Look for Dice-K to give the Sox a 2-0 lead tomorrow. The Angels have never faced him and they were bamboozeled by two rookie pitchers they had never seen in the last week of the season, neither of whom are in Dice-K’s class.

Bottom 7th: Sweet! Sox are up 4-0.  Can we get a big seventh too? Nope, Santana relieves Lackey and delivers a 1-2-3 inning for the Angels.

Top 8th: Beckett is on fire – no walks, seven strike outs and two singles allowed through seven. It looked like the Angels may have life when Kendrick splipped a single past Lugo. But Beckett got back to work and closed out the inning with his 8th strikeout of the night.

Bottom 8th: Santana looked a little nervous when Big Pappi swatted his first two pitches DEEP but foul and then he threw three balls in a row. He buckled down though and got both Pappi and Manny to pop out.

Top 9th: I was expecting a FULLY CLOTHED Jonathan Paplebon to show up for the 9th but it’s Beckett going for the complete game. After a superb catch by Ellsbury in left, Cabrera grounded out to third and it was all over but the shoutin’. Sox win, sox win.

OK, so the first game of the series was relatively one-sided thanks to a silly performance by Beckett. But, there’s a lot of baseball yet to be played.

After we contained the lightning that was let loose within our wall – a very tricky procedure involving keys, kite string and several mystical chants to Ben Franklin – it was time to asses the damage.

First, there were some tragic human consequences. After absorbing massive amounts of electricity, one of our writers believes he is the reincarnation of legendary Negro League player Cool Papa Bell. He’s been dashing around the offices turning off light switches and racing the electric current to the light bulbs, asking to see Satchel Paige and singing the praises of Coco Crisp, who he thinks is a long lost cousin.

Another writer believes she is a duck.

Obviously, some changes had to be made. The remaining staff has decided to reduce our production to two posts a week – one on Tuesday and the other in the Friday/Saturday vicinity. That’s all we’re promising. There could be some bonus posts, but two is all you’re promised you ingrate. We’re currently in the market for writers who do not quack or race electric current. If you’re interested, please add a comment to this post or contact us at thebigbiggame@hotmail.com. Serious or non-serious inquiries only.

One last item before we move on to the next big game – how about that Wild Card race? So what if we didn’t blog on it, can we pick ‘em or what?

Alright, now, on to the only baseball playoffs….

First, we didn’t just pick this series because we’re Sox fans. This is clearly the best series. Only two of the eight playoff teams have won World Series in the last five years and guess what – they’re the Sox and Angels.

As always, we look for the subplots and intrigue like a sleazy gossip columnist…or blogger.

Can the Angels recapture the magic of 2002 when aggressive, small-ball offense delivered LA (I know they were Anaheim them, but you know what, they want to mess around with names and cities and play that game – they get LA – apologies to peeps in Lewiston-Auburn, the original LA baby, represent) the championship? Or will the bullpen , perhaps fortified with erstwhile starters Bartolo Colon and Ervin Santana, continue its 2007 sag and blow up in the meaty paws of Mike Scioscia?

Scioscia isn’t the only manager who may need to call in the bomb squad to handle the bullpen. Terry Francona has to handle Eric Gagne, the high-powered Canadian piece of crap. I don’t care if he does have a current streak of 3.2 innings of scoreless relief, he’s a disaster waiting to happen, on a grand scale, like, oh, I don’t know, lightning striking your house, err, I mean, headquarters. Not to mention Hideki Okajima, the Japanese afterthought/caddy for Dice-K who carried the Sox pen for the first 3/4 of the season until his arm turned into a rubbery clam and the league figured out he only throws 88.

Plus, the last time Francona saw his closer, he was doing this -

  much love and respect to Jim Davis of the Boston Globe for daring to snap this sho (hopefully that absolves us of any copyright infringement…did we mention the Big Big lawyers were also dazed the lightning and are currently re-enacting the Lord of the Flies in our cafeteria?)

