Live Blog: White Sox vs. Red Sox, Game 3

Barring rainstorms on the East Coast that push everything a few days back, this should be, unless the ALCS goes seven games and the NLCS goes six, the last afternoon weekday playoff game, which means the last live blog, which means we're sure you're just devastated. But this is almost certainly the biggest game we've live-blogged so far; the Red Sox's last stand. We've noted before how unusually calm Red Sox fans seem, but we'll see what happens if they fall down a couple of runs early today. With no Dave Roberts to save them.

So if you're stuck at work, check us out right here, reloading and rollicking all the way. And if you want to play along, email us at [email protected] to contribute. We'll be here all day.

Playoff Pants Party: White Sox vs. Red Sox [Deadspin]

BOTTOM OF THE NINTH: We know we're supposed to just be talking about the Red Sox right now, but from a White Sox fan:

"I have the strangest set of emotions right now - 1) immense admiration for the 'Duque' 2) such joy that I actually find myself saying things like 'yippee', 'hooray', and 'booya' (well, maybe not) here at my desk at work. 3) INTENSE fear of David Ortiz. 4) Sheer and utter bafflement at the phrase "Defensive Substitution: Kevin Millar replaces first baseman John Olerud, batting 7th." pops up on my MLB.com. Can you please explain that defensive substitution to me? (since you have the benefit of Berman's wisdom). As a ChiSox fan I am not complaining, but the terms 'defensive substitution' and 'Millar' so not belong together."

Looks like it's Jenks in the ninth. It's on now.

Possible ramifications here, if the Red Sox don't make it here:

1. No Curt Schilling in the postseason. 2. Fox executives rooting their ass off for the Yankees over the Angels. 3. Plummeting sales of Bill Simmons book.

Graffanino leading off. Ground out to Crede. TWO TO GO.

Berman brings up something we didn't think about: Renteria could make the last out of the season ... the same way he did in the World Series last year. Damon's gotta get on. Nope. He strikes out. Last at bat as a Red Sox.

Renteria, with Ortiz on deck. Grounds out to second to end it.

And that's ALL FOR THE RED SOX.

Repeat:

THAT'S ALL FOR THE RED SOX.

Congratulations to the White Sox. Goodbye, Red Sox. Suddenly ... the whole postseason looks very, very different.

(A note: The last manager to win a postseason series for the White Sox was a man named "Pants Rowland." That's fantastic.)

And, if there were any doubt about it before now, El Duque is now a postseason legend forever. Pretty amazing.

See you Monday. Be safe out there.

FINAL: WHITE SOX 5, RED SOX 3

TOP OF THE NINTH: We were just commenting on how dead Fenway sounds right now. That double that catcher everybody hates whose name is difficult to spell and we don't want to look up rigiht now isn't going to help matters. Red Sox HAVE to shut them down here.

Crede bunts that damned catcher to third. In a tense moment like this, we can't help but think ... "Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith" is on next! Yeah, we'll totally watch that over "Baseball Tonight." Totally!

Squeeze play! We love the squeeze play! And a much better time for it than in the Cardinals game yesterday. And lookie there: After Timlin failed to pick off the runner on first — who made it on because of a dumb throw home by Timlin — and throw it into right, Fenway fans start booing him. It's the first sound we've heard out of Fenway in three innings.

Iguchi strikes out to end the inning. Three outs away. HERE WE GO.

White Sox 5, Red Sox 3

BOTTOM OF THE EIGHTH: El Duque still in the game. Yes! If he shuts them down 1-2-3 here, do you keep him in? His arm is rubber anyway.

Hey, Nixon ... button your jersey, you schmuck!

Great play by Konerko to get the first out. And Bill Mueller drives Theo Epstein to bang his head against the wall by hitting a weak-Nixon-chin looper right to the second baseman. Four outs to go.

Olerud hits a single to center, which is a very huge hit, actually; no matter what happens this inning, that brings Ortiz one more batter close to hitting. They need one more runner.

Alejandro Machado is no Dave Roberts, but he's pinch running anyway. 0-2 to Varitek. He swings at a pitch about 40 feet above his head, which is just another example of how magical El Duque is right now.

