A few thoughts heading (back) into Game 5 of the World Series
Posted on October 29th, 2008 – 2:36 PMBy Joe Christensen
PHILADELPHIA — The clouds are breaking here at Citizens Bank Park, and while there’s a 20 percent chance of rain through the evening, according to weather.com, it does look like the Phillies and Rays will resume Game 5 tonight.
It’s already cold and windy out there, and the “Feels like” temps are expected to drop below freezing during the game.
(*) If the Phillies win, it will snap Philadelphia’s 25-year drought without a championship in any of the four major sports. Philadelphia’s last championship came with the 76ers in 1983. That’s been well-documented.
But did you know which four-sport markets have the next longest droughts? Both of them claimed their last championships in 1991.
Minnesota and Washington, D.C.
The Redskins defeated Buffalo in Super Bowl XXVI and the Twins defeated Atlanta in the 1991 World Series. So technically Washington’s drought is longer.
(*) Armchair managers, let’s hear your predictions for how things start (or, I should say, resume) tonight.
It’s the bottom of the sixth inning. Grant Balfour is pitching for Tampa Bay. Cole Hamels is due up for Philadelphia.
I predict David Price will be warming in the bullpen for the Rays. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel will send lefthanded hitting Geoff Jenkins to pinch-hit, but Rays manager Joe Maddon will stick with Balfour.
Balfour will face Jenkins, switch-hitter Jimmy Rollins and the right-handed hitting Jayson Werth. Then, we could see Price face Chase Utley and Ryan Howard.
UPDATE
Listening to Maddon and Manuel at the pregame (in-game?) press conference, I gleaned the following: 1) Balfour will start the sixth for the Rays, 2) Ryan Madson will start the seventh for the Phillies, 3) Price will likely be a factor and Manuel expects to see him, 4) Maddon sounds hesitant to burn Price in the sixth because the pitcher’s spot is due up fourth for the Rays in the seventh.
36 Responses to "A few thoughts heading (back) into Game 5 of the World Series"
Too bad we’ll have to wait an extra half hour for the game to start. Who will start on the mound for the Phillies?
JayTEE: The 7:37 is because FOX is going to milk this as though it’s a “Game 8″ type scenario.
Meaning they’ll have the full postgame, overblown analysis, and annoying plugs leading up the start of the 6th inning.
I feel bad for the Phillies. You KNOW if they lose tonight the fans will blame the fact the game wasn’t called sooner.
Now that I think about it…here’s a question:
Since this game was already started Monday, do they still sing the National Athem before taking the field for the resumation?
FYI: Skins won the Superbowl during the 1991 season, played January 1992. So MN’s drought is longer.
The 7:37 start (instead of 7:22) is to accommodate Sen Obama’s infomercial.
To my knowledge there wouldn’t be a national anthem. But this could be a little longer than one would think because after one inning of play, we’re going to have a 7th Inning Stretch.
spm is correct…the later start is to accomodate the informercial from His Majesty Obama.
Actually, as Fox as repeatedly said, the game isn’t being delayed one bit for Obama. Fox just decided to cancel the pre-game show and take the advertising money instead. It would have started at 7:37 regardless.
I think that the four sport marker is a bit misleading:
a. there are not too many of those
b. since 1991 MN was not continuously a 4 sport market. MN has been a 4-sports market since 2000.
b. since 1991 Washington DC was not continuously a 4-sport market; DC has been a 4-sports market since 2005.
Given that, the SF bay area teams won their last championship in 1995, so it is the 4-sport market with the longest drought 
My thoughts: I’m not a Philly fan, but I hope they win tonight so this under-whelming series is put to bed. At this point I just don’t care.
I’m sure you’re right about Jenkins coming up, they aren’t going to waste Dobbs or Stairs in the pitcher’s spot for one half-inning. Go RAYS.
I don’t know about having Balfour start the sixth instead of Price. Price has been a starter and so would be more comfortable coming into that situation.
This is RIDICULOUS! Late hours (esp for folks east of the Rockies. Plain absurd. Go Gophers and college sports and let the Vegas gamblers waste their lives on “pro (ho)” sports!
Phillies just won…….I just wish they would give thanks to Obama.
some of us called it 
JC F’N Romero gets the win. Who would have guessed that!?
