When your hopes are resting on the shoulders of Tek and Lugo, sadly, you should prepare yourself to be letdown. But this was a letdown that could have been avoided. In the ninth, when the Sox plated their first run of the afternoon and had the sacks loaded with nobody out, this instantly became a game we had to steal. If for no other reason than to completely suck every last inch of oxygen out of the Stadium stands, requiring Steinbrenner and crew to raise the protective Robo-Dome. Why not pull a suicide squeeze with Coco at the plate? Wouldn’t anything have been better than that obscenely bad third strike swing he made? Why not hit Tek over the head with a sack of flour so that he couldn’t step anywhere near the plate in a situation in which the game was on the line? Why not intercept the envelope of money that clearly passed hands between Joe Giradi and the ump to ensure that they got that absolutely insane strike call on Lugo? You either go all the way with this shit or just fold up the tents in the top of the ninth so we can get back to our beer and hookers that much sooner.
We were thisclose to spoiling Mussina’s day–always a cool thing to do–and staging a comeback that would have, at the very least, resulted in Giradi and half of his batting order being fitted with electro-shock cock rings by Los Bros Steinbrenner.
Instead, we took our foot off their throats, and let ’em live another day. And that sucks.
Whatever. We’ll get ’em tomorrow.
