Make It Stop
Seriously- end the Gagne Experiment now, and for good.
Easy scapegoat, I know. Javy Lopez and even Jon Lester struggled, as did Gagne. Poor bullpen management following on the heels of a starter given the hook in the 5th did the Sox in tonight. Curt fully owned up in his postgame press conference to his role in the loss — when you can’t get five (!) innings out of your starter, and you force your bullpen to cover 6+ innings of ballgame, you’re rarely going to be happy with the results. Schilling took the blame all on his shoulders.
There were some beautiful moments, the back-to-back homers and the spectacular Coco diving catch in particular, and some beautiful pitching – Okajima and Papelbon were stunning.
No one predicted this series would be done in 4, so really, we’re just back to a best-of-5 faceoff (albeit with Cleveland now having homefield advantage). Our guys now should have no fear of Sabathia or Carmona, and Cleveland has shown their weakness for hitting the off-speed pitch (which Dice-K and Wake, not to mention Beckett, are more than capable of delivering). Tito was thoroughly unfazed in his postgame press conference, which is exactly what you want to see- mindful of the loss, respectful of the game Cleveland played, but still focused on winning and with the right mindset to carry that out.
Bring on Monday, bring on Cleveland at the Jake, bring it on.
Curt also gave a Beckett line. He didn’t execute pitches.
I hope someone gave Tito smelling salts. If not send some along to Cleveland.
I’m confused by that line about poor management. It isn’t like Francona had a lot of bullets left by the 11th inning. If Schilling had managed to get through five innings, the game would’ve looked a lot different. Ditto if Coco’s flyball hadn’t been hit to the deepest park of Fenway or if Youkilis’s liner in the ninth inning had dropped. Credit to Cleveland for holding the line until all the good relievers had been used.
That said…I really, really hate Gagne. I don’t want to, but I do. Guy nearly cost the Sox the division and he’s still crap in the postseason. He’s making me long for the likes of Rudy Seanez and Mike Remlinger. Ugh.
Poor for two reasons: (1) Gagne should never have been on the roster, as tonight shows we could use a Tavarez or Corey to a lot better advantage than we will ever be able to use Gagne, (2) shuffling the order of MDC, Timlin and Okey so as to maximize the playing time those three see, so we don’t ever have to get to Gagne to begin with.
I agree that at the point in the game when Gagne came in there were no other choices- my problem is with the decisions before that point, that might have given us more viable options or a better situation so we never had to go to Gagne.
Like I said, it was a combo of bullpen (more specifically, Gagne and Lopez- Lester was really just desperation) and Schill exiting without even pitching 5 complete.
And I don’t want to hate Gagne either. As late as earlier today, I still had a soft spot for him. That is not the case anymore. He’s not a bad guy, but he is absolutely not the right pitcher for us and never will be. He has blown it way too many times.
F—ing Gagne!
I know it wasn’t his fault we lost, but I can’t stand seeing him warming up. It gives me hives. I hated the trade we made for him (and said so then), and I can’t understand why he is on the playoffs roster.
I’m bummed we lost, but we sure showed that Carmona isn’t invincible, either. But we also need some production from the top and especially the bottom of the order. Papi, Manny, and Lowell can’t do it all, no matter how hard they try.
Yeah, we can take best 3 or 5, but we’re going to get banged up doing it.
As soon as they said Gagne was warming, I turned off that radio. I knew it was over.
I’m sure he’s a very nice person, but everytime I hear that he’s about to play, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach.
Oh, I love hating Gagne. I’ve stuck with JD all through his suckiness, and I refuse to hate him, but Gagne just bugs the crap out of me (also because they traded for him while I was on vacation so I came back to this weird Canadian guy blowing our leads–wtf?). I saw Gagne was coming in and my immediate reaction was a string of f-bombs worthy of Josh Beckett himself.
But poor Schill just couldn’t find the strike zone. It was so sad. These past two games, we were expecting beautiful pitching, but the only starter who’s done anything even up to par, really, has been Beckett.
But Gagne’s such a scapegoat, and I dislike him so much, that at least he’s taking the heat from Lopez and Lester. It’s good we know the Indians can hit those guys, though.
yes, gagne, but i think a mention to manny delcarmen too. i stayed till the end. i felt like i just lost five hours of my life…eric gagne owes me.lol our team right now is not the (gulp) rockies. 5 playoff wins in a row…better to get the loss over now. i expected a split here so.. i think the shock is we came so close to winning it hurt more than expecting. on to cleveland
In the 11th inning when it was clear that Gag-me was coming in, I knew it was over and once he gave up a hit and put Grady on, I knew it was over. At that point, I just wanted the tribe to score to put the final nail in the coffin and call it a game but to have the Sox not be able to buy an out. I wanted to wire them some cash just to get out of the inning….I guess we’ll see what Dice-K brings tomorrow; hopefully, he’ll show why we spent so much money to bring him here.
KLN- me, too. I even posted about the trade, and how I wished we would not have given up Gabbard (who, admittedly, I adored). Imagine, just for a second, that we would have had Gabbard in the pen instead of Gagne last night. Nice thought, huh?
Kate- I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Like I said, no one thought we were going to shut the Tribe down in 4 games flat. It’s that we had that spectacular showing to bring us ahead after being behind, and then that our bullpen folded. It’s the “so close and yet so far away” effect.
It’s honestly very sad that whenever any Sox fan sees Gagne warming up in the pen, each and every one of us want to vomit. That is not a good reaction.