Part of the issue with this, too, is that JJ is a victim of his own dominance. He has set the bar pretty high, and the expectations are there with it. He hasn't been utterly horrendous, but relative to what we expected, it's been pretty bad. That really isn't fair to him either. I get all of that. I think the biggest "x" factor for me as well is that he deserves a substantial amount of blame for us losing the ALDS last season, and that still stings.
The victim of your own success, seems to be the story of the Orioles year as well. The fact, nearly everything went the O's way last year, makes losing some of the games they have this year, more painful IMO. I got less of a problem with your blame with the ALCS especially since that's a shorter series, so his role is bigger. The only thing I'd say is our bats were pretty damn cold. It was a very winnable series and we had our chances. All-in-all, I wasn't too disappointed because it was such a magical year and they surpassed my wildest expectations. I was just so happy when they beat Texas that was huge for me. And on a personal level, it was great being able to go to both home games, which I could really appreciate this time around which I couldn't when I was 11 in 1996 when I went to an ALCS game (the game where Todd Zeile threw the ball down).
