Well, folks, the end is nigh.  After close to a decade in the shadows of Sox Park, Mrs. Joe got a great job in one of those big square states out west with lots of sun, lots of mountains, and not a lot of hours in the office.  So, we're heading out there in the next month or two.

Question: What is the best service to get for Sox games?  DirectTV?

I'm getting my house in Bridgeport re-roofed in the next week or two.  Do you tip the roofers?  If so, how much is appropriate?  I was thinking $100/person for each of the guys that are doing the roofing, but not tipping the owner of the company.  The owner is a well-regarded contractor, though, so I'll probably use him for other stuff in the next few years--if that means anything. Update [2006-9-15 15:39:43 by BridgeportJoe]: Forgot to mention--it's a complete tear-off and re-roof. Estimate is roughly $5k, which was cheaper than we expected.

You've got this guy going for Minnesota, as we all know.

And this guy going for Baltimore.  I mean, really, an ERA over 36?  Dear lord.

Good news is that it's a favorable matchup for the Sox, with Ace going against Esty.  Quick bit of peculiar information--did you know that despite giving up 19 HR in the first half and 4 HR in the second half, Garland has actually given up a higher ratio of flyballs in the second half?

It's odd.  Garland has struck out a few more people and walked a few less people during his Ace run.*  But that just explains the improvement at the margins.  The sole reason that he had the Wright stuff in the first half and the right stuff in the second half has been a lot more flyballs going 300 feet, rather than 375 feet.  This does not bode well for the game tonight--Oakland plays like a homer-friendly park these days.

* Actually, the standard numbers are a little misleading.  Although Garland's K/9 didn't go up THAT much (4.54 to 5.09) pre- and post-ASB, there is a lot of noise masking a more substantial improvement.  Basically, he was giving up a lot more hits in the first half, meaning he was facing a lot more batters, meaning that when he was striking out about the same number of batters PER OUT (which is essentially what K/9 measures), he was striking out substantially fewer PER BATTER FACED.  Indeed, doing the math, Garland was striking out 11.7% of batters faced pre-ASB, but 14.0% of batters faced post-ASB.  So his lower hit rate made a "true" 19.7% increase in K rate look like a less impressive 12.1% increase.