Not that the bullpen appeared much in this series, but they seemed to pitch well when they had to...Not sure if that is a sign of how things will continue in the upcoming series, but certainly facing the White Sox lineup might be a good confidence builder.
With that said...
In the long run, is it an advantage for the Sox to face Chicago in the short series rather than LAA? I think so...First off, because of how things line up, we will only face Buerhle or Garland once...We might see Buerhle on short rest in Game 5 (if necessary). I think the Sox starters can go deeper in to games against the White Sox lineup than the LAA lineup. We will go with Clement in Game 1, then my guess is Wells, Schilling, and Wake. That makes the matchups Clement v Contreras, Wells v Buerhle, Schilling v Garland (in Boston) for the first three.
Meanwhile, the Angels have their rotation lined up and ready to go against the Yankees. Colon in Game 1 against Mussina. Not too sure about how it rounds out after that...
Not sure what any of this means...If there is one thing this year has taught me is that nothing means anything in baseball. Even baseball prospectus stats had the Yankees chance at making the playoffs at 25% in August, they won the division. We had also thrown out things like, "If the Sox go .500 the rest of the way, the Yankees will have to play .667 baseball to catch them." Well, the Sox went better than .500 and the Yankees played better than .667." And who would have thought Cleveland folds like that? Craziness.
My ALDS predictions-
Angels in 4
Red Sox in 5
Well - I was half right - the Sox held up their end of the bargain:
ReplyDeletehttp://gysnetwork.blogspot.com/2005/09/prediction-nailed.html#112653269929143370
The Sox went exactly 12-8 and the Yanks went 15-5.
Turns out that Wake gets the nod in Game 3...full rest...in Boston. Schilling in Game 4. Then I am guessing Wells again in Game 5...Hopefully it doesn't go that far.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about recent pitching being decent -- Red Sox's ERA was 5th in the AL in September (and #1 and #4, Cleveland and Toronto) aren't even in the playoffs.
ReplyDeleteNice little list of what it takes to win the playoffs here. Number 6 scares me a bit.
Finally, boo fuckin' hoo.
Well maybe the Yanks wouldn't be crying themselves if they HAD WON THEIR GAME.
ReplyDeleteHad they won, they would have been home. Torre elected to not start his best available pitcher. Why should TEX have to do thier dirty work for them? And Torre gave up himself. They were trailing 7-1 with three more ABs when he pulled his starters. The Sox were likely to go to their pen. With that offense, the thought of scoring 6 runs is not impossible.