We also love all the base stealing and extra base taking and general base path shenanigans that will surely be snapping around in these games. The Angles lve to hit-and-run and run-and-hit and run-and-run and then, just for kicks, run a little more. And you know what, the Sox aren’t slow either (yes, yes I’m going to talk about Coco here, I know his mama makes the best cornbread, fine I’ll mention it, ok I’ll ask him to get in touch with you, yes I know his real name is not Coco, now leave me alone, that’s it, go chase the light) ok, ahh, sorry about that, where was I? Oh yeah, the Go-Go Sox – Crisp, who apparently knows where to get some good cornbread, Julio Lugo and the precocious Jacoby Ellsbury, which leads us to…..

The young’uns.  Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Mike Napoli, Jeff Mathis, Howie Kendrick, Reggie Willits and Jered Weaver plus “rookies” Matsuzaka and Okajima. This series is loaded with young players which means someone is going to make a game-changing, and thus season- changing, mistake and someone is probably going to make a name for themselves.

Then there’s the Dominican Superstars – Manny, Papi and Vlad. We got three guys herewho by one name. ‘Nuff  said.

Finally, we get to see how much home-field and momentum really mean in the playoffs. Most of the baseball cognescenti here in the New England area will tell you it means nothing, and they’re really snotty about it – “look at the Cardinals and the White Sox you idiot!”

Sure, we understand that it isn’t necessary to be playing great or on your own turf, but would you rather be 6-4 in your last 10 with several meaningful wins (Red Sox) or 4-6 with several ugly losses (Angels)? Would you rather be playing at the first two and the possible Game 5 at home where you have a 51-30 record (Sox) or be on the road where you have a 40-41 record (LA)?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Okay, gotta go, I hear the conch shell echoing from the cafeteria, and you know what that means…okay, so no one knows what that means, but I think I should go check it out.

The Braves have won three straight and 8 of 10 and are now 3 back in the wild card race and four back in the division. The bad news is there are still three teams ahead for the wild spot and two ahead of them for the division. The good news is the Phillies, who the Braves beat last night 10-6, are one of the teams ahead in both races and the ATL has Hudson and Smolts going against the Phils for the next two nights before finishing the season with a Houston team playing out the string and Andruw Jones is suddenly hot, going 5-for-10 in his last two games.

If the Braves managed to worm their way into the race it would be a great story, but not as great as…

The Rockies, who just keep on winning. Last night’s 9-7 win over the Dodgers made it nine straight, which ties for the longest winning streak in team history, and brings them even with the Phillies in the wild card standings and has all of Denver, or at least the Denver Post, dreaming of the Rox first playoff appearance since 1995. Rookie shortstop Troy Tulowitzki was at it again, clubbing his 23rd home run of the season, the second most ever by a rookie shortstop, trailing only Nomah who hit 30 in 1997. Nomar gives Tulo his props here.

Meanwhile, back at the Hall of Justice…

Just when it looks like every last wheel is flying of the Padre bus, Brain Giles, mired in a 7-for-67 slump, comes through with a three-run home run with two outs in the ninth as San Diego comes back to beat the Giants, 6-4. Just when it looked the Padres were about to snap like Milton Bradley at an umpires convention, the Friars are all alone atop the wild card standings…and just when it looked like the Cubs were going to walk away with the division, they went all Cub on us and after last night the Brewers are back to within two games….same thing in the NL West where Arizona lost last night to the (gulp) Pirates losing ground on both the Padres (two back) and the Rox (three back). The division could be at stake when Arizona and Colorado meet in the last week of the season.

Here are today’s pitching matchups as listed by espn.com (hey, they have a much bigger staff, so we like to let the network do our dirty work).

So, what do I think is going to happen?

No clue. That’s why this stuff is so much fun. It reminds me of March Madness where you have several do-or-die games going on at once and suddenly you care about teams that frankly, you never cared about.

But they’re not going head-to-head. So the entire race with all the teams involved – contenders, spoilers and division leaders hoping to hang on - is the Big Big story. And a great one at that – every day there are multiple box scores to check and probabe pitching matchups to ponder, magic numbers and tiebreakers to calculate. There’s also been some hot sauce slathered on the story this fall…Milton Bradley style.

Before we lick the sauce from our fingers, let’s check out the meat beneath it.

The central characters this week are the Padres, Phillies and Rockies – those are the three teams who are playing to extend their season. Your basic fight for survival, us against the world, win or go home deal. You know the drill. San Diego plays two at San Francisco then four with the Brewers; the Phillies host Atlanta for three then Washington for three; Colorado plays three in LA and then is home for its last three against the D-Backs.

