Manny and the Caveman: Your 2011 Tampa Bay Rays

he looks high

Dan Johnson just saved the Tampa Bay Rays season. This Dan Johnson.

Before tonight, he had a -7 wRC+. As noted in that leaderboard, the only Major Leaguer with a worse offensive season in at least 90 PA was Roy Halladay,

I showed my class all the Tampa Bay/Boston highlights this morning, trying to create some sense of the timeline (a split-screen would have come in handy). Baseball hardly exists for Canadian kids ever since the Jays stopped winning, but, thanks to my expert narration, they seemed to understand the improbability of all that happened.

sportscenter did a great dual highlight timeline thingy last night

When they turn it into a movie, either De Palma or a resurrected Abel Gance gets the assignment.

I can't even remember for sure which game ended first now, tho I suspect it was Boston's

it was

Price has to be a little rattled from that start/Teix's salami. Hope he can pull it together.

yeah they need him 2 be solid

take cliff lee out of the equation & tb beats tx last yr p handily

i'm sure he'll be fine -- pitchers have bad starts sometimes

I can't even remember for sure which game ended first now, tho I suspect it was Boston's

Yeah, Longoria gave Boston just enough time to walk into the clubhouse and watch their season end

I'll be rooting hard for the Rays for as long as they last. Coming back like they did last night was just tremendous. They caught a break in not having to face Rivera, but it still required some mysterious combination of luck, karma, divine intervention, character (old-fashioned, I know--I have to believe there's some of that in there somewhere), and god only knows what else. It would be so great to see them knock out the Yankees in a divisional final after Girardi's decision not to use Rivera (which I totally understand).

I think the gap between Andino and Longoria was three or four minutes. (I'm not sure, but one may have even been just before midnight and the other just after.)

Verducci has an exact timeline up--not quite right:

12:02: Robert Andino wins the game for Baltimore with a single. The Red Sox, as it turns out, have three minutes to live.

12:05: Longoria hits a home run off Scott Proctor to win the game for Tampa Bay.

From FanGraphs:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ALWCracebytime.png

wow

Seriously, there will almost certainly not be anything like this for a long time

Not just the Boston collapse or the insane way yesterday shook out, but even Carl Crawford's tragic involvement in everything is just ridiculous and too weird to believe

did Crawford end the season with an obp over .300?

nein

lolwow

dianagram (NYC): Matt Moore .... best pitching prospect to hit the majors since __________. (Prior? Wood? Verlander? other?)

Jason Parks: Kershaw

http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/hash/94/dc/94dcb347e4290011e732ed531a4fb48a.jpg

rewatched the 2011 yankees-rays game 162 yesterday, so satisfying