Grinding it out

It wasn't Jon Lester's prettiest win of the season. The lefty was not at his sharpest. He repeatedly fell behind hitters, running too many counts full. He had thrown over 50 pitches through his first three innings.

But he did what aces are supposed to do when they're struggling with their command. He found a way.

He pitched seven innings without giving up an earned run. He gave his team a chance when their post-season horse was sitting on the bench, recovering from a muscle strain. This could be the beginning of the end for the Angels.

The team has now dropped 10 straight post-season tilts with the Sawx, and last night, when the Boston nine were padding their lead, when Masterson, who didn't look sharp, got out of the inning, the Angels were shown sitting on the bench, mouths open and shaking their heads in disbelief.

This wasn't supposed to happen to them. They were healthy, the Sox were not, they had home-field, the Sox did not. They were supposed to wake up this morning up 1-0 in the series. They did not.

Because Lester is beginning to become the ace I argued he could be.

Because Lester is becoming the pitcher the Twins thought he would, the pitcher that would replace Santana in the Twins rotation.

Because the Red Sox are simply better in clutch games.

Putting the "fun" in dysfunction...

"Just win, baby."

Welcome to Raider football.

Define "win."

That press conference that the Crypt Keeper held the other day was a farce. I'm at the point where I pity Raiders fans (and let's face a basic truth about Al Davis, if there were even an iota of truth in his tampering accusation, he would have filed charges with the league over a year ago).

The NFL's answer to Howard Hughes has not only challenged the Ford family for most inept handling of a franchise, but might have past them - at least you can make the argument that the retaining of Millen was an attempt to give the franchise some consistency and give them an opportunity to build something.

Davis gave his coach a quarterback he didn't want, staff he didn't want, and other players he didn't want -the man is trying to make square pegs fit into non-existent holes, and then is blaming the pegs for the failure to fit.

Two quick things...

I don't like to get political at my blog, but I have to see if any of my readers can enlighten me - from what I have gathered, most of the people who support McCain and the Republican Party in the coming election claim to do so on the following two points; that McCain is a better selection for Commander-in-Chief because he was a captain in the Navy, and because Republicans are better in regards to national security issues. Where did these myths start?

McCain was a captain whose career had stalled - the Pentagon didn't feel he was fit to rise higher than captain (he was a pilot - which meant he spent time in a cockpit, but not leading troops into combat - who logged a total of about 20 combat hours and lost five planes) and is now asking the American people to give him a promotion that his bosses didn't believe he qualified for.

As for the second item - where did this myth begin? The Republicans are better with national security issues?

World War I and II, the last two major wars that we came out of in which our leadership is considered to have not made major blunders and handled poorly - Woodrow Wilson, FDR, and Harry S. Truman - all Democrats. Korea and Vietnam, the reigning president at the end of both wars? Eisenhower and Nixon/Ford - Korea wasn't so bad, but Vietnam was an absolute mess.

Now we have a party hell bent on not having the same resolution as Vietnam, in spite of the fact that it's come out that there was no intelligence that supported an invasion, that, by every analysis, stateside security has been weakened by this war, and our troops are being depleted in a place they should never have been in the first place. These are the security experts?

Just because someone is insane, doesn't make them a psychiatrist.

Sorry for the rant.

As for the other item - I'm off for the weekend. I will have my laptop with me, but I don't know if I will be able to blog. It is a working weekend, so I will also have to work to make time to watch game two. I will be in Durham, NC covering the World Beer Festival.

Tough life, huh?