The all-star supporing cast includes Arizona, the Mets, Milwaukee, the Cubs and even the lowly Nationals.

The Diamondbacks look comfortable atop the NL West with a three-game lead and a three-game series with the Pirates starting Tuesday, but the D-backs do have a season-ending series with the Rockies. Plus, now might be a good time to figure out just how the hell Arizona is about win the West with a negative run differential.

Not only are the Brewers clinging to a playoff dream that seemed so real just a few short weeks ago, but they also play the Padres on the season’s final weekend. Chances are not good Milwaukee erases the three-game lead the Cubs have built, but they could spoil things for the Padres in a matchup of two teams that just couldn’t stop the losing. Just why and how the Brewers, who were the feel-good story of the season for nearly six months, collapsed is another intriguing side story this week.

The Mets and Cubs look safe for now…but these are the Cubs were talking about. Would a biblical late-season catastrophe shock anyone? I thought not. If it does happen, at least it won’t happen in Wrigley, since the Cubbies travel to Florida and Cincinnati this week. It could happen at Shea, where the Mets are crawling toward the finish line with their current two-game lead over the Phillies and host the Marlins and Nationals to close out the season. Ahh yes, the Nationals, a type-cast spoiler if there ever was one and in perfect position to play the role - when they finish at Shea, where they beat the Mets for the third time in four tries on Monday, they travel to Philly for three games.

Derek Jacques at Baseballprospectus.com (every baseball nerd’s home page) has determined the probablity each team has of making the playoffs, both as wild cards and division leaders, You can see the complete list on si.com here and check out his methodology here, but for our purposes this is what you need to know (all numbers as of Tuesday) - the Phillies have a 43.4 percent chance of winning the wild card and a 4.8 shot at the division; the Padres have a 34.4 percent chance for the wild card and a 9.4 percent chance for the divisio; the Rockies have a 9.7 percent chance at the wild card and and 3.2 percent chance at the division. 

Now for the Milton Bradley Hot Sauce (tell me that wouldn’t sell). If the Padres fail to make the playoffs then the torn ACL Bradley suffered when he was taken down by manager Bud Black will immediately enter the tragic injury hall of fame, bizarre wing as the cornerstone exhibit. Bradley was so angry at first-base Mike Winters that Black actually threw Bradley to the ground to try and get his player separated from the umpire, who allegedly baited Bradley, and tears his ACL. You can’t make this stuff up.

This is worse than Joel Zumaya’s Guitar Hero forearm, John Smotlz’s ironing incident or Marty Cordova’s tanning follies. (cbssportsline.com has a top ten bizarre baseball injury list here, though it’s from 2005, so Zumaya didn’t make the cut.) And it couldn’t have come at a worse time – the Padres have lost four straight, Bradley was their best hitter and oh yeah, he also spiked Mike Cameron’s hand after a collision earlier in the game. Two outfielders down in one surreal day. How can you not follow the Padres sad saga of unraveling this week? How I said!

Or, how can you not follow the Rockies’ revival story. The Colorado Rockies. C’mon, you remember them, play way up in that altitude, balls floating around like Lawrence Welk bubbles, you know, the Rockies. Whatever. They’ve won eight straight and are finally, finally relevant again in September, as Thomas Harding of mlb.com writes here.

Finally the Phillies, who have been living under the pressure of Jimmy Rollins’s spring statement that they were the team to beat in the NL East. Truthfully, I like J-Roll and would love to see him go Namath (no, I’m not talking about drooling down Suzy Korber’s blouse) and make the guarantee happen. I don’t see how they have any shot of doing anything in the playoffs with that staff, but that’s not the point this week. This week, it’s just about getting in the door – pushing, shoving and cuts allowed.

Standings as of Tuesday morning

The Spartans have 17 sacks in their three games, which is the most in the nation. Senior Jonal Saint-Dic has been a surprising terror from his end spot in MSU’s 3-4 with five sacks and four forced fumbles. Over/under Saint-Dic sacks today – 3.5. Over/under for Saint Dick jokes from the good Catholics in the stands – 13,498.5.

