Missed by this much

I have probably watched that final play at the plate twenty times now and every other time I think “he was out”. Which means on the opposite times I’m thinking “he was safe”, which was my initial reaction to seeing the first replay.

Between the position of the umpire and the fact that Jason Varitek has a great reputation when it comes to blocking the plate, I can understand why Edwin Encarnación was called out.  (Regardless of John Farrell’s complaining that it was obvious he was safe, it wasn’t.  Heck, even Farrell didn’t complain when it happened and waited until he saw the replay.  If you need to see the replay in order to determine what the correct call should have been, it wasn’t an easy call to make.)  On the other hand, I wouldn’t blame Toronto Blue Jays fans for being outraged at how the game ended even though it wasn’t clear cut in real time.  Me?  Well it’s been a long year for me and I won’t lie, give me a Darnell McDonald throw to the plate to end a game and I’m a happy gal.

The Sox needed that win last night and not just because the Yankees are pounding the Cleveland Indians this week.  Watching Matt Albers warming up in the bullpen while Jon Lester was pitching no-hit baseball into the fourth made folks sick with worry.  Tweets and blog posts from the official Red Sox accounts calling his departure due to “an apparent injury” long before they announced his strained left lat muscle didn’t help quell the fires.  (One would think the official account of any team wouldn’t rush to spread fear before the announcements get made.  You’re the OFFICIAL source for team news…you don’t have to try and “break” news because you get it first anyway!  NESN joined in with bringing the fear as well before any announcements were made while ESPN Boston stuck with saying he left for reasons unclear.  Or, I suppose they all could have gone the way of Peter Abraham who chose to complain for the thousandth time that fans at Fenway were doing the wave.)

Sox are 1.5 games out of first place (the Tampa Bay Rays?  5 games out.  I’ll take it.) and, right now, all I want is for them to win.  Gloves are off; just go out there and win the damn games.

Not getting hurt…that would be nice too.

The front page of MLB.com this morning leads with the Red Sox/Blue Jays game and gives us this title:  Ol’ McDonald has an arm.  I can dig it.