Never mind! 27 World Series!! Duh.

Who wore # 27?

the devil rays had a zimmer mask giveaway a few years ago.. ummm, maybe zim had an extra and gave it to ‘zilla as a welcome back gift?

Kaat mentioned last night that there’s a good possibility that Dotel is in a dead arm period similar to the one that most pitchers experience in spring training before hitting form. He might be right, as a lot of Dotel’s balls were in the dirt. However, Octavio’s time to come out of his funk and display some ability is running out. I’m sure w/the the 4 games in 3 days this weekend he’ll have some more chances, but time is most certainly running out for him to garner some trust from Torre and co.

To be fair on Dotel, we don’t know how healthy he is. Maybe he hasn’t felt well in bullpen session, so Torre wasn’t going to bring him into a game. I do not think Octavio should be on the postseason roster, he’s either not over the surgery (which I don’t have a problem with, recovery time is different for everyone) or else he’s physically ok but just doesn’t have command of his pitches. And if he’s ok but hasn’t had command in the pen, no sense in bringing him into a game. We just don’t know enough.

It was pretty cool to see Matsui go four-for-four, but most of his hits were bloops. So let’s not expect him to come back the way Robbie did.

I was much more excited by the fact that Moose looked sharp (though it was against the Devil Rays) and that Giambi smashed a double, and hit two other balls with authority. He looked like he could drive the ball last night, which he hasn’t done in a long time. It’s imperative that Giambi get back on track for this team to win in the post-season.

Though the big disappointment was watching Dotel get smacked around. To be fair to Dotel, he hasn’t pitched in a while. Torre’s usage of him is pretty typical: he uses him in a crucial situation and Dotel fails (against the Angels), he doesn’t use him for a long, long time, then brings him into a game only to witness obvious rust, and then uses that performance against him, saying it shows he can’t get the job done. My guess is that Dotel doesn’t make the post-season roster at this point.

Maybe Matsui sees a little Buddha in Zim?

JeremyM may have it. The only other theory I can think of is that the players also picked up on the story of how big Matsui’s head is and were teasing him with a picture of baseball’s most famous big head. Given how much fun this team seems to be having right now, it seems like a possibility….

And maybe this has something to do with the Zimmer mask. These are from before the game: http://tinyurl.com/f4oo4
http://tinyurl.com/efszs

Wow, I didn’t think Matsui would be able to bring much to the table, other than a threat off the bench. Glad to see I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Sheffield had to be ready to jump off the bench after watching that, he must be boiling to come back. Can’t wait to see what he has to offer.