Would you keep in El Duque for the ninth? We're debating this with a friend right now. We say don't push your luck; that's three free innings. He can't have THAT much pixie dust left, can he? Our friend disagrees. We shall see.

White Sox 4, Red Sox 3

TOP OF THE EIGHTH: We really can't say enough about what El Duque has done in this game. It has blown us away. He has Berman talking about all the free agents the Red Sox have coming up in the offseason. THAT'S how good El Duque was.

Papelbon's pretty good too, though; he sets down the White Sox 1-2-3. Getting very close now.

White Sox 4, Red Sox 3

BOTTOM OF THE SEVENTH: From a White Sox reader:

"You know, I thought Ozzie was nuts to bring Duque and leave McCarthy off the roster. The only reason I could think was that 'El Duque' is one of the best nicknames ever, and Ozzie liked to say 'Duque' whenever he could. NOW, I could literally kiss 'Duque' right on the mouth, and that's not something I say very often. What an effing stud!"

If El Duque takes out Renteria, Ortiz and Ramirez in order right now, we're going to canonize the dude, and we don't even know what canonizing is.

AMAZING. 1-2-3. This guy should pitch every inning, of every game, for all time.

White Sox 4, Red Sox 3

TOP OF THE SEVENTH INNING: Honestly, we're still a little shaken from what El Duque just did there. If the White Sox win this, he deserves the MVP just for that. (We know they don't give an MVP for the ALDS. Just play along, OK?)

Berman just said that sixth inning took a total of 58 minutes. No matter who you're rooting for, let's see a nice 1-2-3 from both sides, just to cleanse the palate a bit.

Nice. 1-2-3 inning. From a reader, about facial hair, specifically about Mike Piazza:

"Piazza looks like he's about seven years old without his stupid beard-thing. Of course, he looked kind of fruity with it, so it's sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation."

Sam Champion, where are you?

White Sox 4, Red Sox 3

BOTTOM OF THE SIXTH: Excellent question from a reader: "When 1bmen hold the ball at the end of an inning, why do they generally look down and inspect the ball as they walk off the field? What are they looking for?" We've always wondered this too.

Manny Ramirez just HAMMERED a home run. Interesting game for Freddy Garcia; he gave up two homers to Ramirez, one to Ortiz and shut the rest of the Red Sox down.

Damaso Marte comes in and gives up a single to the weak-chinned one. Honestly, please grow the facial hair back. And we hate facial hair. But we're making an exception. Speaking of bad facial hair, Jason Varitek just walked onto the on-deck circle.

Ozzie Guillen explodes and screams at the home plate umpire. We've been waiting for this to happen all series. And now Olerud walks, and the bases are loaded with nobody out.

El Duque has an tremendously long at-bat and then pops up. Chris Berman says Tony Graffanino, who's up right now, could "make everybody forget about Game 2" with a hit. We dunno: We kinda doubt that.

Full count to Graffanino. If he walks on a close pitch, Guillen will attack him. And he pops up! If El Duque gets out of this ... what a stud.

It's Johnny Damon, though. We would love it if Berman said something like, "This could be his last at-bat as a Red Sox here." But he wouldn't dare. Hard to say we could blame him.

And El Duque strikes him out! Honestly: What a freaking stud.

White Sox 4, Red Sox 3

TOP OF THE SIXTH: After a leadoff walk, Paul Konerko hits a huge bomb, and there goes all that good feeling. A very brave fan waves a huge White Sox flag in the stands; where the hell was he hiding that thing?

Great play by Olerud. Two outs. Wakefield pulled. Chad Bradford gives up a single, and he's pulled. Here comes Mike Myers, who has received paychecks from two teams — the Cardinals signed him and released him in spring training — for 34 innings. Nice work if you can get it.

This is officially the longest half inning in baseball history. Myers walks a guy, and he's pulled for Jon Pimple-bon. (That's a joke, because he's young, you see.)

After an ENDLESS at-bat, Juan Uribe strikes out swinging on ball four. This is getting tense.

White Sox 4, Red Sox 2

BOTTOM OF THE FIFTH: From a reader:

"4 days running now. Just after 5:00 here in NY, ESPN loses its feed. To put it simply, what the fuck?"

