Your Baby Doesn't Love You Anymore

That's right, Roy. It's over.

Well, the Sox came up a bit short last night. They had their chances, most notably in the 8th inning, when Joe Maddon used 5 pitchers to get 3 outs and the Sox left 3 men on base with 0 runs scored. The 9th seemed like an afterthought with the bottom of the Sox lineup batting.

Oh well. I don't feel as bad about it as I might. Maybe because we've already had some fun in the past few years and the Sox have a bunch of nice young players (and a whole lot of money) that will keep them competitive for the foreseeable future.

It's distressing how many runners they leave on base (they had the "advantage" in that department of shame 8-3 last night and left 12 on the night before, although they managed to win that one in spite of it) but the bottom line is that they just got beat by the better team. And it was kinda fun. Except for Games 3 and 4, and the first 6 1/2 innings of Game 5, which were torturous.

I almost would have felt bad for the Rays and their (newfound) fans if they blew this series after the absurd lead they chunked in Game 5. I'm not into schadenfreude. Even for Yankees fans, believe it or not. (Well, maybe a little for Yankees fans.) So the Sox' losing spared me some guilt. But I would have found a way to live with it.

The Rays, as much as I've hated to let the thought creep into my natural-order-loving brain all year, are a really good team and they earned it. Hats off to Maddon and to Matt Garza for pitching a phenomenal game.

Not sure if I'll be taking sides in the World Series. Lots of people want to see the team that beat their team lose to feel some kind of revenge. I've always been more of the opinion that you want that team to go all the way. That way you can say "Well, our guys lost to the champs. It may as well have been the finals."

Unless it's the Yankees, of course.