Gross slipped. A bad omen of things to come? I dunno, maybe... then maybe not. But Longoria's throw in the ninth was perhaps more telling to me. Young kid, pressure is on... no worries, he hits a homerun, all things are great. Then the pressure is really on in the late innings and Longoria showed, perhaps (it is debateable), what it means to be young and inexperienced. He muffed a pretty easy throw after making a pretty difficult catch. Sometimes a player hears his own voice in his head saying "Gotta grab and throw, gotta grab and throw... don't throw it away, don't throw it away" and all those things are simply not true. He had time to plant, set and throw and get You-Kill-Us by two to three steps.
Ugh!
I felt bad for the kid, for all the baby Rays. But ultimately what last night told me was that the old adage that you win in the playoffs with a great bullpen was indeed true. Francona shot his wad using Paplebon in the seventh because the night before he realized his pen could not stop the young Rays and the bleeding they were inflicting on his team. It was the add-on the night before that made the game out of reach. Last night, it was a tale of two pens... one that worked and one that looked spent. I fully expect this to be the tell-tale of who will win this series: What bullpen will be able to survive this playoff with the less runs allowed.
And then they'll get their arse kicked by the Phillies. Strange though, I once thought the BoSox pen was much better than the Rays or even slightly better than the Phillies. With Beckett showing signs of being Zambrano'ed out of the playoffs, you're going to need a pen. Right now, unless the Rays take a breather and regroup that pen, then it's all about who outlast who in this playoff.
