Oscar Gamble Society

I love Brad Lidge.  We share a first name.  I’m partial to German death metal (although they don’t play it on the PA system when I’m going into work, damnit).  He is a former Astro.  He throws 98 (I throw 68).  Love the guy.  He did great things in Houston.  And he was filthy this year.  Filthy.  Didn’t blow a save.

I really thought Braun and Fielder were going to light him up.  After that, I thought Manny and Loney were going to do the same.  Or Jeff Kent, or some random October hero.  He has remained filthy, to his credit.  Sure he let some people on base, made things interesting in most of his post-season appearances… but hasn’t blown one yet.

But allow me to reminisce back to Ought-five.  It was the NLCS.  The Cardinals were visiting Enron …. errr, Minute Maid Park.  It was the bottom of the 9th, I was loaded, the house was rockin’ and we were a couple of outs from the World Series.  4-2 Astros turned to 5-4 Cardinals on one slider that Albert Pujols absolutely destroyed.  I mean, put that bitch into orbit.  a)  I have never ever seen a ball travel that far (and I was at the Home Run Derby same park same year).  and 2) Never before have I heard a crowd of that size and raucousness (is that a word?) go so quiet so quickly.  Seriously, I heard Pujols’ trot from first to second.

After that event, my contention is that Lidge is damaged goods.  Not for normal situations.  He was reasonably good for Houston after this event, but during the regular season.  In fact, he kinda sucked after this, especially against the Cardinals and Pujols.  My contention is that he is damaged goods for the big situations.  For the October pressure cooker.

Tangent:  Allow me to reminisce again… to clear the record on my last venture backwards…  This is merely to finish off Game 6 misdeeds.  I’m an Astros fan, but I grew up a Big Red Machine fan.  I’ll still pull for the Reds, and in a minute, you’ll hear about what Cliffy will deem my newest favoritest BFF team evar.  To finish the ‘Stros-Cardinals saga, one must remember who won the last game of the series.  That would be the Astros.  Sure we got our dicks kicked in by the White Sox in the Fall Classic, but hey, we prevailed after Pujols did that to us in Game 5.  It reminds me of ‘75, when I was four and clearly had full recall of events (through replay).  There is no highlight in all of sports that I despise more than Fisk hitting his Game 6 dinger, much like Pujols.  Will it be fair?  Yeah, asshat, it stayed fair.  Good for you.  Now show up the next day and lose Game 7, thankyouverymuch.  STFU.  You’ll get yours in ‘04 and ‘07.

So, as I write this, the game is paused in the 5th inning in the next room.  I’m a bit delayed in getting to the post b/c I had to talk to Mom on her birthday.  Happy Birthday Mom.  So, Lidge may have been filthy again, 9 pitch 3 up 3 down filth.  But I believe that he will blow his first save of the year to the Rays sometime in the World Series.  I kind of don’t want it to happen to him.  I’d prefer the Rays just blow them out of the water, no need for PHI closer at all.  But there prolly will be some pressure cookers, and I don’t see him getting through all of them.

Go Rays!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.