Can't win them all.

Baseball is a game of probabilities, and Cleveland manager Eric Wedge went out of his way to minimize his opportunities as much as he could on Saturday night by green-lighting a series of questionable strategies in Game 2 of the ALCS.

Unfortunately, he couldn't screw up enough decisions to cost the Tribe the game.

A lot of Wedge's calls were typical boilerplate "old-school baseball" decisions, many of which have been proven statistically inefficient but are still regularly used because "that's how its always been done." Mercifully, Terry Francona is a next-century manager, because I would be pulling my hair out if he pulled some of the garbage we witnessed from the lucky Wedge last night.

Let's take a look at some of these decisions.

*Second batter of the game, top of the first: Grady Sizemore led off the game with a double. Sizemore is fairly quick on the bases; its more than likely he'll score on a hit out of the infield. Wedge elects to have his number 2 hitter, Asdrubal Cabrera, bunt Sizemore over to third. The only reason you would do this is in the hopes that the #3 hitter, Travis Hafner, hits a sacrifice fly. Why not hope Cabrera or Hafner can get a hit? Because bunting is "how its always been done." Compounding the mistake, Cabrera pops up the bunt to third, giving us the gift out without even picking up the base. Thanks, Eric.

*Fifth inning: Starter Fausto Carmona hit his 100-pitch limit one batter into the fifth inning and was lifted in favor of Rafael Perez, Cleveland's stud set-up lefthander. This is actually a solid move - use your best pitchers to choke off the opposition's best chances to score. Perez, who put up a 1.78 ERA over 60 innings this season, had a bad sequence of batters (ground out, homer, homer, single) and Wedge goes back to the bullpen and ends Perez's night. They aren't playing tomorrow...why wouldn't you leave Perez in to end the inning? Jansen Lewis, of course, came in and induced an inning-ending double play. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

*Seventh inning: Firstly, Lewis started this inning, marking his third inning of work on the night. Rafael Betancourt, the Indians' top right-handed setup man, came in with two outs in the inning. Why push the 23-year old Lewis (under 30 IP this season) and risk having Betancourt come in with runners on base? Of course, Lewis shut down both guys he faced (Youkilis and Ortiz), and Betancourt punched out Manny. Apparently broken clocks can be right three times a day.

*Bottom of the 9th: Travis Hafner, the most dangerous hitter on the Indians, singles with two outs against Jonathan Papelbon. Eric Wedge, never imagining that Hafner's slot in the lineup could come up to the plate again, pinch runs for him, taking Hafner out of the game should we go to extra innings. And when Hafner's slot did come up in the 11th inning, the best available hitter off the Cleveland bench was a past-his-prime outfielder who hit .251 this year. Of course, that ended up working out too, despite Wedge's best efforts.

*Bottom of the 10th: Tie game in extra innings, where one swing of the bat sends everybody home. Your opponents are bringing up three of the most locked-in, clutch hitters in the game today - Ortiz, Ramirez, Lowell. Your closer is up and ready in the bullpen. Who do you go to in the hopes of pushing this game into the 11th? That's right - the middle reliever who put up a 4.68 ERA this year. Unreal.

Of course, all of these moves worked out as favorably for Cleveland as they possibly could. Terry Francona, on the other hand, made all the right moves last night and has nothing to show for it.

(Incidentally, wouldn't you have felt much better last night if Julian Tavarez was in the bullpen rather than Jon Lester? I know Lester is a better story and everything, but he is terrible out of the bullpen and, quite frankly, only a little less terrible when he's starting. Everyone will be piling on Eric Gagne today for allowing the hit and the walk to start the 11th, but how much blame will fall on Lester for surrendering the final four runs of the inning? Tavarez could have started the 11th and been ready to pitch into the 16th if necessary.)

Fortunately for the Olde Towne Team, Eric Wedge will be here all week, and I doubt he learned anything last night. Let's hope the bats can keep producing and we can get some top-shelf pitching performances from the always exciting Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield.

And look at it this way: if we can split these next two games, this series becomes a three-game series and the Sox have home field advantage. And you can be pretty sure that this series will be coming back to Fenway before all is said and done.