The 35th Street Review

To reflect on the end of this year’s baseball is to find that all, somehow, is well.

They went 100 miles, 200 miles, 300 miles, and the train kept-a-rollin’.

We could be heroes, just for staving off total humiliation another day.

Q: How many White Sox batters does it take to get a runner on second?

A: Four. One to hit a double and three to leave him there.

Twelve runners left stranded. An opposing ace on the ropes in the first inning. A chance to strike a deathblow before the Rays even get to bat.

The result? You know the answer to that.

The reason? You know the reason for that as well. Even Harold Reynolds made cracks about how many base hits it takes to generate a White Sox run.

Harold Reynolds!

So now, here we sit staring at our favorite team and their newly-created, self-dug, gaping defict. The home runs still don’t come, and the wins don’t either. This is almost exactly as ugly as we said it would be.

The thing is, we all kind of knew what would happen. We knew what would happen in the fifth inning of a Javier Vazquez start, and we knew the Good Guys’ only runs would come from the bomb squad, and we knew the Rays would be aggressive, and we knew. . . well, we just knew. And we know we knew. We can look for consolation in the massacre going down across town tonight, but that’s a hollow concept. Entertaining, but hollow all the same.

On the plus side, the four days between game two and the (highly) theoretical game five mean Javy’s start can be handed to Mark Buehrle. Alternately, he could go to long relief. Or Ozzie Guillen could run Clayton Richard out to start the fifth. Anything - ANYTHING - but yet another five-and-dive outing. Anything.

Until then rest easy, and remember we shouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place.

Tomorrow, friends, is another day.

I meant to post this earlier, but we’ve been having some server issues today due to, among other things, high traffic (!). But our good friend Jessica at Her Rays graciously lent me the floor today to explain ourselves on behalf of the Second City. Enjoy it, and raise a glass for our old friend.

Of All the Playoff Series in All the World [Her Rays]

Still talking to myself, and nobody’s home.

What we talk about when we talk about Non-Sox playoff series:

Cubs/Dodgers: If the Sox win (more on that tomorrow), may the Cubs win as well; if not, well, it will at least be kind of fun to watch Carlos Zambrano murder one (or many!) of his teammates on national television. Whatever. Prediction: Cubs in 4 OR Dodgers in 5.

Red Sox/Angels: Under no circumstances should any person not from New England ever pull for the Red Sox. Not today, not tomorrow, not when they were supposedly victims of those big bad Yankees and certainly not when they can trade away arguably the best hitter in the American League and actually be better off for it. Prediction: Red Sox can go straight to Hell.

Phillies/Brewers: Brewers fans and the city of Milwaukee are great, even if their team really isn’t. Philadelphia sports fans throw batteries at opposing players and the best song written about their city is also the most depressing song ever written about any city. Ever. Not sure how to feel about this series. Prediction: Tie.

We’ll have more (much more) playoff talk later today. Until then, let’s hear it for. . . whoever.