THE RANT: DEJA-VU ALL OVER AGAIN?

I have not been to cnnsi.com, espn.com, deadspin or any other sports website today. I have not watched ESPN, Fox Sports, NESN, Oxygen or any other wonderful cable network this morning. I have not read the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, The New York Times, the St.Petersburg times or the Herald-Journal. To sum up, I am basically saying I have not had any contact with the outside world in regards to the ALCS. And do you know why? No its not cause I'm a Red Sox fan, which I am, but rather because I already know everything that'll be written about the current ALCS.

You see many of the articles will highlight the fact the Red Sox have been in this situation before. Twice before actually. In both 2004 and 2007, two years in which the Sawx won the World Series, they had to surmount, what many believed to be insurmountable odds, to get there. The similarities are striking. In last year's ALCS, the Sawx took Game 1, then lost an extra inning Game 2 when they had to throw the back of the bullpen. Sound familiar? After losing the next 2 games they rattled off 3 straight wins against the Indians and advanced to the World Series. And of course I'm sure most of you remember the '04 ALCS against the Yankees, right? After getting embarrassed 19-8, at home, to go down 3-0 in the best-of-seven series, the Sawx won four straight to advance to the World Series. And here we are again.

The Sawx, once again, find themselves down 3-1. This time to the young, fiesty, upstart, handsome Rays of Tampa. Their backs, once again, up against the proverbial wall. But how similar are the situations, really? Let's take a look:

• We all know the Sawx were favored in both '04 and '07. Not in '08. They have been chasing the Rays pretty much all of the second half.
• In '04 and '07 Big Papi was Mr. Clutch, Mr.October, Mr. Sparkle! But not the case in '08, hitless thus far in the LCS, as Red Sox Nation eagerly awaits for the real Big Papi to please stand up.
• In '04 and '07 the Sawx were well oiled machines, firing on all cylinders. This time around, according to Jason Bay, "We're just not firing on all cylinders right now."
  
• The '04 and '07 Sawx were healthy (with, of course, the exception of Curt Schilling). This year Papi is nursing a wrist, Mike Lowell is not even on the active roster, JD Drew has been hobbled, and Josh Beckett, who has been a dominant postseason pitcher in the past, is nursing an oblique. That's a Frank Thomas! Big Hurt? No one?
  
• In '04 the the Yankees were flat, and did not gel as a team. The Rays don't have that problem. They are a cohesive unit of excitement!
• The '07 Indians just fell apart, blamed partly on inexperience, and being young'uns. Now the Rays are for the most part young and inexperienced. But unlike the Indians, the Rays have now faced the Sawx 22 times in '08. Meaning they know the Sawx, and know them well. Unlike the Indians of '07, the Rays won, maybe the toughest division (only one team did not finish over .500) in baseball. In other words, the Rays have gained experience against the best.

The bottom line here is this, even though the Red Sox have managed to comeback, against the odds, in the past to get to the World Series, it does not mean it will hold true again. Its a different team and just because it happened before doesn't mean it'll happen again. The Red Sox went 86 years between championships. It was a given that they would collapse in the end, because that had been their way ever since they sent some lady, Baby Ruth I think was her name, to the hated Yankees. But lo' and behold, they came back against the Yankees. They had in essence exorcised their demons, but this years Rays have ditched the devil.

All those historical numbers, stats and other ballyhoo is relevant, but only to a point. Let's cliche it out:

• To the Rays: those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.
• To Red Sox Nation: Sooner or later every good thing, comes to an end.
• The Sawx are down but not out.
• The Rays are just gonna play their game, and try and knock the Sawx off.
  
• The Sawx will just have to take it one game at a time.
• The Rays are not gonna take anything for granted.
• Both teams respect the other and know what they are capable of.
• Both teams are just gonna try and stay loose.
• Every cloud has a silver lining.
• The Rays want to prove they're for real.
• The Red Sox want to make history again
  
• That's the way the cookie crumbles.
• Every dog has its day.
• You can't script October!

There! Now I have saved you reading every single article about the ALCS. Now you have more time to get your Seven Mary Three cover band!

