Sports Redux: The Angels Hate Us

Well, not us as in Bostonist and its beloved readers. But the Angels hate coming here once the first fall wind blows. They can barely win a playoff game here to save their lives, and lost their second straight at Fenway with a sour taste in their mouths.

We'll pick it up in the ninth, the Sox having alread come back from 3-0 down with a five-run sixth inning, and the Angels having just gone up 8-7 on a parade of singles against Daniel Bard. Anaheimorwhatever closer Brian Fuentes got two quick outs, then promptly loaded the bases on a walk and two infield hits. One of those infield hits was by Jed Lowrie, who pinch-hit for Dusty Brown. Then came Nick Green, pinch-hitting for Casey Kotchman. In other words, Terry Francona used Lowrie (.158) and Nick Green (.236) as pinch hitters. We won't blame you if you want to use those numbers to buy lottery tickets today.

Green, on a hurt leg, took two strikes from Fuentes. Fans started packing their souvenirs. But here's where the Angels started making the faces seen above, because a couple of the next pitches were...well....questionable. One could have easily been a strike, one was a checked swing that the umpire felt was checked. The Angels disagreed. Green said afterwards that he was in too much pain to really swing all the way around. Have we mentioned this has been the weirdest Red Sox season in forever? He did manage to foul some off before drawing ball four, which got the Angels howling and Mike Scioscia looking around the dugout for a gun.

So the game was tied, and Alex Gonzalez (that's three shortstops batting in a row, if you lost count) blooped the game-winning single into left. The fans went wild, the Sox jumped up and down, and the Angels cried out to the heavens and the umpires. And then the press. "Especially here and some other places, they seem timid to make calls," said Fuentes. "What was the count at the end, 3-4 to Green?," mused Scioscia, who now surely has even more worse memories of Boston than he does of his time in Springfield.

The only Sox reaction we need to know is Francona's: ""I was holding my breath the last two at-bats, just hoping for a break or hoping for something good to happen, and we got it." Maybe today he'll use Matsuzaka, Paul Byrd or Wally as a pinch-hitter and see if his good luck will continue.

And since nobody does knee-jerk reactions like Dan Shaughnessy, we're suddenly a lock for the World Series. We're almost certainly headed for a first-round series with the Angels. And they're not confident. Because they hate us.