In 2006, the Tigers went from a 71-91 the previous season to the playoffs. This year, the Rays went from last place at 66-96 to a AL East division crown. The 2006 Tigers took down the Yankees on their way to the World Series. The 2008 Rays held off an epic 3-1 comeback by the Red Sox to reach the World Series. They both went on to lose the World Series in five games, to an NL team I DEFINITELY DID NOT want to see win a championship. Fuck everything.

I’ve mentioned before how I didn’t want the Rays to end up like the Tigers. Maybe I should’ve known history would repeat itself, but I thought they were better. They managed to be on top of the best division in baseball at the end of the regular season. They kept their shit together in Game 7 of the ALCS, when everyone thought they were done (including me). But then their bats went colder than Jose Reyes at the end of the 2007 season.

And that’s my awful segue into how embarrassed the Mets should feel right now. Everybody already hated them, and now the entire NL East is laughing at them. The past two years, they’ve been the prohibitive favorite to win the NL East, and both years they’ve choked in dramatic fashion. Meanwhile, the Phillies have quietly gotten better each year and have now reached the point the Mets have thought they deserved the past few years. Maybe this year the Mets will actually come out with a chip on their shoulder, instead of thinking that have the God-given right to a pennant. I try not to get into this type of intangible shit, but it’s impossible not to if you’ve watched the Mets the past few years. Goddamn it.

Getting back to what just transpired on my television set, I still can’t believe it was real. That wasn’t really the World Series, right? We didn’t just have another shit finale to the season, one which was delayed both by rain and a presidential candidate who already has the election wrapped up. And Brad Lidge did not just have a perfect season. Now I have to hear about Jimmy Rollins the whole offseason. FUCK. ME.

Hey the Knicks are going to be better this season, right?

*looks at basketball scoreboard*

Holy shit! They won! Isiah should try to kill himself and then say it was his daughter more often.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lstDdzedgcE

I put my iPod on shuffle to try to think of a song to post for this week. I came to the realization I have way too much freaking music. 11,000 songs? What the hell is wrong with me? I’d be surprised if I’ve listened to half of them.

Oh, and if you don’t get the title, don’t worry about it. The Tampa Bay Rays manager is some crazy hippie old dude who makes up retarded math equations. I bet he listens to Radiohead.

The Rays won Game 7 of the ALCS 3-1. I like being wrong sometimes.

Almost the entire game I thought the Red Sox were going to win. Dustin Pedroia’s home run in the first inning may have had something to do with that. Even as the Rays held a 3-1 lead, I figured the Sox would find a way back. After the error in the 8th inning — with the middle of the Sox order coming up — I really thought it was over. Yet somehow the Rays managed to stop it from falling apart. Coco Crisp not sliding straight into second base helped.

They deserve the AL pennant. They beat the best. The Red Sox were on their way to becoming the 90′s Yankees of this decade, but this loss signals the end of any dynasty talk. The Rays, at the very least, look like they’ll be competitive for a few years. The AL East is just STACKED.

I’ve said it before, but the Rays better not shit the bed in the World Series. I don’t want this to be another 2006.

And I wonder if Dick Vitale had a heart attack. That’d be awesome.

Edit: Welp, MLB.com has video of it right here. Anddd that doesn’t directly link to the video. Goddamn it, MLB.com. Just find the “Kotsay comes around to score the tying run” video.

I hope you’re not a baseball fan that turned the Rays-Red Sox game off when the score was 7-0 in the 7th inning. You missed the second biggest comeback in playoff history, and I don’t think the 8-run one happened over the course of the last three innings. The Rays bullpen pulled a choke job worthy of the Mets. As for Red Sox fans that left the stadium at the point of desperation: fuck you. You missed your Fat Papi hit one of his patented late-game clutch home runs, and J.D. Drew showing off his MICKEY MANTLE POWER. God, I hate J.D. Drew.

I think Joe Maddon may have had a stroke in the 7th inning while he watched that 7th inning. That’s the only explanation I can come with for how he handled the bullpen. I’ve almost become numb to watching such a trainwreck in motion, after seeing so many the past season and a half, but blowing a seven-run lead in three innings is impressive.

The guys over at fangraphs.com produce a win probability for every game, so you can see just how likely a comeback was at that point:

Who doesn’t love graphs?

Anyhow, the throw that spurred the title of this post occurred in the 8th inning. The Red Sox had the tying run in Mark Kotsay on second base with two outs. Coco Crisp (after an incredible at-bat) hit a line-drive single into right-field. As the Rays’ right-fielder Gross rushed in to field the ball and make the throw home, he had to be no further than 200 feet from plate. Not only that, but Kotsay was JUST rounding third. He was dead. He had to run home in that situation, but he was going to be thrown out by 20 feet. But then the camera cut for the throw, and I watched the ball bounce into the dirt of the infield. It was the most pathetic thing I had ever seen. He better have a torn rotator cuff or something. Making an error on a groundball or making an errant throw up the line is one thing. Throwing the ball straight into the goddamn ground is pretty much inexcuseable. I don’t even know how that’s possible. You don’t forget how to throw. The ball can’t take a bad hop in your hand. You can have a bad grip, but that would cause the ball to sail, not to go into the ground. What the shit.

The Rays better win Game 6, or else we’re going to see a Red Sox-Phillies World Series, and no one wants to see that. Josh Beckett is going for the Red Sox, and everyone seems to be talking about his oblique. Torn, strained, bruised, whatever. I smell Bloody Sock: The Sequel.

Fuck.