October has officially begun. If you haven't noticed by looking at your calendar, you can just check the line after Derek Jeter's name in this morning's box score. He only kicked off the 2006 post-season with a 5-5 night that included 2 doubles, a home run and three runs scored in an 8-4 win over Detroit.
Thus ended a day that had a couple of surprises. The first and biggest surprise was that the Mets may have lost another key pitcher. Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, whose age is typically estimated at between 32 and 48, went down in a freak accident while doing standard drills yesterday. The injury may put him on the shelf next to fellow fallen pitcher Pedro Martinez. El Duque is currently listed as questionable and his status will be updated later today.
Another surprise was that the Cardinals actually showed up for their game yesterday. Chris Carpenter's breaking pitches were nasty and he made several Dodgers look plain silly. Albert Pujols homered and Jim Edmonds contributed on offense as well. More important than any one player performing well, though, is that the Cardinals now have a 5-1 game 1 victory off which to build momentum. We believed that a Padres win yesterday would have led to folding Cards today, but that is all moot now. It looks like St. Louis may be back.
While every win is big, if Oakland advances, they will probably look back at Game 1 as the reason. In what was supposed to be a Cy Young Award winning victory lap for Johan Santana turned into a highlight tape for Frank Thomas and the A's who won what was the best game of the day for the A's 3-2 over Minnesota.
And the march for the World Series is under way. Many of you may already have World Series Tickets in your hand or on your desk or in your season ticket pouch. But a world series ticket is just a piece of paper until your team makes it.
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