Afternoon Baseball

That's the biggest lesson from last night's Brad Lidge meltdown. The second lesson is: There's still nobody as good as Mariano Rivera. Third: Sliders will eventually get you killed like no other pitch. Brad Lidge, meet Mark Wohlers.

But back to the first lesson. When the balding, no-way-he's-25 Pujols hit that ball, I had two thoughts. The first was, man I shouldn't have assumed the 'Stros would win after the Berkman homer. But second is the tremendous advantage the White Sox will once again carry into the next playoff round.
In the wild-card round, they clinched at least a playoff spot with 3-4 games to go, and had the luxury of putting their 18-game winner as the Game 4 starter. Meanwhile, they faced a team that had to start Matt Clement twice. I was always a Clement fan before about July 2005, as I thought he had a lot of grit and toughness (and hard luck). Now, I see he just is a mediocre pitcher. Anyways, outside of needing the walking-on-water of Orlando Hernandez, that series was a breeze.

Throw in the rain day of Angels-Yankees, and suddenly the White Sox are throwing simulated games -- because they are so bored. Imagine that. No wonder they were able to throw four straight complete games -- they've got ice water in the veins. But the Angels could have done better if they had any rested pitchers or hitters who didn't either choke or have some sort of injury (Vlad, probably, and definitely Bengie).

Now, this NLCS will go six or seven and stretch both pitching staffs for 2-3 more days while the White Sox sit around and make sure Frank Thomas doesn't try to rehab, lest he jinx the whole thing. They're probably throwing the bullpen in more simulated games because no one's pitched for 2 weeks. A.J. Pierzynski is probably swerving his car to purposefully hit orphan children and stray cats. The bottom line is that the White Sox are in the best position, heading into the World Series, of any team in a long time.