World Serious

A good roundup from Nate Silver. The Red Sox are not only the best team in baseball but are, on paper, as well-designed for the playoffs as can be. On the other hand, the Rockies are a better team than their regular season record suggests. One concern for Boston would be that I’m not sure that their rotation 2-4 is as good as the numbers suggests; Schilling had nothing even in his Game 6 win, and Dice-K seems out of gas. Should be a competitive series overall, although you have to pick Boston in 6. If Beckett loses, though, all bets are off. Like most neutral observers I’ll be cheering for the Rockies but obviously it’s a low-risk low-reward series for me.

Did they just call John Williams the most accomplished composer of our times?

…see also Charlie Pierce on the great Washington Heights virtuoso.

…I was hoping the Jeff Francis would restore the honor of Canadian pitchers after the unpleasantness in the other dugout, but I guess not…

…What am I talking about? Brilliant clutch pitching from Cy Young Gagne.

…Responding to McCarver’s bizarre claim that these were not “your grandfather’s Rockies,” a commenter notes that “My father’s Rockies was a hockey team coached by Don Cherry.” Wasn’t that Hardy Astrom pitching in the eighth for the Yankees Red Sox tonight? I suppose it would be pushing it to note that I once went to a hockey school where one of the coaches was the guy who recorded the only shutout in the (hockey) Rockies’ history…