EPSN and Dirt Dogs note that Derek Lowe is on the verge of signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not surprisingly, Derek himself has no clue as to what’s up. “I think I’m taking a physical,” the AP quotes him as saying about today’s trip to LA.
And, every bit as odd, I find myself thinking that of the Red Sox Class of 2004, I’ll probably miss him most.
Yeah, there was something infuriating about the way he’d unravel like a sweater before our eyes, and the way he looked as if he was receiving messages from a distant space station when he should have been focusing on his catcher. But, remarkably, he could always slip into the big pants when we needed him most.
This was certainly the case in the 2004 postseason [although we probably could have put Keith Richards or this guy on the mound for Game Four of the WS, as the Cards seemed to be looking to simply end the pain and dissolve into the October night]. But it was most evident during the 2003 ALDS against Oakland.
In Game One of that series, he was The Incredible Sulk, called into the late innings to keep hope alive, then devastated when the A’s pulled a surprise, two-out, bases-loaded bunt from under their coats, plating the winning run. In the blink of an eye, Lowe was crumbling on the mound while countless east-coasters — who’d suffered into the wee hours with this nightmare of a game — reached for the “Emergency Cyanide Capsule” we previously kept close at hand during Sox postseason play.
But less than a week later, in Game Five, he was D-Lowe, goddamit, all armoured-up and lasers firing and born again hard. In the bottom of the ninth inning, with the bases loaded and the Sox clinging tenaciously to a one-run lead and an improbable comeback so close we could practically press our hands to the TV screen and feel it [a talent I’ve recently mastered watching the DVD of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle], he dropped a filthy sinker by Terrence Long to end it all, and even added an exclamation point – the now-infamous “bite my tweeter” gesture to the Oakland dugout that drove Miguel Tejada to tears.
Up until this year’s model, that was one of the most thrilling moments I’d ever experienced as a Red Sox fan. And it’s easy to overlook in light of the Hindenberg-esque defeat at Yankee Stadium that eventually napalmed our World Series aspirations.
Anyway, I wish D-Lowe success in Los Angeles, if that’s where he actually ends up. It was fun, albeit taxing at times, while it lasted.
In other news, Carlos Beltran can officially order the large cone whenever he feels like it.
