Game 5. It doesn't quite have the ring of Game 7, but tell that to the four teams that are trying to advance in this year's baseball playoffs. It's not the point that yesterday's games were great, but also the stories behind the teams.
It also reminded me of why I love this game.
In the American League, the Baltimore Orioles forced a game 5, seemingly by sheer will, with a 13th inning 2-1 win over the Yankees. Simply put, these guys have no quit in them. They could have easily folded their tent and called it a season after the Yanks had their own flair of the dramatic the previous night when Raul Ibanez, who pinch hit for the 29 million-dollar man superstar (?) Alex Rodriguez, hit both the game tying and game winning home runs for the Bronx Bombers. Instead, the Birds will face Yankees ace C.C. Sabathia who won game one of this series.
Meanwhile in the National League, my Washington Nationals almost turned me into the Mad Blogger after stinking up the joint in a seven hit 8-0 shutout in game three of our series against the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals. It was our first playoff game inside the city limits in almost eighty years. That didn't matter to Cards ace Chris Carpenter, who won his 10th game in the postseason (against two losses) by pitching six innings of shutout ball. The story behind the story is that this was only his fourth appearance this year. He had complicated surgery this year to cure numbness on his right side.
But in game four yesterday, it was good to see a investment in a player pay off as our own 126 million man, Jayson Werth (who won a title with the Phillies in 2008) hit a dramatic 9th inning walk-off homer to force our own game 5 today. It was his 14th postseason homerun since 2004, second only to Albert Pujols during that same span.
I'll take my chances today as the (real) ace of the staff, 21 game winner Gio Gonzalez, is up for us in today's game five.
To take a phrase from our Bird brethren, " Ain't the beer cold".
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