I'll admit that I am a tad bit biased on this examination, because I hate Chip Caray as an announcer. From the unoriginal "Steve Stone has never picked up a dinner check" every freaking game for his years with the Cubs to the way he laughs when he finishes non-funny sentences ... I just think he's a brutal baseball announcer. If his name wasn't Caray (or Albert or Brennaman) he'd be working minor league games on the radio.

Usually when fans say the announcers seemed like they were rooting against a team, it's lame. Yet last night it really felt like Chip was pulling for the Angels, and I'm unbiased. The cherry on top was when the Angels tied the game on a two RBI single off the bat of Torii Hunter.

You see, the Bostonians had been doing the old, slow, "TORRRRRRR - EEEEEEEEE" chant during the at-bat.

The instant Vladimir Guerrero crossed home plate, Chip exclaimed -- in jubilation -- "And no one's chanting now!"

It came off like smack-talk. I could understand if he was a home announcer -- like doing play by play for the Angels radio station -- but he's supposed to be a national announcer, thus without bias.

Sure sounded biased to me.

Growing up in New York City in the 1990's, I became quite familiar with a rite of June. Whenever the Knicks would be bounced from the NBA Playoffs, Patrick Ewing would meet reporters in the locker room and assure them that they were the better team and the victim of things beyond their control. It became something of a joke, a joke that John Lackey of the Angels apparently never got.

"We lost to a team that's not better than us. We are a better team than they are. The last two days, we shouldn't have given up anything. Sunday night they scored three runs on a pop fly that was called a hit, which was a joke. Monday night they scored on a broken-bat ground ball and a fly ball that anywhere else in America is an out, and he's fist-pumping on second base like he did something great."

Torii Hunter also wasn't willing to concede the point.

"I'm [ticked], I'm upset, this one's going to be with me for a while. It doesn't feel good, because we're a better team than they are. But they're moving on."

I didn't realize that the world's smallest violin provided musical accompaniment to the Angels locker room. The Angels won more games than the Red Sox over the first 162 but the last four provided little compelling evidence of their superiority.

If there's one commandment that all major league managers should follow I think it's probably this: put your players in position to win baseball games and then let them win it. The worst managers are the ones that try to insert their own strategic visions on teams where simple performance from the players would suffice. Mike Scioscia, a man who is generally lauded as a "great" manager in the press for "doing things right," failed to follow this credo in Game 4 of the ALDS agains the Red Sox and as a result, he lost to them again.

A squeeze bunt. With a left-handed hitter. On a 2-0 count. With one out. With K-Rod in the bullpen. With Game 5 in Angel Stadium and a five-inning start from Dice-K waiting for you if you win. With the top of the order on deck. If you could define "taking the game out of the hands of the players," it would be a video of Erick Aybar's ill-fated bunt attempt in the ninth inning of last night's game with Mike Scioscia staring blankly on to the field as his season went up in flames.

You can tell me Aybar had eight sac bunts this year. I don't care. You can tell me it was a buntable pitch. I don't care. You can tell me the ump got the call wrong when Varitek dropped the ball. I don't care. There are a million ways for the Angels to score Reggie Willits from third base with two chances. There are a million things that can go wrong on a squeeze play. Try to imagine Terry Francona making the same call. You can't do it. Now remember that Francona's teams are 9-1 against Scioscia's in the playoffs. There is an old baseball adage that applies here; bad managers lose far more games than good managers win. Mike Scioscia lost Game 4 for the Angels last night.

The Angels won a game in the playoffs. Against the Red Sox. At Fenway Park. I know that seems improbable given recent history, but it happened. And if the Angels want a Game 5, it's going to have to happen again tonight. Interestingly, the Angels chose the schedule with an extra day of rest, so Jon Lester and John Lackey take the mound on regular rest tonight. The Angels might regret that choice given the way Lester dominated them over seven shutout innings in Game 1.

The game starts at 8:30, as the Red Sox try to become the final team to join the LCS fray (assuming the Rays current lead holds up) and the Angels try to force a decisive Game 5. Follow along after the jump as my fellow FanHouse luminaries and I chronicle the events.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

The White Sox and Angels avoided playoff oblivion Sunday night, but the odds remain long that either team will be able to advance to the American League Championship Series. Still, it's been done before. The Yankees came back from a 2-0 deficit in the division series against Oakland and the very Red Sox that Los Angeles is facing have climbed out of a similar hole twice.

So which trailing team has the best chance at coming all the way back to win their series?

