Josh Beckett Was Dealing Tonight...

An absolutely dominating performance from Josh Beckett tonight, going the distance while yielding only four hits, with only two runners getting into scoring position, and fanning eight. Beckett was consistently getting ahead of hitters, pounding the zone with first pitch strikes. While the Angels did attempt to take hacks early in the count to prevent falling behind in the count, his command of the two seamer and a vicious hammer prevented the hitters from getting any decent cuts. Rather than serving as a commentary on the relative weakness of the Angels' lineup, this performance was indicative of the pure talent Beckett possesses. On a night when no lineup in the majors was likely to have success, Sox fans hops that Beckett set the tone for the rotation on the first night of the postseason.

The pain of watching the Angels get mowed down by Beckett was exacerbated by the quality, or lack thereof, of the initial foray of TBS into postseason baseball. The team of Ted Robinson and Steve Stone was awkward, as would be expected of a team in its initial pairing. Additionally, their relative lack of recent commentary was evident, with Robinson serving primarily as the lead tennis play by play man for NBC and Stone doing assorted ESPN telecasts, as little rhythm was exhibited and anecdotes seemed to be forced into spaces, resulting in the duo frequently carrying those anecdotes over the action. Stone, in particular, seemed to be off kilter, once referring to Josh Beckett's 5:1 "strikeout to fastball" ratio during his conversation with Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell and failing to breakdown Angels pitcher John Lackey's early struggles with his location, particularly with the breaking ball, which he was consistently hanging in the zone and resulted in David Ortiz' two run home run. The direction of the TBS broadcast was also astonishingly poor, marred by multiple occasions of returning to action at the start of a half inning after the action had already begun. Perhaps MLB should have given more thought to placing the full slate of Division Series games in the lap of a network with limited experience in executing sports broadcasts from multiple locations on the same night. Then again, there's not much in the way of anticipation for Fox initiating its coverage and subjecting the world to more commentary by the team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Ow...