Results tagged “alcs”

"It’s the only team that has the word ‘England’ in it," joked Alastair Kirkwood, the managing director of NFL UK. Ah, so that's why the Patriots had to spend last night flying across the Atlantic to get ready for Sunday's game against the Bucs in London.

The Patriots made a lot of roster moves yesterday. A LOT. To the point where we wonder if (a) Bill Belichick wasn't happy with the 59-0 win on Sunday, or (b) they were worried about jettisoning some extra weight for the team flight to London this week. Officially gone are TE Michael Matthews and WR Joey Galloway, who was handed his walking papers and promptly dropped them. Not gone long enough to be forgotten were linebackers Eric Alexander and Tully Banta-Cain, who were released and then promptly resigned, possibly for paperwork reasons. "There’s a lot of different procedures and rules, and I don’t even know if I understand them all," said Belichick, who's a lot more concerned right now with puffing up the 0-6 Buccaneers in his players' minds to make them think the Bucs are the second coming of the '66 Packers.

After starting the year with a 2-3-0 record that, quite possibly, looked worse than the actual record did, the Bruins left Boston looking to play better hockey. Coach Claude Julien actually said it's not that bad. Bostonist will just agree to disagree. One quick trip to Dallas and a complete 3-0 victory later over the Stars, and all is agreeable to Coach Julien and Bostonist. Call us crazy if you wish, but some Bruins hockey was on display in the first two periods. Marc Savard asserted himself with two goals and Patrice Bergeron added the third score. Tim Thomas turned back all 27 Dallas shots for his first shutout of 2009-10.

So much for that. After the rousing Game Five comeback and the solid Game Six win, you can understand why we thought the experience and the mental toughness of the Sox would win out over the youth and the big dreams of the Rays. And, if the Sox had brought their bats to Tropicana Field last night, the story may well have ended the way we wanted it to.

Well. This is fun, isn't it?

Much as we respect what Jonathan Papelbon is able to do on a mound -- and the way the guy knows how to celebrate -- we're going to call shenanigans on a remark he made Friday down in Florida.

If watching the Tampa Bay Rays score 29 runs to the Red Sox' 5 over the course of two games and six and half innings weren't discouraging enough to watch on television this postseason, imagine the fans at Fenway Park.

Here, in the Bostonist confessional, it's OK to be honest. Did you give up last night? Did you see Daisuke get rocked for five early runs, (and Delcarmen for two more) look at the anemic Sox lineup, and think, "I don't need this agony and misery tonight"?

You want to look on the bright side? OK, we'll play along. The Red Sox have a seven game ALCS winning streak when faced with elimination. There, we said it. Now all they have to do is get a sterling effort from Dice-K tonight, credible efforts from their other shellshocked pitchers, and some semblance of a competent offense, and the Sox can maybe run that streak up to ten.

Is history going to repeat itself? Can the button-down boys of '08 remember what happened last year, and four years ago? Is Kevin Millar available for an inspirational speech/booze luge?

Well...forget 18-1. The Patriots were chewed up, spit out, massacred and other violent verbs last night in San Diego, as the Chargers finally figured out how to beat the Pats (play them in October, without Tom Brady) and romped to a 30-10 win that really didn't even seem that close.

If you made it through last night, go ahead on Monday (or Tuesday) and tell your boss you put in extra hours and deserve time-and-a-half. The Sox and Rays played for six and a half hours, eleven innings, time enough for players to get in and out of slumps, and almost time enough to forget that Josh Beckett's pitching has become a big red flashing question mark.

In Bill Simmons' epic mailbag today, he dreams of a Manny/Sox World Series, which is great stuff, but there's this tidbit which we're hoping to help spread far and wide:

It wasn't one for the history books. But the Bruins, while integrating some new faces and welcoming back some old ones, got the better of Colorado and opened the 08-09 season with a 5-4 win.

On the way to Tropicana Field, Terry Francona announced his starting rotation for the ALCS! And it's...a continuation of the rotation from the first round. That was anticlimactic. Daisuke will start Game One in St. Petersburg, Beckett Game Two, and Lester and Wakefield will take the first two games in Boston. Tito says he has equal confidence in all three of his big guns (even after Beckett's stinkeroo last week), and says the order doesn't matter as long as they all potentially get to start twice. The man knows what he's doing.

We wanted the Red Sox to keep that door wedged shut against the Angels on Sunday night, but those pesky California types managed to crack the door open a smidge. While the team threatened again during Game 4 activity at Fenway Park on Monday night, the Red Sox, led by Heroes of the Night Jon Lester and Jed Lowrie, slammed the door shut with a 3-2 walkoff victory, putting a sudden end to a huge Angels season. Anaheim's sensational season is admirable, but it was Boston who got the three October victories that counted and earned the right to keep the postseason party raging on the Fenway grass.