Damon gets a two-out hit. Ten bucks says he tries to steal here. 3-1 count to Renteria. If he swings at this pitch with Ortiz on deck, they can go ahead and shoot him, it's fine. Nope. He walks. Ortiz up. This ought to be interesting.

Deep to center ... caught. Yipes. That would have been something.

White Sox 2, Red Sox 2

TOP OF THE FIFTH: Wakefield cruising right now. 1-2-3. This is cruising. We just went to get a sandwich, and wham it was over. We won't eat anymore.

White Sox 2, Red Sox 2

BOTTOM OF THE FOURTH: David Ortiz just hit a ball to center field that apparently sprouted wings once he swung; it looked like a regular fly ball to center and it just kept scooting along. He has a way of making that happen. Lead is cut in half.

Oh, hey, this is why they have these guys again: Manny Ramirez homers to right, and we be all tied. It's getting a little loud at Fenway, we're noticing.

Down in order after that, but this baby's kicking a little bit now. And by "baby," we mean an actual baby. Who gave that kid spurs?

White Sox 2, Red Sox 2

TOP OF THE FOURTH: Wakefield hammered again, off the wall for a double. Worried yet?

Grounder to Renteria — no errors! — is the second out. We have a feeling this is a very huge at-bat for Crede. He gets under it, Damon flies out and Red Sox escape.

White Sox 2, Red Sox 0

BOTTOM OF THE THIRD: Jeez! For the FOURTH CONSECUTIVE DAY, ESPN has lost its feed in New York City. Same time every day. Come on! They're doing this just to spite us, we're sure of it. We're sorry about the not getting paid on time thing!

TOP OF THE THIRD: Trot Nixon makes a nice play in left field, and we notice that he has shaved. He looks terrible without a goatee or whatever; he has a tremendously weak chin.

Hell of a play by Edgar Renteria; we think he made it just because there was no way he could have possibly been charged with an error.

Juan Uribe drills a ball off the "Monster" — by that, we mean Kathy Bates — for a double. Here's Podsednik; maybe he can get thrown out trying to steal first. And then WHAM. A double, a single by Iguchi, two runs home, and Boston fans are suddenly really, really rooting for rain.

Another single, but a fly to right ends the inning. Time to worry.

White Sox 2, Red Sox 0

BOTTOM OF THE SECOND: Manny Ramirez walks to lead off the inning. Hey, Red Sox fans, we just thought of something: You know how frustrating this series has been, how it seems like nothing is going right at all? How the team you thought you knew has apparently forgotten how to play?

This is how the Cardinals fans felt the entire World Series last year. So enjoy this. Jerks.

Two on, two out. Starting to rain, which will make this live blog nothing but our mom's recipes for pie. Doug Mirabelli grounds out to end the inning. Plus, the field is starting to look like our aunt's makeup.

White Sox 0, Red Sox 0

TOP OF THE SECOND: After a strikeout, Carl Everett comes up. We had almost forgotten about all the Carl Everett in Boston shenanigans until we were reminded of them in Bill Simmons book. Remember how he got in a fight with the manager just days after 9/11? We d forgotten. Got bless em. He gets "hit" by a pitch, Wakefield s second.

Nice little double play there, and we re zipping along.

Red Sox 0, White Sox 0

BOTTOM OF THE FIRST: Johnny Damon leads off with a walk. The fans cheer Tony Graffanino, which is nice and the type of thing you only do if you happened to have won the World Series last year.

David Ortiz hits into a line-drive double play. We re still shouting into space, no one care hear us scream, all that.

Red Sox 0, White Sox 0

TOP OF THE FIRST INNING: OK, we ve been told the entire network of Gawker sites is down right now, so we are writing this for no one. No one is seeing a single word we re writing right now. This doesn t make us feel all that different, thouh; this is pretty much like every other thing we ve written in our lives, actually.

Tim Wakefield hits Scott Podsednik to start off the game. We really don t think getting hit by a knuckleball should actually count as a "Hit By Pitch." Tadahito Iguchi, who you just know is going to somehow end up part of Boston lore (because everything ends up part of Boston lore, really), comes up.

Honestly, Scott Podsednik should just stop trying to steal bases; ever since he got hurt, he just keeps getting thrown out. He s nailed, Iguchi strikes out, so does Jermaine Dye and order is restored.

Red Sox 0, White Sox 0