Notes on Day One

Faced a choice at work yesterday. With A.F.O.M.G.'s handy MLB.tv subscription suddenly lapsed, should Cheddar shell out $14.95 for the right to listen to 2007's playoff games on his work computer? Well, I'm a sucker for distractions while at the office, so I bit, and listened to 8 of a possible 9 hours of baseball yesterday. (Yes, that means I was at work until midnight ... and you wonder why this site seems slow these days.)

• Maybe they have the microphones right next to the rowdy sections, and maybe not, but Philly sounded like the loudest crowd in history yesterday. Every single ball, they absolutely roared; every base hit was like Bikini Atoll. They did start booing by the end of the game, true, but that was to be expected.

• On the other hand, the poor D-Backs radio announcers were forced to go into a lengthy preamble about how relatively little Cubbie blue there was to be seen in the crowd (far less than usual, was their point, and shouldn't the Phoenix fans be proud of that) and how there was "much more red in the crowd." Well, it is a home playoff game, fellas. Turned out to be a pre-emptive justification of why my headphones buzzed with cheering every time Zambrano struck somebody out.

• Hate him on ESPN, but Dave O'Brien does a nice job with these Sox broadcasts; he and Joe Castiglione actually make a solid combination, even getting the old-young dynamic going for the historical references and such. Although it would have been nice to hear Jerry Trupiano's "WAY BACK!" on Youkilis' first-inning bomb. if not anything else the Trooper had to say.

• The Phils seemed surprised by Jeff Francis' willingness to throw offspeed stuff in hitters' counts; he apparently hadn't been doing that in previous matchups, and it clearly worked on Wednesday. It makes intuitive sense when you're pitching in Citizens' Bank Park; when it's possible to jam a guy with your fastball and still see him hit it out, maybe you want to make him do the hard work. In any case, Francis had his control, and against a lefty-laden lineup like Philly, he's rather tough. No wonder Clint Hurdle is going to run another young lefty (Franklin Morales) out there today.

• I obviously didn't see it, but Big Papi's homer was apparently another 280-foot Fenway special. So clutch!

• Not only did Beckett strike out 8 Angels (including the cycloptic Garret Anderson twice), he also got 12 groundball outs -- a really good total for him, and great in a park where, as seen, some pretty shady shit can happen.

• More later in the day if I've got time. Go New Rox!
  

P.S. Does anyone else think it weird that "C.C. Sabathia" and Derek "Captain Clutch" Jeter have the same initials? I mean, isn't that the weirdest coincidence in the world? Someone at one of the New York papers should write an article about that ...