Here we are again. It’s Thursday night, and tomorrow there’s a Red Sox playoff game. I’ll be the guy pacing around the office, checking his watch incessantly. The last few days I’ve been psyching myself up so much I don’t know if I can handle any adversity. The moment when I can finish all my thinking, make all my phone calls to loved ones, and rendezvous with some hambone-buddies to celebrate a Game One victory into the wee hours is nigh.

I just heard, “it doesn’t get much better than Brandon Webb versus Jeff Francis” on the TBS NLCS pregame show. Yes, it does. Have you looked at the probables for tomorrow? Are you high?! Oh, the Rockies and the D-Backs are playing in the NLCS? One team is thankful for the return of Willy Tavares, the other has Augie Ojeda at second. Right, no one cares.

Eric Byrnes just said “we’ve defied all the Nostradamuses.” As awkward as that was to write, it was worse to hear. If I’d been able to watch anything in the realm of reputable sports over the last few days there’s no way I’d be watching this game. Sabres-Thrashers on HDNet was cool for about fifteen minutes, but I need to satisfy the baseball craving somehow. Holy shit, I wish the Mets/Phillies/Cubs were in this series: the Diamondbacks just scored in the bottom of the first, and I’ve completely lost interest. Is it wrong of me to wonder if there are more wheelchair accessible seats in Pheonix? Yes.

So, I’ll turn to tomorrow. Bobby Kielty will get the start over J.D. Drew in right, I guess a 1.030 OPS in 29 ABs should get the nod over the 0-3 Drew. It’s not Kielty Carsten Charles should fear, its Manny. The new media darling has a mere four homers and three doubles (1.894 OPS) against the Dumptruck. In very limited action, Travis Hafner, Jason Michaels and Kenny Lofton have aggregates over 1.000 against Beckett. Whatever.

The pitching matchups are square in Games One and Two, but advantage Sox in Three and Four. Jake Westbrook and Paul Byrd give up hits and runs, and when this lineup clicks, it eats up middle of the rotation guys. A split at Fenway is fine with me. Under what conditions does Beckett get the start over Wake in Game Four? I don’t agree with it, but I think it’s going to be Wake unless, god forbid, its 0-3. At that point, every game is a must win and the Cy Young needs as many starts as he can get. In two previous career appearances on three days rest, he’s been awesome (1.12 ERA, 9 Ks) but it’s only 8 IP. I like Beckett in One, Four and Seven more than I like Daisuke in Three and Seven. There are only two days between Five and Seven, if Beckett doesn’t start Four, he’ll only get two. Now repeat that back to me.

Did I mention that I can’t wait for Joe Borowski to crash and burn? His time is up.

Clearly small market teams can be competitive in any single year, and I’m sure we’ll see a few in the playoffs every season. If the alternative was true, if every big budget team was automatically a contender, this sport would be boring and dead. With two uber-rich teams, and no, I don’t make a big distinction between the Sox and Yankees’ payroll, we’ll see one of them and a few of the other guys in every postseason. This year, none of the $80-110 million squads got lucky enough to win a series. We’re lucky that John Henry sees the value in winning every year, and the Yawkey Trust did their due diligence in selecting a buyer back in 2001. Go Sox.

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