Odd man out

The Red Sox were stunned when the White Sox left rookie pitcher Brandon McCarthy off the Division Series roster. Chicago won without him. In the ALCS, the Sox again won without McCarthy. Is there a spot for him on the World Series roster?
"I'd much rather see [Luis] Vizcaino in the game if I were facing the White Sox,'' said one AL GM of McCarthy, who was 3-2 with a 4.03 ERA and 48 strikeouts in 67 innings this season. "McCarthy is special. He disguises his changeup as well as anybody in the game."
Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said he kept Vizcaino on the postseason roster "because he's done it all year for me" pitching out of the bullpen. McCarthy made only two relief appearances for the White Sox and has only four bullpen appearances in his pro career. He'd be the perfect guy to slot into a game in which a Sox starter is forced to leave early, but Chicago doesn't seem to worry about such a contingency the way its starters are throwing. In either case, McCarthy, 22, will begin next season as one of the next dominant pitchers in the game, along with Felix Hernandez of Seattle and Francisco Liriano of the Twins.
By the way, McCarthy very nearly wound up in the Boston rotation this season. When the Red Sox agreed to trade Nomar Garciaparra to the White Sox for Magglio Ordonez after the 2003 season -- contingent on getting a deal done with Texas for Alex Rodriguez -- Boston asked for two low-level minor leaguers. One of them was McCarthy, a former 17th-round pick who had 125 strikeouts and 15 walks in rookie ball. The Red Sox didn't know much about him but were impressed by those stats. The White Sox easily agreed to put him in the deal.

• Albert Pujols redefined himself as the best hitter in baseball with his season-salvaging home run in Game 5 of the NLCS. But let's not forget David Eckstein and his inspirational tenacity. The man was down 1-2 to uber-closer Brad Lidge with two outs in the ninth and the city of Houston ready to explode in celebration of the Astros' first pennant. What were the odds Eckstein could keep the game alive? Hitters against Lidge this season in 1-and-2 counts were 2-for-59, a .034 batting average. Eckstein made the comeback possible with a single. Amazing.
• Did you catch Chicago pitcher Jon Garland staring down Angels shortstop Orlando Cabrera as Cabrera ran out his two-run homer in Game 3? "He was [ticked] off because he thought Cabrera pimped him," catcher A.J. Pierzynski said. "I went out there and calmed him down." The incident was a window into the competitiveness of Garland -- who typically keeps a SoCal cool exterior -- and the maturity of Pierzynski. Make what you want of Cabrera taking a good long Reggie-sized look at a dinger with his team down 5-0.
• How close were the White Sox to pulling off a blockbuster deal at the July trading deadline? (Ken Griffey Jr. was the most mentioned target.) GM Kenny Williams now admits it was so close he called the team's public relations department to put a news release together.
• No one can accuse Guillen of sophisticated signs. After Jermaine Dye reached base in Game 3, Guillen flashed two fingers against his body to third base coach Joey Cora, halfway concealing them with his left hand. Dye stole second on the second pitch.
• Yes, a seven-game series is a lot of baseball, but how big is Game 1 in the World Series? The Game 1 winner has gone on to win the series 60 out of 100 times.
• Forget any rumors about Vernon Wells going to the Yankees. Yes, New York may need a centerfielder, but Toronto sees the gap closing on Boston and New York in the AL East and is looking to add players, not move a centerpiece such as Wells.
• The name Josh Paul will be remembered in Angels infamy, and not just because he assumed a third strike in Game 2 when he should have left the umpiring to the umpires. The Angels protected the third-string catcher on their 40-man roster rather than Bobby Jenks, now the Chicago closer with the 98-mph fastball. They also protected journeyman catcher Wil Nieves and pitcher Tim Bittner, who was traded for a player they released. In addition to Jenks, they also elected not to keep Derrick Turnbow, who took his high-90s fastballs to Milwaukee to close for the Brewers. Imagine if the Angels had Jenks, Turnbow, Scot Shields, Kelvim Escobar and Frankie Rodriguez in the same bullpen? "We'd cut the game to four innings," said one Angel. "Our starters would never get a win."
• Can Cardinals manager Tony La Russa get through the rest of the NLCS without going Capt. Queeg on his team? His premature calling out of umpire Wally Bell before Game 4 was out of line, no matter how much he thinks complimenting Bell after the game justifies his comments. His lack of self-control the next night on umpire Phil Cuzzi was over the top. And his refusal to answer questions about how he made a spectacle of himself on the field in a league championship game showed a poor understanding of accountability.
Cuzzi, by the way, was let go by the NL years ago, took a job at a New Jersey hotel, where one day he camped outside the door to the room of then-NL president Leonard Coleman after finding out the time of his wakeup call. Cuzzi talked himself into a second chance, going all the way down to Class A in his 40s to start over.
• And speaking of umpires, next to the double play, a pitcher's best friend is Doug Eddings, the umpire in the rally-starting strikeout in Game 2. For home-plate work among all regularly assigned umpires this year, Eddings ranked last in hits and walks per inning (1.16, or 15 percent below MLB average), last in walks per nine innings (1.90, 34 percent below MLB average) and first in strikeout-to-walk ratio (3.29, or 58 percent higher than MLB average).
• Hate to spoil a nice little legend, but you know those "Go-Go" Sox that won the pennant in 1959? They stole only 113 bases -- 24 fewer than Ozzie's boys did this year -- and had only two players with more than seven stolen bases.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/