Grant Balfour, Victor Martinez, and My Laundry Over Yours

 In the ninth inning of today's series-changing 6-3 win over the Tigers, which gave my A's a 2-1 series lead and two chances to advance against the favored Tigers, there was this small moment of TBS going into "Breaking Bad" territory.



Now, a few quick points about this.

1) It really doesn't matter if Balfour thinks that Martinez disrespected him with the staredown after the foul ball, or whether Martinez thinks Balfour was being a punk. Both men can be right and still wrong, if you catch my drift.

2) Balfour retired Martinez, but on a hard-hit ball to right, so there is no clear answer from the Supreme Deity which man had the right of Divine Combat in him. (That right, for those of you who have not studied medieval law, was that no knight who fought for an untrue cause can be victorious in battle. It's still pretty much played out every night in pro wrestling arenas across the globe.)

3) It's hard not to see this as a pure laundry moment. A's Fan thinks that V-Mart was frustrated from his team about to take a critical loss, and that he picked a fight with Balfour to try to psych himself out or get himself ejected. Tiger Fan thinks Balfour is a punk and should STFU and/or have been ejected, and that he came into the game scared and on tilt due to his blow-up game in Detroit earlier this year. And again, both sides can be right.

Fourth and final point on this -- it is the nature of media coverage and baseball reality that a strong game, with the A's getting out their big boy sticks (three homers) to smack around ERA stud Anibal Sanchez and overcome a weakish start from Jarrod Parker, while all be forgotten about due to the Very Bad Words. Which, well, changed nothing, unless Balfour comes into a future game in the series, because if the Tigers really needed Disrespect from a basket case to get amped up to play a playoff series... well, um, no, because they've been here before, and aren't some freaking college team that needs fake locker room garbage to care.

Tomorrow, Detroit sends out Doug Fister against the A's Dan Straily, and if they force Game Five, they'll run out Max Scherzer against Bartolo Colon. Which means they have high advantages in the pitching matchups, just as they did in the first two games. But the season precedent of Sanchez wasn't worth much today, and all the A's have to do is win a game. Which they can do, with or without profanity...