I will say this: you have to give credit to Clay Buchholz for his expert use of subterfuge.
Where other pitchers starting a game in the biggest show on earth, AKA The World Series, might talk about how excited they are to tear things up for their teams, Clay came right out and said, “Well, shit. My arm’s toast, and I’ve got no f#$king idea what I’m capable of.”
See that? Not only genius, but perhaps the best attempt to lull the enemy into a false sense of security since Luke Skywalker surrendered to Jabba in Return of the Jedi. Now the Cardinals are gonna go into tonight’s game figuring they’ll score 10 or 11 runs easy, dulling the “killer instinct” that drives most teams with a chance to go up 3-1 in a World Series.
Unfortunately, to win, we’ll also need to conjure some hits. Especially of the “timely” sort. That hasn’t been coming easy to us and I don’t suspect it will start tonight. Victorino is out with a stiff back so we’ll have Gomes in the line-up as well as Stephen Drew and, whadaya know, our pitcher hits, too. Also, Gomes will be protecting Ortiz in the line-up, so you can just go ahead and erase “The Ortiz Factor” from your playbooks. Salty is finally sitting, which means someone hipped Farrell to the fact that his own “curly haired boyfriend” hasn’t contributed much in the form of offense or defense throughout this postseason.
So, yeah, it looks like a lot of automatic outs for the other team. But I have faith that Clay is hiding a little something up his sleeve. And that our fears will give way to jubilation right around 9:00pm tonight. Buchholz Standard time.
It’s a must-win, people. So let’s go and do it.
