Here’s some Deep Thoughts from Haggs while I sit here in the left field deck of Tropicana Field – or the House that Ryan Rupe Built as I like to call it – waiting for Game Six of the ALCS to commence. Sox Manager Terry Francona was incredibly loose in his pregame meeting with the media, and he quite honestly had the feel of somebody that felt like his team was going to come out and steamroll the Rays. The only way I would have been more shocked is if Francona and bench coach Brad Mills had broken out into a Penn and Teller comedy routine.

He felt so loosey goosey that he called WBZ-TV’s Dan Roche a “a dumb sh$%” during the pregame press conference hosted by Major League Baseball when Rochey called him “Coach” – something Roche does jokingly because he knows it annoys the crap out of Francona.

Anyway here we go with Deep Thoughts, ALCS edition:

*I respect Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon and his RayHawk hairdo very highly, but he screwed up a couple of times in what could be the pivotal Game Five. Maddon made the right call starting Scott Kazmir, but he faltered as soon as he made the call to the bullpen.



Righty Grant Balfour had been up and throwing warm-up tosses at least three times in the Rays pen by the time he got into the game in the fateful seventh inning, and he was a shadow of himself when he started pitching. It was obvious when he came in and everything he was giving up was hard-hit, and Maddon further faltered by not lifting Balfour when it was obvious he didn’t have the goods. Especially egregious was his inability to lift Balfour for lefties J.P. Howell or Trever Miller when Ortiz came up to the plate with two runners on. Balfour never should have been in the game to cough up the homer.

Maddon will win AL Manager of the Year and he deserves the honor, but he also helped crack open the door that the Sox hitters busted open. If the Sox end up taking Game 6 and 7, his bullpen usage in Game 5 will go down as the turning point in the series and Rays' downfall.

*I’ve heard a lot of talk about the Los Angeles Dodgers not having the money to resign Manny Ramirez for next season. While it’s true that the Dodgers didn’t pay any money in picking up Man-Ram and Casey Blake at the trade deadline – and it’s also true that Frank McCourt may or may not be in some sort financial distress – the Dodgers also have a helluva lot of money coming off their books in the next two seasons.

The kind of freed up cash that makes a potential run at Ramirez in free agency a possibility for GM Ned Colletti. Andruw Jones is due $15 million next season and then his disastrous two-year, $36.2 million contract is off the books and Colletti can again sleep restfully without waking up due to nightmares of Jones famed 0-for-4 with four strikeouts "sombrero" game that he seems to have cornered the baseball market in. Also off the books in ’09 are Jason Schmidt ($12 million in 2009) and his junk right arm. 

But wait there’s more. Off the books as of right now are Derek Lowe ($10 million), Rafael Furcal ($13 million), Greg Maddux ($10 million), Jeff Kent ($9 million). Nomar Garciaparra ($8.5 million), and both Brad Penny ($8.75 million) and Angel Berroa ($5.5 million) if their 2009 options are declined. So that means the Dodgers could have more than $50 million cleared off their books this season and another nearly $30 million off their books following the 2009 season.

There’s a lot of hue and cry that the Dodgers have backed themselves into a corner and couldn’t possibly afford Manny given their cash-strapped situation, but a closer look seems to indicate that the Dodgers might have some loot at their disposal if they decided to keep Mannywood going.  

*There was a groundswell of support to push up Jon Lester for Game 6 and give a faltering Josh Beckett another day of rest to pitch Game 7 – okay it wasn’t a groundswell but there were plenty of rabble-rousers out there pushing this theory – but anybody that knows anything about the Sox knew this wasn’t going to happen. Not only is it their organizational philosophy to shy away from altering their rotation due to playoff circumstances, but Lester has thrown a combined 230 innings in the regular season and postseason. That’s right…230 innings for the 24-year-old left with the Golden Future.

The most he had ever pitched previously was 162 2/3 innings last season between the minors and majors (which also counts his 9 1/3 innings pitched in the postseason), and to these eyes he started to show some signs of fatigue in that Game 3 start at Fenway. Why rush to give a potentially fatigued pitcher regular rest when you can give him an extra day and maybe squeeze one more dominant Lester-type start in Game 7. Either way, Beckett has to at least pitch well in one of these final two games for the Sox to have even a sniff of another World Series berth.