That's all I can say about the D-backs and D-Rox winning their series, ensuring an NL West team in the World Series. I don't know who to root for. The D-backs making the World Series again with another ex-Giants catcher as skipper? It would kill me to see them win - again - particularly with Livan in their rotation and the outfielder the Giants should have had, Eric Brynes.
But then root for D-Rox? Ugh, I guess I will have to root for them. But Troy Tulowitzki truly angered me with his comments about the Giants - the prototypical A's fan who is a sadist. I personally don't care either way about the A's, so I've never rooted for or against them, except of course the 1989 World Series (ironically lost because of steroid-enhanced hitters helped them out; if I can admit that Bonds probably took the stuff, I can say that McGwire's lame response to the Congress is pretty much an admission of guilt AND an admission that he took them purposefully since he was caught using Andro before). Ultimately, I know that this is a game and I am following for fun and enjoyment, so while I would enjoy it greatly if the Giants won the World Series, I know it wouldn't mean that I would suddenly be "better" than another person because of it, I just have bragging rights for a year, because things can change quickly.
But that's the problem I've always had with some A's fans who want to lord over me the fact that their team have won so many World Championships while we have none. They purposefully try to make me feel bad about that, like I'm beneath them or something. It was never personal for me unless the other person made it personal for me. And Troy did that with his comments about the Giants this season, speaking as an A's fan, so I don't really want to root for the D'Rox either.
Still, between the two evils, I would rather see the D'Rox go to the World Series. Besides the fact that I don't even want Livan sniffing the chance of winning one, after the implosion he had in game 7 for us, then chiding us for not recognizing all the games he had won for us up to then, I think the D'Rox has the better storyline between the two young teams. They came from behind and far back, whereas the D-backs just appear totally lucky to be there because of their horrible RS/RA Pythagorean W/L.
Either way, though, still rooting for the Indians to win the World Series in a sweep, even if Kenny Lofton is with them. Go Indians!
Didn't Livan win one in '97 with the Marlins? Wasn't that his big "break-out" year?
ReplyDeleteYeah, forgot about that one. In any case, I don't want to see him win one after blowing it for us. Sure, he won important games for us along the way - however, they all did. The key thing is that he lost the most important one for winning it all. Obviously if you get that far into the playoffs, you must have won a lot of important games, but that's true for any pitcher and team that gets that far. The goal is to win it all, we were that close and he couldn't even keep us close when we needed it.
ReplyDeleteIn essense, he was a major factor why we lost the World Series. He started two games, could not keep us even in the game in either game. The sad fact was the Angels starter didn't do that well either, so that kept us close, but I wouldn't call giving up 5 runs in 3.2 IP a great starting performance.
Then in the 7th game, he gives up 4 runs in only 2 IP, again, another disaster.
True, we wouldn't have reached there if he didn't pitch good games earlier in the playoffs. But that's the nature of professional sports, its not what you did leading up to that point, it's what you did when everything was on the line, and he blew it, and blew it big time.
Not that our relievers didn't contribute in his first start, but he sunked us early in game 7, didn't even give us a fighting chance, took our breath out with a sucker punch.
Even the games he won, he didn't do a great job. He gave up 2 runs in the first inning of one, then in the other, the offense gave him, like, 7 runs in the first 3 innings, so he coasted with 8 hits and 2 walks in 8.1 IP, OK, but not like he really won the game by himself, he did give up 3 runs there, so the offense helped out there a lot.
Yeah his first year in 1997 was his "break out" year. Kind of like that singing frog in the Warner Brother cartoon, that first year made every team who has had him since think that they can get a lot of value out of him, but instead got a big frog. Only the Expos, who didn't expect to get much out of him got anything out of one, and once he got the big money from them, he was a big frog again, la rana grande.