Indians @ Seattle, 9/25/07

It's the bottom of the 6th and Jensen Lewis has just come in to relieve Aaron Laffey who just walked the tying run. There are runners at the corners with two outs.

Laffey threw 74 pitches, which is right around his apparent cut off of 75-85. It's clear they don't want to over work the rookie. He did a good job tonight, getting lots of ground ball outs. It will be interesting to see what he ends up doing next spring.

And Lewis gets a pop out to end the inning. Good stuff.

The Red Sox won and the Yankees lost, which is nice. I want that mess decided.

Texas beat the Angels, which is even better. It's not so much that we need to have the best record in baseball, we just need to have a better record than the Angels.

Why? Well, it breaks down like this:

From what I've read, the Red Sox would prefer a quick five game series, as they're going to face one of two teams who arguably have two aces each (the Tribe and the Angels). I would imagine the Yankees would feel the same way. For those two teams (with their pitching), it's not about who they can send out there so much as who they'll face. The Yankees choice, however, is irrelevant if they're the wild card.

So if we have the best record in baseball, it's our choice. If we don't have the best record in baseball, we just need to make sure the Angels don't and that we don't play the Red Sox. In other words, we HAVE to play the Yankees, which will happen if we either a) have the best record in baseball or b) have a better record than the Angels.

Follow all that?

Jensen Lewis gets a strikeout to end the 7th. I told you Lewis could be big. I wonder how long they'll leave him out there -- through eight?

Nope, Perez for the eighth. Borowski for the ninth, I would imagine. Fingers crossed that will be the case.