There’s No Place Like Home
The Yankees were denied the American League East championship with their 8-4 loss before the Rays’ comeback victory against the Royals. They won’t have home field throughout the playoffs and will face the Minnesota Twins in the American League Divisional Series. Yankee Stadium is second in the league for runs scored park factor 1.182 compared to Target Field’s 0.970. Southpaws won’t have the short porch to pad their home run statistics; in fact, Homophobia Field’s (Target donated $150,000 to Minnesota Forward, a political action committee that supports anti-gay marriage Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer) home run park factor of 0.638 is last in the league while Nouveau Stade Fasciste is third with 1.440.
I should be careful about how vociferously I broadcast my hopes for a quick exit by the Yankees. I might find myself stabbed in the neck like Monte Friere, a Red Sox fan from Nashua, New Hampshire who was attacked by John Mayor, a Yankee fan from New Haven.
While Mayor is sitting in the clink waiting for someone to bail him out for $500,000, he should unwind with some quality television programming. On Tuesday evening at 8 PM ESPN will present the next installment of the “30 for 30” film series. Entitled “Four Days in October,” Mayor’s favorite team is an integral part of the story. I hope he checks it out; it might get his mind off of his current troubles.
For his final performance of the season John Lackey pulled out all the stops: 7⅔ innings pitched, 6 hits, 3 runs (2 earned), 2 walks, and 10 strikeouts. Red Sox fans wondered where such pitching was all season. Four more years of performances like Sunday’s and he might be worth a five-year, $82.5 million contract.
Jed Lowrie went 2-for-3 and both his hits were home runs. Finishing the season with .287 batting average, .381 on-base percentage, and .526 slugging should guarantee the switch-hitter a spot on the 25-man roster next season.
As he did for Mike Lowell and Tim Wakefield in the first game of the series Terry Francona pulled David Ortiz and Jason Varitek so they could be cheered by 37,453 faithful fans. Ortiz’s last hit of the season wasn’t a towering homer or a grounder through the shift but a bunt single to the vacated left side of the infield. Varitek was replaced by Kevin Cash in the top of the ninth and a chant of “Va-ri-tek!” echoed through the park.
There’s no place like home. Ryan Kalish thought so, too: he stole it in sixth.
| Game 162: October 3, 2010 | ||
| Yankees 95-67 | 4 | L: Dustin Moseley (4-4) |
| 2B: Brett Gardner (20) HR: Nick Swisher (29) | ||
 Red Sox89-73 | 8 | W: John Lackey (14-11) H: Daniel Bard (32) |
| HR: J.D. Drew (22), Jed Lowrie – 2 (9) | ||