Thrylos
While the bay area has a many teams (5, I think), they do not have an NHL team. They are a 3 Sport market. Unless you count MLS soccer. They may have a soccer team, I don’t know about soccer, nor do I want to.
Yep, Shaun. Charlie Manuel left Romero in long enough to get the win. Those weren’t the two ex-Twins I expected to have to suffer reading about, but that’s a good thing. I still think the Rays wish they had Delmon and Harris to give them some pop in the world series. IMHO!
“I still think the Rays wish they had Delmon and Harris to give them some pop in the world series. IMHO!”
I think it’s safe to say they don’t miss DY. He wasn’t well-liked there and while I like the DY trade, he’s not that potent offensively at this point in his career. If you want to say they wish they had Josh Hamilton back, that’s another story.
You’ve got to be kidding me!,
San Jose Sharks is in the Bay area
Cleveland should just thank all the mercies that they don’t have a hockey team, otherwise any championship since 1991 would start looking like yesterday.
MN and D.C.? Figures.
“some of us called it ”
Yup - and some of us called it an hour and 43 minutes before others.
Wow, all that young promising talent on the Rays and they still can’t get the job done?
Joe Maddon should be fired.
JC F’N Romero gets the win. Who would have guessed that!?
I’m waiting for the knee-jerk reactionaries to claim that trading him for Casilla was the biggest mistake ever.
T,
No kidding! I wonder when all the JC Romero lovers will come out of hiding?
Now onto the hot stove. Should be an interesting offseason for the Twins since the rebuilding of the Twins is way ahead of schedule. Honestly the Twins just need a few pieces to be a serious contender. Bill Smith get it done!
My apologies, thrylos. You are correct, of course. Forgot about san jose, was only counting oakland and san fran.
The Marlins traded this guy for a career 9-7 pitcher:
“Jacobs is a career .262 hitter. He hit 32 home runs and knocked in 93 runs last season.”
I was thinking DH and First Base, his position. Couldn’t we have scraped up a career 9-7 pitcher somewhere to trade?
Hey Shaun– It would not surprise me at all if the Twins make no major moves this off season.
Looking at how Ryan operated in the past, and the moves Smith made last off season, I think it’s even money the Twins stand pat.
The logic will be — we have the pieces we need, and we don’t want to mess with the chemistry.
MudCat,
Jacobs is a LHB. The least thing the Twins need, since they have capable lefty bats at 1B and DH, plus Jacobs’ OBP hovers around Carlos Gomez’ territory and he is a career .235 hitter against lefties.
we have the pieces we need,
not exactly: 3B and SS (projected starters Buscher at 3B and Harris/Tolbert at SS) are below league average positions (LF, CF and 2B are also, but the starters are young players with upside that hopefully would come sooner than later); one of the starting 5 is below league average (Perkins), but he is young and hopefully he will learn how to throw his off-speed stuff better this off-season…
Thrylos— I agree with you– I am saying that the Twins will try to sell us on the idea they think we have the pieces. The fact they are young and will improve will be the selling point.
If Punto is resigned– I bet they stop looking for any help for third and short. Maybe I am just skeptical–
That said, in my opinion- I would rather go with Buscher/Punto/Tolbert/Harris combo than another retread— insert Everett, Lamb, Castro, Batista etc
Rick,
The Twins will make some moves-I am just afraid it will be off the scrapheap.
I wish that Joe Crede could stay healthy-he would be worth a 1 year deal if he could play 140+ games.
I think the Twins will do a trade again involving their young pitchers for a bat.
The problem is that with the money that it would take to re-sign Punto (something like Mark Ellis’ 2 years/$11M + an option), the Twins have the opportunity to go and get someone like Khalil Greene who will not cost them much in return (something like a Humber or a Mulvey or a Duensing.) There are several 3B options (no retreads) and the Twins should examine them all out there before they hand Buscher/Harris the starting job
Looking at how Ryan operated in the past, and the moves Smith made last off season, I think it’s even money the Twins stand pat.
Are you referring to Smith breaking from the norm and dealing pitching for hitting?
Or the part where he broke form the norm and signed three key players to extended contracts?
No kidding! I wonder when all the JC Romero lovers will come out of hiding?
As soon as they’re done taking all of the posts they had planned for when the Rays won and doing a find/replace on “Garza” and “Bartlett”.