THE RANT: OVERRATED THY NAME IS K-ROD

Every now and then here at "Bitterness" we like to rage against the machine! The "Machine" says use Times Roman as your preferred font, we mix up and come at you in Verdana! The "Machine" says Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez is the cats pajamas out of the bullpen because he set a single season saves record! We say he is no Bob Thigpen! His name should barely garner any attention on the American League MVP or Cy Young ballots. Let me break it down for ya, with a little help from CNNSI's Joe Posnaski. You see, for some time I have been arguing that no one has bothered to really dig deep and look inside K-Rod's numbers. But "Pos" did just that. I mean, let's face it, saves in general are a somewhat overrated stat, as stats go. I mean Joe Blow Closer can come in to protect a three-run lead, give up several hits or walks, whichever, and 2 runs and still gets a save. His ERA is now 18.00, with a WHIP of say 5.00. In theory he could do that 10-20 times, and have 20 saves, but be a not so great pitcher. Plus, like in K-Rod's case, someone could have more opportunities, in which to set the record. Really any stat that hsa to do with totals and not crazy averages or percentages, is suspect in my book (Bitterness is a Fish Can Catch: The Novelization due in bookstores, shortly after you see the swarm of locusts). You see the halos neither scored, nor gave a up a bunch of runs, giving Francis plenty more opportunities than a lot of other closers. But this is just the tip of the iceberg, my friends!

So lets breakdown this supposed "savemaster". First off, K-rod threw 66 innnings, not once pitching more than an inning to garner a save. Mariano Rivera had eight! Eight! Jonathan Papelbon had 13 saves which required him to get more than three outs. Thirteen! For those of you scoring at home, that's thirteen more than K-rod. That seems like a pretty glaring statistic, but not the most glaring. Oh no, no, no.

Not only did K-rod not ever pitch more than an inning in an outing, eight times he needed less than 3 outs to record a save. Now, as Posnaski points out Joe Nathan had zero save opportunities that lasted less than an inning. Joakim Soria who finished a modest 20 or so saves behind K-Rod, only had three save opportunities that lasted less than an inning, two of those were blown saves on the road, meaning he didn't pitch the full inning because his opponent ended the game by beating him. But wait, there's more!

K-Rod blew 9 saves on the season. Soria, blew three. Rivera blew one. Papelbon, five. But, of course that could also be attributed to having more save opportunities, I guess. But look at the percentages, Soria blew about 7% of his save chances, Rivera 3%, Papelbon 11%, K-Rod blew about 13%! Almost twice as high as Soria's percentage!

K-Rod's ERA was 2.31, which is by no means eye popping, but by comparison (Soria sported a 1.60 ERA, Rivera's was 1.40, Joe Nathan's was 1.33) it is gaudy.

But by far my favorite stat "Pos" brings to light, backing up something I've been saying all year, has to do with what I like to call the "anxiety factor". This has to do with making it look easy. You know breezing through a save with a 1-2-3 inning, rather than making your team's fans anxious, hence "anxiety factor". Here is an excerpt from the column:

Also, an Angels' fan mentioned that K-Rod's saves have been much more of a thrill ride than the others'. For fun, I did a quick countdown of easy saves -- those would-be saves where the pitcher went 1-2-3 without allowing walk or hit. Obviously easy saves are worth exactly the same as difficult ones, but I think it does tell you who are the most dominant closers around.

Rivera: 20 easy saves out of 38 (52.6 percent).

Soria: 21 easy saves out of 41 (51.2 percent).

Nathan: 16 easy saves out of 38 (42.1 percent).

K-Rod: 19 easy saves out of 61 (31.1 percent).

I mean, good golly! Is that the mark of the top closer in the league? That's a rhetorical question folks.

K-rod's "dominance" was pulled into the spotlight for all to see on Friday night, when, in an inning and a third (his first outing all season in which he had to retire more than three batters) he allowed four hits and two runs to take the loss and send the Angels to Boston, down 2 games to none in the Best-of-Five series. Impressive indeed.

One last thing here. It bares mentioning that Francis has a fairly steady defense behind him. I mention this, because K-Rod has come up in a lot of discussions lately, as far as where he will go and how much he will make next year. But before anyone gets set to pony up the big bucks Francis demands, they might want to take a deeper look into his numbers.

The Angels have dominated this season (or so it would seem. But that's another post for another time), but the guy a lot people consider to be the team's MVP, may be their biggest postseason liability. Something to think about.

This rant has been brought to you by Boku.*

*- Boku, not only did not have anything to do with this, but may not even still exist.