This matchup is where the schadenfreude could really come into play. Is there anything more pathetic looking than a tackle hopelessly trying to block an end who can smell blood? I have this image of Reggie White tormenting Max Lane all day in the 1996 Super Bowl (I don’t remember the Roman numerals, it was the Packers/Pats) that will forever be burned into my psyche. I can hear Reggie now, “Max Lanes are naturally gifted as turnstiles.” Saint-Dic may haunt ND’s dreams forever after today, not to mention Clausen. Because part of the reason seeing a pass rusher have his way with blundering lineman is so delightfully masochistic is because you know what’s waiting on the other end – said pass rusher obliterating the already rattled quarterback. This is the base-level of schadenfreude and perhaps the real reason we all love football – seeing other people endure physical pain. (God, I feel like a monster, please forgive me). 

But don’t run and hide yet Irish faithful. There’s hope. A little. The MSU defensive backs are seriously banged up with three of their four regulars questionable. If Clausen can get any time, he may be able to complete some passes. Weis can scheme some nice three-step drop timing routes, ND receivers Robby Parris and Duval Kamara are talented and tight end John Carlson is a perfect quick-drop target.

Injuries may also help the ND defense. The MSU o-line is banged up while the Irish get end Derrell Hand back from a three-game suspension. He tried to hire a hooker – insert next Catholic joke here - but whatever. ND needs all the help it can get here, since its given up 237.3 rushing yards per game so far this season and last year MSU tailback Jehuu Caulcrick gashed the Irish for 111 yards. ND has more talent in the defensive backfield – Tom Zbikowski, Darrin Walls and Raeshon McNeil – and the MSU passing game has been inconsistent the last couple of weeks.

 The other thing ND has going for it is emotion. I mean, they have to come out feeling angry and embarassed and looking to take it out on somebody, right? Don’t they? I say yes. And I also say if they can have some early success, well, all those angry fans might actually start rooting for them, and then, well…they might make it close.

Michigan State 24, Notre Dame 16

Vegasinsider.com, my go-to site for odds now since it gives you BAM the lines from eight different sports books and makes you feel all fly as a vegas insider, has all the college football lines right here. Remarkably steady over/under at 43 with the line being Michigan State giving 10.5 or 11.

BONUS – Interesting debate between two MSU guys on whether or not Weis should keep his job.

Bob Wojnowski of the Detroit News is definitely on board with our schadenfreude theme. He even goes all school-yard and calls Charlie Weis fat. Bob shows a kinder side by throwing in some other college football picks for you.

So we know the Irish can’t protect the passer (23 sacks allowed), or throw it when they do (119 yards per game, three picks, no touchdowns, not even to Jesus). So chances are they’ll be trying to run that thing on Saturday, or so it says here. Of course ol’ Charlie loves misdirection.

John Mullin of the Chicago Tribune has the latest news and some nice details on the Demetrius Jones story here. The Big Big staff is currently getting flogged for not reporting on the Jones story at all this week. But they did manage to scream out this quick recap in between lashes - Jones started the first game, realized he was risking his life playing behind that o-line, enrolled at Northern Illinois, didn’t tell anyone, kept practicing for the Irish then didn’t show up for the bus to the Michigan game. Yes, things are really bad when Northern Illinois (quick, name their mascot) looks more appealing than Notre Dame.

A whole crap load of Irish links from USA today. I like the story that says it’s biblical. I like stories.

Here are the game notes from the MSU website. Since they’re, like, the real football team here, we might as well use their real football information.

Charlie Weis’s decision to have a full practice on Sunday following the 38-0 loss to Michigan, his declaration that every position was up for grabs, his decision to make all practices this week full contact, his emphasis on a basic core group of plays, his reshuffling of EVERYTHING right down to his press conferences all make this game that much more intriguing.

Can so much change possibly work? On the other hand, could things get much worse?

What will the Irish look like after this unprecedented return to camp after three games? Will it create dissension? Mike Celizic of MSNBC.com thinks it might. Or is it possible Weis’s ploys will work, that the players come out frothing, that they’ll be so ready to stop being ridiculed by the media and punished by their coach they’ll whip MSU? Doubtful, but intriguing nonetheless.

