With this being “Best of OC 2009” week all over ocweekly.com (and in those old-timey newsracks), and Angels hurler Jered Weaver scheduled to take
the mound for tonight's game 2 of the American League Division Series
against the Boston Red Sox, it's appropriate to revisit Weave's appearance in “Best of OC 2008.”
Heck,
if he isn't at the ballpark yet, you might even catch
him wiping the crumbs off his chin from the California turkey sandwich he devoured at Hector's Subs in Long Beach or begging that the river be the Jack of Clubs at the Hawaiian Gardens casino.
But whatever you do, tread gently lest you have a burning desire to be branded the goat who jinxed Weaver's pre-game rituals.
Meanwhile,
should you feel brisk gusts coming from the direction of
Anaheim tonight, let's hope they have not been produced by Santa Anas but
Boston bats whiffing at whatever Jered and the 'pen throw at the Sox. Of course, meteorologists will tell you there's always a 90 percent chance such windpower was derived from Vlady's wild swings.
As for our competition crying in their overpriced beers in Beantown, their strategy to reverse their fortunes apparently involves hiring a witch doctor to soak Weaver's jersey in chicken blood–something they admittedly should have done before Thursday night to Torii Hunter's.
Ah, Bostonians and their quaint little local customs.
]
Check that: the Beantown counters claim that going to do that old voodoo that you do so well may not be necessary. They blab of Weave:
“He had 16
wins, a career high, but wasn't that strong in the homestretch and he's
certainly not as big-game tested as Beckett, who comes in with 17 wins
and a chip on his shoulder for not getting the game one start. Expect
to see him throw hard and fast and have good command over the plate
despite not pitching to Varitek. Like I said, he has a chip on his
shoulder and something to prove. You could put my grandma (God rest her
soul) behind the plate and he'd feel comfortable tonight.
“Big prediction: Weaver leaves by the fourth inning and it's all down hill from there for the Halos.”
Sweet. Just one thing: your back-spasmed Beckett didn't exactly produce goose eggs on scoreboards down the stretch either. Didn't he get lit up for four runs in the first two innings of his final start of the regular season and have an ERA of eleventy over his last 10 games?
But he could have started game 1, pitched a gem and it still would have only taken the Halos one lousy run to win had the Sox hit (or, more accurately not hit) like they did last night.
Our Boston lager blogger expects big nights from Bay, Pedroia and Big Papi. The only one of the three who is scary is that little chunk Pedroia. In fact, if Tonya Harding's ex- could use the work . . .
* * *
Read alt. weekly 2009 Postseason Throwdown coverage for:
St. Louis Cardinals: http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/therundown
Boston Red Sox: http://www.weeklydig.com/blogs/mlbthrowdown
Minnesota Twins: http://blogs.citypages.com/blotter/baseball/
Colorado Rockies: http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/baseball/
New York Yankees: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/baseball/
Los Angeles Dodgers: http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/sports/
Anaheim/LA Angels: http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/baseball/
You can read them all together (except for Boston so far) here: http://www.villagevoice.com/baseball/
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.