Over the weekend Boston wrapped up the American League East and home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The month of September was getting more than a little scary considering Boston almost blew their lead and relinquished control of the division to the Yankees. Instead of doing what most people in Red Sox Nation thought they’d do, they held on and secured the home field rights to Fenway Park. We’ll see if it helps come Wednesday and Friday night.
I want to take a minute to talk about last night’s one game regular season finale. It may have been the best baseball game I’ve watched all season. I was pulling for the Rockies mainly because it’s cool to see a team rally and come out on top after everyone was throwing dirt on them just a month ago. Too bad in last night's game Matt Holliday didn't touch home plate in the bottom of the 13th, but I'm not going to split hairs on the NL Wild Card race that was. The same thing goes for the Phillies, watching them win the division on Sunday and seeing the Mets historic collapse was awesome.
As exciting as it was for a couple National League teams this weekend, it’s time to visit more important issues, namely the Boston Red Sox and how they stack up against their American League Division Series opponent the Los Angeles Angels.
The Sox took the ten game season series 6-4 in their favor but had trouble in August when they played out west. Boston had the option to take the extra day in the series (which I still think is weird teams can do that) and did so. Just a side note, I think it’s dumb the playoffs could eventually reach November if we get a Game 7 in the World Series. They’ll play Wednesday night with Josh Beckett starting against John Lackey. Manager Terry Francona picked Dice-K to take the second start at home on Friday against Kelvim Escobar. Pretty much everyone expected Curt Schilling to take the Friday night start, but Francona opted to use Schilling on Sunday in LA against Jered Weaver. Hopefully Dice-K can put in a performance like he did last Friday against the Minnesota Twins to clinch the division after the Yankees blew a lead in extra innings in Baltimore. If it pans out, Francona will look like a genius.
The Angels can manufacture runs like no other team in the AL. That type of offense will bode well for them if a game comes down to a pitchers dual. Just don’t count out the Sox offense which has finally been playing up to spec the final nine games of the season scoring 56 runs.
The series is clearly in favor of the Red Sox, as the Angels have been resting players and losing momentum after clinching their division over a week ago. I wouldn’t count them out obviously, with players like Vlad, Casey Kotchman, Chone Figgins and Garret Anderson, moving on to the ALCS is not automatic. However, I wouldn’t count out Boston’s bats and postseason heroics of a few certain players (or one specifically) in that lineup either…
Now it you’ll excuse me, I have to re-work my schedule to coincide with watching the playoffs, despite the baseball schedule sort of sucking.
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