It is still September and nine days of regular-season baseball remain, but the playoffs provided the context for everything that occurred at Yankee Stadium on Friday night.
Jon Lester got hit by a
Melky Cabrera line drive and fell to the ground, and the first thought was: Will he be OK for the playoffs? And the truth is that the Red Sox won't know the answer to that question for days and days.
Lester may or may not make his
his next scheduled start Thursday, although you do wonder if this will cause the Red Sox to alter their plans of having Lester pitch Game 1 of the ALDS. For a few moments, Dan Shaughnessy writes, it felt like that moment at the outset of the
Patriots' 2008 season when Tom Brady got taken down, once and for good.
Joba Chamberlain pitched much better, so much more aggressively and purposefully you got the feeling manager
Joe Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland sat down with him and told him he doesn't have a spot guaranteed, that
Chad Gaudin might be the No. 4 start if Joba didn't start showing something. Which is exactly what happened.
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Buster Olney
