Lidge/Pujols baseball...

I wonder if Brade Lidge knew what ball it was when signing it

 

well the statement is wrong anyways, i think that homer had little to no effect on lidge's career.

 

What has caused Lidge to lose his edge, then?

 

I thought it was when teams started figuring out that he was tipping his pitches. Whenever he came to a stopping point before starting his windup I thought batters were able to tell if it was a fastball or whatever.

 

Tricky ad ... makes a person think that it is "the ball" hit by Pujols off of Lidge in the playoffs, and that it is the only ball that exists which is signed by both players.

It is simply a baseball that has two active MLB players on it.

 

Yeah, they never actually claim that this is the Playoff HR ball. And if it were you know that they'd clearly put it in there and not just circle around the idea that this "might" be the ball.

So. Who do you think signed it first. My guess is they got Brad first and then Pujols. I can't imagine the look on Brad's face if somebody asked him to sign a ball already autographed by Pujols.

 

That place looks like a complete ripoff. They only have two things for auction on their site, and Pujols's signature looks completely different on each ball.

 

Besides, it's not like the homer won the NLCS for the Cardinals. The ball is worthless, IMO. All it did was win a game. The Astros won the series.

 

he was terribly shaky in the late regular season and playoffs before the homerun, that's just an easy thing to point to because it was so dramatic. it ended up meaningless, for that series, and i just don't believe it impacted lidge at all last season. his effectiveness went down because he couldn't locate his pitches and batters were apparently being tipped off to his slider. he also may have been effected from the world games before spring training.

 

Well your right it did end up being meaningless as far as that series goes but it did cost us the World Series IMHO. We start Roy O in game one and win I think it's the Astros sweeping the White Sox not the other way around.

We could of had Clemens pitching at home and maybe dumbass Garner doesn't pull Backe in game 4 out of desparation.

 

No it didn't...the World Series was lost by one play here and there that could have gone either way. The team had opportunities to win every game of that series depsite Oswalt not pitching in game 1. And when he did pitch in game 3 they were still in good shape and you could see the momentum swinging, until the Sox freakishly took Roy to the tune of 4 runs in one frame and that was all she wrote. Astros were essentially doomed from the outset regardless of what transpired in the series before and whether or not Roy O started in game 1.

And I think it's a stretch and definitley premature to say Lidge's career has been ruined, per the website. He was still effective this year, just not consistent.

 

yeah i was only referring to the cardinal series. there's a good chance that it did end up costing us the world series, i agree.

 

huh? the white sox handed roy o his ass in the WS. he pitched only 6 innings and gave up 5 earned runs while walking 5. all that at his home ballpark.

i love roy o. but he just didn't have it against the Sox.

 

They had to go to the moon to get that ball.

 

Yeah, his inability to hold a 4-run lead in the game he *did* pitch kinda puts the kibosh on any "if only..." revisionist b.s.

 

different game, perhaps different results. just because he got a little roughed up in game 3 doesn't mean they would have gotten to him in game one. roy is too good to make that assumption. maybe he brings that stuff he brought in game 6 of the LCS.

we got swept so changing the rotation in the world series probably doesn't make things any worse. obviously you can't say we win the thing if lidge doesn't give up that home run but extending the series against the cardinals certainly didn't help anything.

 

cool..when you wrote, "there's a good chance it did end up costing us the World Series," I assumed you meant, "there's a good chance it did end up costing us the World Series."

i don't see how the pujols HR affected the Astros in the WS, at all. you can play "what ifs" forever...but saying that had Roy pitched earlier he would have pitched better makes zero sense to me.

 

I agree that scoreboard is scoreboard and the bottom line is the bottom line. I just think that things would of been different.

 

ok. i just don't see how. because you assume roy would pitch better on the road in the cold then he'd ultimately pitch at home against the very same team?