First, let's take a look at the Game 4 pitching matchups. Of course, the team with the best chance to win two games will have the best shot at coming back in the series, but Monday's games are of paramount importance. After all, there is no Game 5 without a victory in Game 4.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

If the Angels can't beat the Red Sox this time around, they might never get a chance to. We heard that sentiment an awful lot coming into the ALDS. Boston was the wild card; Los Angeles was the 100-game winner. The mighty Red Sox were banged up -- potentially without J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell and ace Josh Beckett; the Angels were well-rested thanks to an enormous division lead and deeper than ever after a deadline deal for slugger Mark Teixeira.

Consider Game 2 the final indication: This incarnation of the Angels doesn't look like it's ever going to beat the Red Sox in a meaningful October series.

A's GM Billy Beane opined in "Moneyball" that his "s--- doesn't work in the playoffs." Angels GM Tony Reagins and manager Mike Scioscia could easily say the same thing when it comes to facing Boston.

After all, what else can the Halos do to beat the Red Sox in October? They've lost 11 straight postseason games to Boston, but more pertinently, they've lost five in a row in the playoffs over the last two years to this collection of talent.

Francisco Rodriguez is going to see some form of red socks in his nightmares for a long long time.

Last season it was Manny Ramirez who took Frankie deep to win a playoff game in Boston. This season, with Manny gone, the coast was seemingly clear for Rodriguez when he entered the game in the eighth with the Angels down 5-4 in Game 2 of their playoff series Friday night. But after the Halos tied it, David Ortiz drove one off the glove of a leaping Reggie Willits. And after a ground out by Kevin Youkilis, J.D. Drew took Rodriguez deep to give the Red Sox a 7-5 lead, and ultimately a 2-0 lead in their best of five series.

But what was so striking about that home run was Drew coming back to the dugout where he was greeted by happy teammates ... including one who told Drew "You set him up man, you set him up." Not only did the quote come through loud and clear on television, it must have come through loud and clear to Rodriguez. If a closer who had 62 saves in the regular season can be "set up" like he was a mere mortal, what chance does any other Angel pitcher have in this series?

It's a testament to the talent and the smarts of this Red Sox lineup that they can not only make Rodriguez look so ordinary, but that they can make the only team with 100 wins in the regular season look like a team with no chance to win Game 3 much less this series.

Red Sox fans can breath a sigh of relief: Josh Beckett, who's battling a strained oblique, threw a 27-minute, 65-pitch side session in Los Angeles on Thursday without any setbacks. From Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald:

"Provided there's no concerns coming out of his exams after the bullpen or the follow-up tomorrow, he should be on line for Sunday," pitching coach John Farrell said. "That hasn't been an official announcement but I will tell you that from the look in his bullpen today, he looks ready to go Sunday."

The workout was especially encouraging considering Beckett didn't hold anything back -- he was able to throw all of his pitches without any discomfort. It remains to be seen whether that translates into actual success come game time, but it's worth pointing out that he posted a 2.16 ERA in his last four starts of the regular season.

Of course, if the Red Sox win tonight (and Boston is currently riding a nine-game winning streak in the playoffs), Beckett's start on Sunday will be an elimination game. Nothing against the Angels, but given all of Beckett's postseason theatrics throughout his career, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which he doesn't come through with his "A" game, injury or not.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

Nowhere do the lights shine brighter in the Big Apple. And nowhere is it easier to be an anonymous superstar on an annual contender than in Orange County. That's the only way to explain the difference between the postseason reputations of Alex Rodriguez and Vladimir Guerrero.

A-Rod is known in all corners as a playoff choker, a high-paid superstar who comes up small when his team needs him most. Guerrero is known as a free-swinging, big-smiling freak of a hitter. A-Rod is blamed for everything that goes wrong in the Bronx and booed for it. Guerrero is hailed as the center of the Angels' offense and cheered for it.

But Vlad the Impaler played the 17th postseason game of his career Wednesday night, and the evidence is starting to pile up -- he's been every bit the choker that Rodriguez has been.

It was the eighth inning of Game 1 of the ALDS between the Red Sox and the Angels. Los Angeles had only mustered one unearned run off of the spectacular Jon Lester and was down by a run. Mark Teixeira had just been robbed by Jacoby Ellsbury, but Red Sox rookie reliever Justin Masterson was looking shaky. Vladimir Guerrero gets a base hit. Then Torii Hunter follows with a pop fly behind first base which dropped in behind Kevin Youkilis.

What followed was the decision that wound up dooming the Angels in Game 1: Guerrero went for third base and was out by a mile. The Red Sox would go on to win 4-1.