The Phillies have their own wet tea shirt contest after the World Series Victory

The Phillis were halted from winning the series on Monday night. Then they were rained out on Tuesday. This could have caused problems for some teams but not the Phillies. They proved they can finish, and did so tonight putting the Rays out of their misery with a score of 4-3. I guess the Phillies just wanted it more. Either way the Soxs and the Yankees had nothing to do with this World Series, and to be honest I think that was awesome. I am happy to see that the Phillis have finally won, and Ryan Howard has gotten what he has deserved. The Ultimate team, regardless of what you think, party’s tonight in Philadelphia!

Red Sox

The Redsox are back to their old tricks again; coming back from huge playoff deficits. First the comeback to the Yankees after being down 0-3, and last year’s 1-3 deficit against Cleveland in the ALCS. Well, now they have brought back a 1-3 deficit to a 2-3 deficit.

The only difference from last year’s comeback is that Boston was at home for games six and seven. This year they’ll be on the road in T.B.

This is what the Rays earned all year. They played tough, enthusiastic baseball and earned home field advantage in the ALCS. However, if they want to avoid a game six, their pitching down the stretch is going to have to improve. Thursday night’s game was the second game of the series to feature both clubs scoring runs in bunches; game two ended 9-8 with Tampa Bay on top, and Friday’s game began 7-0 and ended 8-7.

This game is going to be a close one. It’s going to come down to the pitching staff of both teams. But what will we see? A high scoring affair like in games two and five, or defensive dominance like we saw in game 1 (BOS won 2-0), game 2 (TB won 9-1), and game four (TB wins 13-4).

David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox

Tonight the Boston Red Sox escaped elimination, once again. This is becoming something that they seem to do quite often. My big question is do they have enough gas in the tank to survive two more games? David Ortiz only had 1 hit in the entire game, but he made sure it counted, jacking a Home run with 2 men on and 2 outs in the 7th. JD Drew was the hero of the day, however, with his own two run homer and game winning single in the 9th. It seriously felt like a miracle win. I still can’t believe they won, really I can’t. Boston rallied back from a 0-7 deficit to win this game. It makes you feel like anything is possible and with the Sox you just never can tell. Maybe the Fire, helped the team. (yeah right) But never the less I can see this series going either way. Honestly, with the Sox winning this game tonight they will have a lot of momentum going into the next game and I believe that Boston will win this series.

Jason Campbell is not looking very good.

However, he hasn’t got the smarts. What is up with the five yard passes when you need six on third down while a defender is ready and waiting to make the tackle after the catch. He threw a yard short on almost every third down in the game when the Redskins called a pass. Surprisingly, the one time his “short-comings” actually worked came on third down and eleven with 20 seconds to go in the first half; The Skins were on the Giants 14 yard line and needed to get down to the eleven so they could move the chains, and lo-and-behold, what does Mr. Campbell do? He throws the ball to Santana Moss at the ten!… who then actually manages to break for 13 yards into the end zone. I mean, you gotta figure that one of his short third down passes would have resulted in a first down eventually. Too bad they all couldn’t. After that touchdown, the Redskins continued with more nowhere marches down the field. The Giants pounded the ball down their throats and Brandon Jacobs received 21 handoffs for 116 yards, and Derrick Ward performed more than admirably with 9 caries for 39 yards. Each runner had 5.5 and 4.3 yards per carry respectively.

Brandon Jacobs as made an event out of crushing Redskins.

Now don’t overlook the Redskins’ running game last night. Clinton Portis managed 84 yards on 23 carries. Most good backs should be closer to, if not over, a 100 at that point, but the Redskins sporty new west-coast offense was of no help what so-ever save for just after the Rock Cartwright 50+ yard kick return before the end of the first half. But when your aerial attack is not helping you, 84 hard-earned yards is somewhat admirable. Eli Manning on the other hand looked good. I don’t care about his one interception. Not because the Redskins would inevitably go three-and-out as a result, but mainly because he just looked sharp. (You see, I have always viewed Eli Manning as such; I call him something I made up about a year ago… an “Interception Quarterback.” He’ll get his fare share of picks while maybe lingering atop the league in that category, and he might just be barely hovering above or just below a 60% completion percentage, but he’ll be getting the job done on third down, and most of the time when the game matters.). He hooked up with Plaxico on big gains, and used Steve Smith on third downs, perhaps showing that Smith might become a possession man on thirds down.

Eli running the ball for a rare rushing TD after juking out a Redskin LB

Bottom line, people want to talk up Jason Campbell for his attributes, and also because I personally believe that for whatever reason, a lot of NFL fans seem to sympathize with him since he’s got the “He’s a good kid” look. But let me tell you something, so does Alex Smith and Joey Harrington, and so did guys like Tim Couch and Akili Smith. Cute faces… ugly games.

Son of a bust! Somebody actually thought both these guys would be good?! Now I remember why I don’t read Sports Illustrated

Anyways, the Giants may want to work on turning more of those field goal drives into touchdowns, and the Redskins may want to start getting Campbell to look just a yard or two further down the field, and try to get Chris Cooley involved, who finished the game with one catch for seven sorry yards. Bottom line, the G-Men did what they were supposed to do. They didn’t blow out the Redskins, but their efforts ultimately culminated into a dominant performance, and a resoundingly convincing win.

-Alex V