Coach - Tim McCarver disagrees with you about Beckett, so you must be right.

"Hard to believe," McCarver intoned, that Beckett lost Game 3. I agree; Moose just outpitched him, and Pettitte is another worthy adversary.

Andy needed just 10 pitches in the first. Josh gave up a loud foul to Jeter before freezing him with an awesome curve, then retired Johnson on a routine fly ball. Bernie Williams somehow ran a triple off Pierre's glove into a double, but the extra base didn't matter as Matsui hit a broken-bat soft liner to right for the third out.

I hate the damn Sprint commercial, by the way. Joe Buck should refuse to do it. The best solution is to have a radio nearby to listen to Miller and Morgan, and employ the mute button.

Cabrera got the first hit for the Marlins; the kid really uses the whole field. Pettitte threw a great 2-2 cutter past Lee, and really got in Encarnacion's head: backdoor curve called strike, two defensive foul balls, high heat, sit down.

Not to be outdone, Beckett threw the exact same pitch to freeze Posada as he did in Game 3 with the bases loaded. He walked Giambi -- would you pitch to Jason with Garcia on deck? After a harmless grounder from Karim, Josh made Boone look foolish.

Pettitte finished the third unscathed, though the last out was very deep to right. With two men on, Bernie Williams looks at a wonderful curve. He takes a feeble swing over another down and in; it would have been ball one. Then he barely checks his swing. Beckett uses a purpose pitch up and in on 1-2, then induces a double-play grounder to end the inning. What a great duel.

That's a pretty fine play for a guy who isn't a good shortstop.

What's wrong with Mike Lowell? Why didn't he run hard on that ball? Jeter went so deep in the hole, it was a very tough throw.

Posada has no chance against Beckett. Giambi pops up to end the fourth, and you get the feeling these guys could pitch like this all night.

On three soft singles and a great slide by Gonzalez, the Marlins take a 1-0 lead.

Posada should have had him at the plate. From where he recived the ball, Jorge had to lunge at the sliding runner. If he sets up one step closer to the plate, that excellent throw from Garcia nails Gonzalez.

After the intentional pass to Pudge, Cabrera missed a chance to break it wide open, as Pettitte limits the damage.

Garcia singled. Boone's sacrifice bunt was a good idea, because he can't hit this guy. Soriano went after the first pitch, hit a harmless infield fly and heard the boos. With first base open, and Nick Johnson on deck, you expect them to pitch around Jeter, but Beckett fires one past him at 97 mph for the K.

Great game.

63 pitches through 5 innings for Beckett. That would project to 114 through 9.

Jeter boots one, Pettitte walks one. Lee almost bunted into a double play, but managed to advance the lead runner. After Posada saved a wild pitch and a run on a very high pitch, Encarnacion hit the RBI sac fly to make it 2-0 Florida.

Not much time left for Aura and Mystique.

72 pitches through 6 innings for Beckett. (A 108-pitch pace, for what it's worth.)

Jack McKeon said before the game that he didn't think there was any difference between three and four days rest, except in pitchers' heads. He called his decision with Beckett a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't." He pointed out that the Giants saved Schmidt for a Game 5 that never was, and that the Red Sox saved Pedro for a Game 7 he didn't win.

With nine outs to go, no matter what happens, I must admit I was wrong again, and Jack was right. Again.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy a comeback and a seventh game.

I wonder how many fantasy owners have Beckett up to the first round on their boards for next season?

Torre has Rivera warming up and ready to pitch the 8th. Hmm - that suggests a change in approach. If Rivera comes in with his team behind, I'll give credit to Torre for changing his in-game tactics for the better.

89 pitches through 7 innings for Beckett. (A 115-pitch pace, for what it's worth.)

Beckett freezes Garcia and blows away Sierra to leave Posada stranded at second. Could he be MVP at 1-1, though Penny won two games?

You are right Mathesond now we have to have a random choice for first pick for next year.

Enrique Wilson in the game for "defensive" purposes. Let's take an informal poll - how many of you would prefer Almonte out there (he of course is not on the WS roster)?