The guys here at ndnation.com spend a LOT of time thinking about all things Golden Domed. So do these guys at uhnd.com.  All things Notre Dame from one of the branches of the Irish network, MSNBC.com. 

 As for the Spartans (oh yeah, they’re playing here too) there’s no chance they’ll overlook Notre Dame (amazing that those words even make sense going together). There’s been bad blood brewing here recently, as Dave Dye of The Detroit News writes. Sure, MSU isn’t innocent here. The Spartans weren’t trying to make friends when they planted a flag on ND turf in 2005, as photographed (below) by Dale G. Young of the Detoit News.

A variety of links to Spartan blogs and newspaper stories here at greenandwhite.com. More here at spartantailgate.com.

Schadenfreude wins this week. I just love that word, schadenfreude, and I’m not alone. It’s got its own website, here. If you don’t know what it means, click here. If you don’t want to click there, I’ll tell you what it means – laughing when someone else gets kicked in the balls.

Or, in this case, wanting to see how bad the Irish will get beat this week.

There is no lightning rod, water-cooler talk, debate subject in college football like Notre Dame. You love ‘em, you hate ‘em, you’re Irish, you wish you Irish, you don’t understand why the hell we lousy Irish get a holiday. Whatever. Serious fans, casual fans and even non-fans can have some sort of chat or opinion on Notre Dame football.

Now the water cooler question is – what the hell happened? Why has Jesus forsaken the Irish? Did they skip mass with a hangover? Did they chug the communion wine? Is it payback for all those naughty priests?

More importantly, isn’t Charlie Weis supposed to be an offensive genius? How could they have possibly not scored an offensive touchdown this season. Yeah, we know they lost their quarterback, running back, top two wide receivers and three starting offensive linemen, but ZERO offensive touchdowns?

So perhaps the question should be, can Weis recruit? And can he then turn lead those recruits down the path that takes them from high school stud to college star. Maybe he needs to borrow some video cameras from his old boss.

Back to schadenfreude. You know you want to tune in this week and see for your own eyes, if you haven’t seen already, just how pathetic this Notre Dame team is. What are they doing wrong. And oh yeah, you might just get a malevolent chuckle out of it along the way.

There’s also some compelling history here, like the 1966 “Game of the Century” when State was 9-0 and No. 2 and the Irish 8-0 and No. 1. That one ended in a 10-10 tie when Ara Parseghian chose to run the clock out rather than try and drive for a winning field goal (a strategy he defended ever since)  and both teams claimed national championships. The 40th anniversary of that game was last year, though recent history was more of a motivator. ND was upset that the Spartans planted their flag at midfield Notre Dame stadium. The Irish came back from a 19-point deficit to win 40-37.

Great history. Interesting side notes and such. We’ll watch for the schadenfreude, which happens no matter what. Chances are, it will be more Irish misery (I can’t wait for the camera to pan the crowd), but if ND somehow beats Michigan State, there will be ample misery for the Spartans.

Now…let me take credit for last week’s pick. I said the Patriots linebackers would make life tough on the San Diego offense, which lives in the middle of the field. Yup, got that one pretty much right – Roosevelt Colvin interception on San Diego’s first offensive play, Adalius Thomas int. return for a touchdown (did you see that speed? He was pulling away from wide receiver Malcolm Floyd) and then, when the Chargers have a hint of momentum and may get back into it, Mike Vrable and Colvin come up with back-to-back sacks to shut the door.

Plus, the vaunted LaDainian had just 43 yards on 18 carries. Patriot linebackers stealing Chargers lunch, check.

I also said the Chargers couldn’t handle the Patriots new receiving corps. Since Randy Moss and Wes Welker combined for 16 catches and 196 yards, I think I was right there too.

Film that you whining Chargers. I dance on your Lightning Bolt!

Now, I did miss on the over/under and the final score. Honestly, I wanted to pick the Pats in a blowout, which is what I was saying in private, but it seemed to risky after being so wrong the first week. Oh well. I admit, I was off, way off on the gambling details. But as far as the actual game…Bingo! I got Bingo! Probably be the last time that will happen all year.

If you want to read a fantastic post-game column, check the Sports Guy.