Divine Intervention at the Trop with Sox Machine

My annual pilgrimage to the Trop included 2 fellow OPOSs (Yankee and Twinn fans), a woman named Jackie (a friend of our final member of today's Fab 5),  and that wonderful writer that should start his own blog known as Sox Machine (SM).  As the OPOS clownmobile barreled toward God's Waiting Room (as the locals refer to St. Petersburg) I asked my friend Mike, who has worked as a communications director for Campus Crusade for Christ for umpteen years (he's the Twinn fan, the bastard) about praying for victory, or crediting God for a victory or good performance, and what he thought of such exhibitions of faith.  He wearily looked at me and said "You know how I would answer that."  As in, it is a ridiculous concept.  (Remember this - it will make sense later.)

We met SM and his friend outside the minor league-looking tractor pull palace.  I wore the Che shirt that was SM's fabulous creation 2 years ago - he was unimpressed.  SM's encyclopedic knowledge was wasted on his friend, who copped to knowing nothing about baseball but had decided to adopt the Rays after she and her husband moved to Tampa last October.  So, if you are keeping score, SM and I were the only Sox fans in our group - Rays, Teh Twinn, and a Yankee fan outnumbering us.  And with Jake Peavy on the mound for us and James Shields pitching for the homies, with cowbells clanging, it had the makings of a long day.

However, Shields looked like a Peavy clone today.  Badda bing, badda boom, just like that Shields is tattooed for 2 runs in the first.  Of course, we had to witness the impotence of 2nd and 3rd, no outs turning into one run, but a lead is a lead.  And when Rios slammed a dinger (fuck you, MM, I'm ordering your wine) in the 3rd for the good guys to go up 3-0 all looked right with the world.

However, SM's pre-game prediction of Peavy's line looking like 5 1/3 innings, 5 runs, 6 hits was all too accurate as the plucky Rays answered with Ben Zobrist lasering a homer in the 3rd and Peavy being Peavy in the 5th and 6th, giving up 2 in each inning.  (He is looking more like Javy Vazquez, circa 2008, every day with the "5 and dive".)  Oh, a minor substitution occurred in the 4th, as my least favorite Sox player, Jayson Nix, was inserted at 3rd base to replace Tea-bag, who apparently attempted one too many bad throws to first and was removed because of a hand injury.  (Yeah, right.)  But that was probably inconsequential, I thought at the time, since they both suck (though Teahen was 2-2 up to that point).

After tying the score in the bottom of the 5th the Rays just could not hold on.  And here is where the hand of God intervened. The Sox quickly loaded the bases in the top of the 6th with no outs, and that man, Journeyman Jayson, strode to the plate.  He impressively sported a .143 average, zero homers and all of one RBI to his name this year.  A Jamaican woman sitting next to Mike said to him "I am going to start praying for the Rays right now!" and immediately clasped her hands and began a silent prayer.  BOOM!  Nix hit the snot out of the ball over Carl Crawford's head (who didn't move), and miracle or miracles, a grand slam was born!  Mike turns to the woman and sagely says"Ma'am, isn't it wonderful that God loves you more than the Rays."  Steak dinner boom.

Peavy being Javy, he can't make it through the sixth, and SM looks like a goddamn genius.  The Serge Protector entered to great fanfare (from me, anyway) but had a hole in his tip and gave up two ringing singles.  Fortunately only Peavy's runner scored.  (Eat me, Jake, Sergio is not here to clean up your mess.)

Interestingly, Thorndog gets called in to pitch the 7th.  WTF strategy is this? Isn't he our closer?  In the 7th?  (He did face Pena and Jaso leading off, but WTF?)  And sure enough, the Rays start a rally.  But God enters the picture again, as Luis/Omar/OPOS makes a helluva Jeter-like throw to cut down a runner at 3rd.  And Juan Pierre, a Gold-Glove candidate today if it was only the glove that mattered, went high against the wall and made a Dweezy perfecto-like like catch to end the inning.

To keep the miracles rolling, Luis/Omar/OPOS doubled in a run in the top of the 8th, doubling his XBH total for the year.  And here comes the unimpressive Thorndog to pitch the 8th!  (I have bad memories of Thorndog in the Trop, so SM's Hawkism earlier in the game, "can't pull a greased golf tee out or his rear-end with pliers", or some horseshit like that, captured my essence.)  But The Lord is with us, as Pierre takes another hit away on a diving catch sprinting to his left to end the inning.  To close the game, the obvious choice enters - Pena.  He makes short order of the Rays, and 40% of our group is sent home happy.

For all you atheists out there, tell me there is no God.  Go ahead.  And I will show you this game.  (THERE is your recap, Sox Machine.)