Joe Maddon, once again trying to be the smartest kid on the block, with your fancy glasses and wacky pregame guests and funny haircuts. How dare you bring your closer in during the eighth inning. With runners on base, no less!
First base: Now that's a bad week. Closer John Axford was an important cog in Milwaukee's trek to the NLCS a year ago. After blowing two save chances in early April, he converted his final 43 opportunities.
Before steroids and HGH and the cream and the clear and other substances of superpower magic, we had old-school baseball: You know, stealing signs from center field, corking the bat, spitting on the ball, using the catcher's belt buckle to cut the ball, nail files, watering the dirt around the basepaths if the visiting team had speedy players, rubbing pine tar or other sticky goo on your glove, maybe a little K-Y jelly on the bill of your cap, pitching from six inches in front of the rubber, using superballs in your bat, taping a thumbtack to your index finger, altering the dimensions of the batter's box, tilting the foul lines, or even just a good ol' first baseman yanking a baserunner off the bag in a key moment of a World Series game.
Pitching, defense and three-run home runs? It’s a formula that has worked going back to the days of Earl Weaver and beyond. An inning into Saturday’s game, the Rays had all of that going for them: Designated hitter Luke Scott had already hammered a bomb off Boston's Clay Buchholz to plate a trio of runs, reigning Rookie of the Year Jeremy Hellickson was on the mound, and nobody is more alertly creative and productive on defense than Joe Maddon’s ballclub.
As miserable as the Red Sox have played so far, at least they can look at a lineup that includes Adrian Gonzalez, Kevin Youkilis, Carl Crawford, Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz and know -- eventually -- they’re going to score a lot of runs.
