October 18, 2007
I don't talk about baseball too much -- I think I've talked about insect overrun of baseball games as much as I've talked about the games themselves lately. But this one's actually about baseball.
For the last half-hour I've been watching the bottom of the fifth inning of the Red Sox-Indians game. Not because there have been a bunch of timeouts, or bad weather, or a bench-clearing brawl (though the Sox would probably appreciate any/all of the above right now). No, I've been watching for half an hour because the Indians are bringing their 12th batter to the plate this inning.
Now, batting around happens fairly often, but the ninth guy up usually makes the third out. I think I've seen ten batters a few times. Twelve is definitely the most I've ever seen. Hopefully the Tribe starter (Byrd) and 'pen can hang on to a 7-0 (oops, leadoff back-to-back-to-back jack for the Sox; 7-3 now... um, guys?) lead.
Update, Wednesday morning: From the tail-end of the mlb.com write-up of Boston's collapse in the fifth:
"You can't really make mistakes right now, especially to these good hitters," Delcarmen said. "I tip my hat to him. I left it up and he took advantage. They won. It kind of [stinks]."
"It kind of [stinks]? You can't say "sucks" in a news article if you're quoting a guy?