Beckett has been so effective, it's hard to remember that's its still only a 2-run game. Listening on the radio, it's amazing how quiet the Stadium is

Yeah, they are a position player short, but Gabe White and Felix Heredia are standing by in the bullpen if needed.

What a game , this is baseball at its finest. Go Marlins , I want to see Steinbrainer flip out and blow up his team.

The crowd loves Soriano now. Tying run at the plate.

Jeter flied out to fairly deep centre, but Soriano merely loped back to 1st. That's a mistake. With his speed and Pierre's arm, Soriano easily makes it to second.

And it cost them big time - next batter GIDP.

Nick Johnson grounds into an inning-ending double play. A heart-breaker for the Yankeea and their fans. They do have a pretty good 3-4-5-6 coming up in the bottom of the ninth.

99 pitches through 8 innings for Beckett. (A 112-pitch pace, for what it's worth.)

Here comes the nervous 9th , Go Marlins ! 2-0 Marlins after 8th , Beckett is pitching like the ace he is.

Right on, Robert. You wouldn't tag up from first on most outfielders in that situation, but the noodle-armed Pierre had very little chance to get Soriano from that depth.

TV at one end of the apartment, radio at the other. Sigh. Guess I'll log off and put up with the Buck/McCarver tag team on the off chance something historic may happen.

Woah - that looked like Dave Winfield in '92 to me for a second.
That was with men on base, but whatever.

No way you take the ball from Beckett. Bernie Williams just missed a double down the line, then flied out to left. If someone gets on, Giambi gets a chance to tie it with one swing, but Matsui lofts the second out to the warning track. It's up to Posada.

It just doesn't seem like a World Series win without a hometown crowd cheering, huh?

Not even the announcers seem to care.

Man - that Beckett kid is cool under fire. McKeon managed the series brilliantly - it's been a long time since I've seen a manager use his resources as efficiently as he did this post-season.

Pretty amazing, though.
Josh Beckett is in for a pretty heady winter.

Congratulations to Jack, Josh, Pudge, Miguel, Juan, and all the other champions. I'ts a damn shame Loria won, though.

Hard to get too excited over the celebration when they show the losing team more than the winning team. "Florida Marlins, 2003 World Champions" was on the screen during a close-up of Aaron Boone's face.

"What uniform are you going to be wearing next year?"

Lyons should be ashamed of himself - let Pudge enjoy this for just a few minutes, you idiot.

It was also a strange time for Buck and McCarver to be talking about Don Zimmer's future. Hearing "New York, New York" in the background while the Marlins jumped for joy added to the weirdness.

I hope stardom doesn't go to Josh Beckett's head and that he stays healthy. An absolutely brilliant performance.

Wow what a pitching preformance. Has anybody this young been so dominant as a pitcher in a post season? I'm happy for the fans of South Florida who had to watch a world series team dismantled...lets hope Loria doesn't repeat history.

I got home just in time to see the end of the game. But did anyone notice that the MLB paraphernailia commercial was done with blurred out faces/jerseys? That was really amusing to me.

After gloating just a little about his choice of pitchers (he's entitled) Jack McKeon responded to a question about retirement by saying, "How could you leave a group of guys like this?"

The Marlins have to pay Pudge whatever he wants, or the Florida fans will feel betrayed, which would be deja vu.

It was 107 pitches through 9 innings for Beckett.

The Marlins had the 5th-lowest Opening Day Payroll this year ($48m), even lower than the Jays ($51m). The Yankees had by far the highest ($149m).

I don't know how much the present owner had to do with this year's championship, but he'll have to deal with high expectations under the spotlight now.

Bret Saberhagen was awesome in 1985 and he was 3 years younger than Beckett is now.

Helluva season, incredible playoffs. Too bad it's over.

Congrats on the first full season of Da Box, Coach, contributers and posters alike. It's been made that much better by having a forum to think and discuss logically the workings of baseball.
...Tomorrow the next season begins! :-)

ESPN post-game show on the radio is just starting (fan590.com, Shulman as host).

