ALCS Game 6: Boston 12, Cleveland 2

*sigh*

I am getting really tired of using this intro, but here we go again:

At times you may hear me refer to what I call the "the beauty and the horror" of baseball: barring a rain out or some kind of natural calamity, a ball game isn't over until the 27th out is recorded. There is no time limit on innings or on the game itself as a whole, and there is no "shot clock" on individual at-bats. Therefore, anything can and does happen.

This was the most probably disheartening baseball game I've seen since a certain recently-dispatched New York ball club swept a horribly scuffling Tribe in three games back in August. What else can I say? You can look the score and easily guess out how this fiasco went. Who screwed the pooch (and when and how) is immaterial right now ... all that matters is that ALCS Game 7 has been forced, and what was once Cleveland's series to lose two days ago has now become a complete toss-up with one game left to decide who advances to the Fall Classic and who spends a long winter playing golf and wondering what could have been. Unbelievable.

I'll speak frankly here: for the first time since that awful stretch in the weeks after the All-Star Break, my confidence is not high (in fact, I feel pretty sick to my stomach typing this out right now). Even though I don't believe much in things like "momentum" and "karma," it is impossible to not sense the World Series slipping out of Cleveland's grasp. Game 6 represented the Cleveland Indians' last shot at putting the Boston Red Sox away once for all, but instead the fans were witness to a complete disaster on just about every imaginable level of play. Yes, I wrote over a week ago that this series would likely stretch the entire seven games, but being up 3-1 and then falling to pieces afterward is not quite what I'd had in mind when I wrote that.

So, what in the samhell is going on around here? Put simply, the last two weeks have seen the near-complete collapse of half the Indians' starting rotation (as well as a crucial cog in the team's once-impenetrable bullpen), while the last two games have seen large portions of the Tribe offense gone AWOL. While the team has been able to get around the former problem until three days ago, the second issue is now rearing its ugly head at the worst possible time. A few reasons for these events swim to mind:

1. Wear and tear from 200+ innings of work catching up to Fausto Carmona and C.C. Sabathia at last.
2. A horrendous group of umpires, a few of whom enforce a moving strike zone that is apparently shaped like a live amoeba.
3. That lack of all-important "post season experience" I keep hearing about whenever I happen to walk by a TV set broadcasting the game.
4. "The Fix" is on.
5. John Farrell, Boston's pitching coach, was in charge of Indians player development from 2001-2006, which gives him an uncomfortable amount of insight into Indians pitching.
6. A flummoxed God realizes that Cleveland might have actually have a realistic shot at winning the World Series for the first time in 59 years and is hurriedly correcting that little problem.

So, here it comes, Cleveland fans, ready or not. Either tonight's ALCS Game 7 will represent the most cathartic (not to mention miraculous) postseason Indians comeback since the 1997 ALDS or it will be the hardest (and cruellest) punch in the gut this team has suffered since at least the final week of 2005 (if not the end October 1997).

What do you do, Cleveland? What do you do?