The Marlins will win the World Series. Of nothing else in this world am I so sure.
That may seem like a pretty bold statement about a team few people think can even win two games in its first-round playoff series, especially after getting shutout in yesterday's Game One. But I'm dead serious about the Marlins. Let me explain why, and -- of course -- it all comes back to the Red Sox.
Everything indeed relates to the BoSox. You know how people use baseball as a metaphor for dating and other life situations? Well, I use life situations as metaphors for baseball. And my beloved Sox are usually my context.
Let me delve into a quick anecdote to explain the severity of my illness. And I'm not talking about the pharyngitis that seemingly sent Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez to their death beds.
Instead, two days ago, CNN ran a story saying that the world's oldest man had died at the age of 114. Without knowing anything about his life story or even his country of residence, my immediate thought was, "Wow, that man has seen all five Red Sox World Series titles. And he narrowly missed seeing..." Okay, I won't finish that sentence and risk getting ahead of myself.
Excuse my digression, but I thought perspective might be nice. So again, I propose to you that the Marlins will be World Series champs. Naturally, my argument does not center at all on the Florida baseball team in question but is an entirely Sox-centric argument.
The Marlins will win the World Series because of the Red Sox. More to the point, the Marlins will win the World Series because the Red Sox can't win it. I envision the playoffs breaking down this way: It will be Game 7, Marlins at Red Sox. Boston will have a six-run lead entering the top of the eighth. Pedro will have thrown 120 pitches, and manager Grady Little will entrust the game's safe conclusion in the hands of The Committee.
I can't believe that the paper printed that expletive C-word. What I refer to is the Red Sox's bullpen by committee -- that foreboding, sinister entity that can't be trusted and thus appropriately dubbed, The Committee. All season, the Sox bullpen has been notorious for blowing leads and displaying general ineptitude. The Committee's roster has been a revolving door of has-beens and never-will-bes in Major League Baseball.
That's where the Marlins make a cameo appearance in their World Series title run -- with the bullpen. Down the home stretch of the season, the Marlins' two most dependable relievers have been Ugeth Urbina and Chad Fox. Alert Red Sox fans will readily recognize those names. Urbina was Boston's closer for the last part of 2001 and all of 2002. Boston's decision not to re-sign Urbina in the offseason began the downward spiral its bullpen has taken.
The Sox thus lacked a closer. Ergo, Chad Fox. Sorta. Fox was signed last winter to -- more or less -- be the surrogate replacement for Urbina, though he lacked full-fledged ordination as the Red Sox's closer. He was going to be one of many Sox relievers who would close games from time to time. The crux of the problem, of course, was that very lack of defined roles in the bullpen. As the expected anchor of this mish-mash crew, Fox soon became The Chairman of The Committee.
And he stank. He pitched sufficiently poorly that he not only drew the ire of Sox fans everywhere but also pitched his way out of a roster spot, getting released midway through the summer.
All Fox and Urbina have done for Florida, however, is combine for six saves, 18 holds and a 1.70 ERA in 63.2 innings of work. Meanwhile, the Red Sox have toiled through a season in which their bullpen ranked 12th in the AL in ERA and has yet to find the stability a playoff team needs from its bullpen. The Sox were praised at the trading deadline for their acquisitions of Byung-Hyun Kim, Scott Sauerbeck and Scott Williamson. All three have been disappointments with the latter two each registering an ERA of at least 6.30.
But it's not just on-field stability that the bullpen lacks. The Red Sox bullpen is espousing non-sensical crazy talk and producing some of the zaniest stories and quotes of the baseball season. Williamson, for one, reported that earlier this season that he saw a ghost. Yup, a ghost. While he was still with the Reds back in June, he woke up in the middle of the night to find a ghostly man pushing down on him as he slept in the Tampa Bay hotel where the team was staying. Yup, a ghost.
This is how he described the action to the Boston Herald: "I looked away and looked back quick but he was there," he said. "It was a guy wearing old-fashioned clothes, like something you might see in the 1930s or '20s. He had a top hat ... and he was just looking right at me. It was almost like he was trying to get a point across to me or something. I jumped up and turned on the lights, but he was gone."
There's an obvious comment to be made about the Sox, relative to the 1920s garb, but I refuse to make it.
So there ya have it, a ghost. With as many demons as the Red Sox have lurking in their past, this is hardly a laughing matter (though it does lend itself to a nearly infinite number of jokes at Boston's expense).
Fellow reliever Alan Embree, upon clinching a postseason berth, put an interesting spin on the team's resolve to advance further.
"I know there are more steps than this," he said. "I've been a bridesmaid before. I want to be a bride."
Admittedly, that's a wedding party I would love to be a part of. In the meantime, however, let's just stick to baseball...
So, to quickly return to my earlier narrative, in Game 7, Williamson and Sauerbeck will undoubtedly combine to blow Boston's six-run lead. And Red Sox Nation will then have to suffer through Fox and Urbina pitching the eighth and ninth to close the door on yet another Boston season. How ultimately fitting would that be for the Sox to feel confident about their matchup with Florida, only for their former teammates to come back and haunt them?
Sigh. It's eerily possible. But I believe. My faith has not been exorcized yet. This still very well could be ... the year!
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