If you just do a Stalin-esque airbrushing out of Loria from the 2003 Marlins, this is an amazingly easy team to cheer for.

The slide by Alex Gonzalez to score the first run of the game was simply brilliant. He did a jump slide to the outside part of the plate but pulled up short, and as Posada was reaching out to tag the legs that weren't there he pounced forward, reached with his left hand and just got his fingers on the plate.

Score (TV) is also showing post-game interviews.

What a pitching staff the Marlins have. Beckett, Pavano and Penny all throw in the mid 90's. Even Willis is over 90. Looper and Fox also throw hard. Urbina and Redman are the slowest.

The Jays need McGowan and League, how throw hard, to join Halliday in the gas patrol.

How long after the World Series do we usually have to wait for the onslaught of announcements by other teams? Like a matter of a few days or tomorrow?

Beckett freezes Garcia and blows away Sierra to leave Posada stranded at second.


I thought that at-bat with Garcia was a key turning point. Earlier Karim had hit the ball pretty well. He sort of walked up to the plate, took some big chews of whatever he was chewing, and then swung away at a first-pitch fastball, if I recall. For some reason his mannerisms just crack me up.

Minor observation: in that at-bat, just before Beckett threw that last curve to get the called strike, the camera showed Pudge giving signs, and it was clear that what he flashed was this, in this order: 1 (fastball, presumably), 4 (waving around - changeup), ending on 2 (curve, which Beckett threw). You might think with a runner on second base they might have changed the signs, but I guess not. For whatever reason, it seemed like on that pitch only, the broadcast showed Pudge giving the signs - after that, it seemed like they would just show random head shots of Beckett or the batter or some random person (e.g. Loria), and then cut to the straight-back-from-center-field camera for the pitch only after Beckett had started the pitch. Maybe they do this when they realize that the signs are easy to guess.

I agree with teh comment about the fact that they showed the Yankees more as they lost than they did of the Marlins winning. In the time right after the final out there were several shots of Torre and Zimmer on the bench, as well as solo shots of Aaron Boone and several other Yankees in the dugout. They seemed to be cutting to shots of the Marlins celebrating in the infield, rather than the other way around. It seemed to be only several minutes afterwards when they begun to really show the Marlins celebrations.

Juan Pierre has been overrated somewhat by the mainstream media this postseason. However, does he not look like he's having the time of his life when he plays baseball? I've noticed it throughout the playoffs, and several times in teh World Series on his big 2-run single in game 1, the shot of him on third base as Gonzalez scored the first run tonight and as the Marlins clinched it, he was running in to the infield as full speed with this look of pure joy on his face. Reading him and seeing him in action makes me root for him to succeed more than I used to before. He reminds me of the typical kid out there playing for the love of the game.

I thought that at-bat with Garcia was a key turning point.

It certainly was. Me Grimlock thought it was ball four and noticed Bernie Williams got a ball on a similar pitch the following inning. Garcia walks, and maybe McKeon goes to the bullpen. Urbina eventually comes in, and maybe aura and mystique rear their ugly head.

Red Sox fans must be kicking themselves in the nuts... they can't ever beat the Yankees, but the freaking MARLINS can? They can't win the Series, and the Marlins win it TWICE? Hahaha...

"What uniform are you going to be wearing next year?"

Lyons should be ashamed of himself - let Pudge enjoy this for just a few minutes, you idiot.

Besides being a poorly timed question, does he actually expect a response?

I can see it now: Pudge - "Next year I'll be with the Orioles - we secretly agreed to a 5 year, $60 million contract after the Giants series."

Seeing the Marlins makes me think that the Jays aren't that far away. A couple pitchers that work out (Bush, McGowan?), some good free agent starters, some good trades to shore up the pen, some luck and a WS isn't that far away.

Right now it's probably tougher for the Jays to make the playoffs then it is to win the World Series if they were in the playoffs.

Pistol - while the Jays might not be far off, there are about a dozen teams in the same position or better.

Making playoffs is the tough part - the WS is just gravy.