Get Out of My Ballpark

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so little pressure on the day of a Red Sox playoff game before. Nobody expects anything, but everybody hopes for something. There was a time, back before Theo, Tito and all the rest, when there were no hopes for October at all, and anything we got past that final weekend of the regular season was gravy. Then over the last seven years, things changed. Now we all expect greatness every year.

There is a different feel to it this year. All the pressure is on the Pinstriped Assholes, and their half billion dollars worth of free agent robots. The Sox are being picked to win the AL or the World Series by about seven of the 400,000,000 people that ESPN, Yahoo, SI, and all the rest have prognosticating these playoffs (and one of them is Dave O’Brien who calls games on WEEI, so he doesn’t count). They are all picking the Yanks, the Cardinals or the Angels to win the Series, and many of them don’t even have the Sox making it out of the ALDS.

Tonight, the Sox open the playoffs against the Angels in Anaheim (not LA, Arte you douche), like they have the three times in the past five years. Twice, the Angels had no shot because the Sox were simply a better team, and last season they probably should have won, but this season seems to be a complete crapshoot. Sure the Sox could go out and destroy the Angels, waltz past the Twins (HA!), and sweep the Cards again (netting me a free couch); or this could be a quicker three and out than the Raiders offense. I really don’t know.

This was just a couple of weeks ago.... Seems like forever.

What I do know is that this year’s Sox have been so infuriatingly inconsistent that it makes a crack addict seem reliable. Is this the team that was giving us shades of August 2004 through the last two months of the season? Or will it be the team that fell backwards into the playoffs? Either way, this post season is gravy, just like in the old days of the late 90’s, and I’m going to enjoy the ride either way.

(Check back tomorrow after the Sox lose for my treatise on why the world is ending.)

Go Sox.

Done.