2014: COMPLETE GAME #38

It is probably best that you do not oppose
the Giant Thumb™...

Yes, you'd be right to tell us that we should've kept our big mouth shut. (And you wouldn't be the first--or the last....)

After highlighting the twenty-game skein of complete game victories yesterday, we should have remembered the axiomatic fable fashioned by our old pal Peter (Don't Call Me Bowie) Kuhn, a legendary teenage scribe who tethered determinism to its roots in absurdity (and vice-versa).

As Pete would have noted if he were here, such a bald statement that contains even a soupçon of added hubris, a trace element of conceit, an eye-blink of privilege, is vulnerable to being struck down violently via Ye Olde bitch-slap of retributive justice.

Or, as he so colorfully put it (and at the age of thirteen, mind you):

"A Giant Thumb™ will appear out of the sky and turn your sorry ass into a grease spot."

A mite bit too colorful, perhaps, but incredibly apt.

And so it came to pass last night that our old buddy John (Pass the Chicken and Listen) Lackey managed to break the resurgent Red Sox win streak (which was seven and counting, until the Giant Thumb™ in the form of Sox alumnus Justin Masterson appeared out of the night sky and shut down Boston's batters for seven innings, and his relievers could not give the game away despite some labored effort to do so) while pitching all eight available innings in a losing effort.

Lackey became just the sixth pitcher to lose a CG this year, and only the fourth pitcher to do so while throwing less than nine innings. Final score: Cleveland 3, Boston 2.