And then the floodgates opened

Early morning thoughts on last night's 11th inning beatdown by the Tribe on the Sox.

• Gotta credit the Indians for absolutely gutting the Red Sox bullpen. The Sox obviously have a fearsome bullpen centered around Timlin, Okajima and Papelbon. But if you can hang around long enough and get their quality pitchers out of the game, ultimately you'll get to someone on the staff who stinks. It'll also be interesting to see how these excess relief innings take a toll on the bullpens of both teams in the series.
  
• Also speaking of stinking, I don't think we'll see the Sox go to Eric Gagne ever again, even if they play an 18-inning game. He's like the anti-rabbit's foot now. While watching the game I was thinking the Red Sox have to end this thing while Papelbon was on the mound. If the Indians manage to get to Gagne, this thing's over. And man was it ever over after he entered.
• By the way, some credit needs to go out to the Tribe's bullpen as well.
  
• I was watching the game with a guy who said to me at one point, why aren't the Indians using Trot Nixon? I didn't have a good answer. Then Wedge brought him in as a pinch hitter and he got what turned out to be the game winning hit. Which shows Wedge knows exactly what he's doing.
  
• I'm going to respectfully disagree with Mr. Shanoff on his call about the winner of Game 2 being the eventual winner of the series. Personally, I think Game 3 is likely to determine the series because now that both teams have thrown their aces, it's time to see what the B-team can do. Dice-K has been anything but great of late, but Cleveland's staff has a steep drop off after Sabathia and Carmona. It's probably trite to pick Game 3 as the defining game, but it really seems the most logical call. And that's because whoever loses Game 3 may dip into the dreaded pitcher-on-three-days-rest bag, which is almost always a loser. Unless you have Josh Beckett, who is quickly becoming a one-man postseason wrecking crew.

-WCK