first time in franchise history. It was their year for the taking.

And I'm not saying that Boston was a bad team. On the contrary. I believed these were the two best teams in baseball facing off in the first round of the divisional series. Both Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkolis are MVP canidates. J.D Drew had a monster 2008 after a disappointing 2007, and Jacoby Ellisbury gave Boston what they've been missing since Johnny Damon left. Jon Lester became a viable ace, Diasuke Matsuzaka (albiet overrated) had a great Cy Young caliber season, and Papelbon was dominant as ever. I just thought this year belonged to to the Angels.

But it didn't happen. Howie Kendrick and Erick Aybar crumbled under the pressure, and the Angels bats went cold when they needed a big hit. 43 men left on base? Worse, Mike Scioscia made bad decision after bad decision (beginning with giving Gary Matthews Jr. the start in game one, and culminating with the suicide squeeze in the ninth inning in game four) while Terry Francona looked brilliant. Lester, as I stated to anyone who would listen to me, pitched brilliant, a-la Josh Beckett in 2007, and that was that. But it wasn't like 2007 where the Red Sox dominated. Each game could have gone either way. Vlad Guerrero doesn't get thrown out trying to go first to third, the Angels could win game one. Frankie Rodriguez doesn't serve Drew with an 88 mile an hour change up, the Angels could have carried the momentum into the bottom half of the ninth. Hell, if Boston comes through with the bases loaded in the ninth in game 3, we're not even talking about game four. But the bottom line is I don't feel the better team one. I feel the Angels beat themselves, and the Red Sox took advantage of the plethora of Angel mistakes.

The comments John Lackey made were made right after the Angels had been eliminated. I'm sure he was angry, as he was visibly angry in both his starts, even dropping the f-bomb on national television in game one. I heard afterwards that the commentators were stating that Lackey was showing up his infielders during game four. I don't blame the guy. He pitched his heart out, and he pitched extremely effective (saying he was outpitched by Lester, as Schilling put it, is like saying that you finished second to Michael Phelps in the 400 meter event at the Olympics.) He made two bad pitches the entire series, one to Jason Bay that ended up in the bleachers, and another to Dustin Pedroia that came after Kendrick botched a potential double play ball. (SIDENOTE: if Kendrick does field the ball cleanly, than we aren't talking about the second run scoring because he at least takes care of the lead runner.) It was not Lackey's fault the Angel's lost this series. But he was asked right after the game. What do you expect him to say? "Oh, it's okay?" "We were beat by a better team?" No. The guy had just pitched seven strong innings for the second time in the series only to see his team give him a combined one run of support while he was on the mound. And it wasn't that Lester was THAT dominant (although he was close) it was that the Angels could not capitalize when they needed to. And part of that was Lester's dominance, and part of that was (I believe) the we can't beat the Red Sox mentality the Angels were carrying.

For what it's worth, Schilling had nothing but nice things to say about Lackey, even refering to him as a "nice guy" and a "damn good pitcher." For what it's also worth, Curt is an abraisive, pompous, know-it-all crybaby who has made comments similar to what Lackey said plenty of times. He even acknowledges it in his blog. I don't think he's wrong for what he wrote, that the Angels weren't the better team, I just think he's misinformed and a bit biased. Of course he's going to say the Red Sox, the team that employs him, are the better team. And if the Angels took the season series, wouldn't that, by Schilling's logic, make them the better team? Curt is just fueling the fire that Lackey's comments created.

Final thoughts: Maybe John shouldn't have said what he said, but Schilling needs to keep his mouth shut and focus on rehabbing, not creating media stories. Also, the best team doesn't always come out on top (as was the case in 2003, for example, when the Yankees lost to an upstart Marlins team, or in 2006 when the barely .500 Cardinals beat the Tigers.)