With four teams eliminated it’s make or break time for the remaining four.
by Sam Thomas
photo by Manny Perez
With the division series completed for both the National League and the American League it’s down to the best two teams in each division.
The first round appeared seemingly easy for the Philadelphia Phillies, Los Angeles Dodgers, Tampa Bay Rays, and the former Major League Baseball Champion Boston Red Sox. Each team bypassed the first round easily beating their respective opponents. But the second round will not be the same story. With the league series beginning tonight, each game should come down to the wire, and fireworks will be sure to fly.
Starting in the National League is the match-up between the Phillies from Philadelphia and the Dodgers from Los Angeles. Both series ended very quickly with the Dodgers sweeping the Chicago Cubs, and the Phillies beating the Milwaukee Brewers 3 to 1.
This series is going to be full of strikeouts and home runs. Both teams produce a lot of runs off the long ball, with the Phillies hitting five home runs in four game and the Dodgers hitting four in three games thus far in the playoffs.
With the power of both lineups this series is going to have to be won with pitching and defense. The breakdown of starting pitchers leans in favor of the Dodgers who, in their three games, only gave up six earned runs, three of which came from the starting pitchers.
So what does all this mean? It means that if you’re hoping to score runs on the Dodgers, don’t plan on scoring too many runs off their starting pitchers who were lights out in their division series. Don’t doubt the ability of the Phillies though; they gave up a mere eight earned runs in four games, four of which came from their starting pitching.
With the matchup of hitting, starting pitching, and fielding being a deadlock between the two teams, the only deciding factor left will be the bullpens. The Dodgers take this completion; their bullpen had only one pitcher who give up any runs, while the Phillies had all but one pitcher allow runs. The earned run average (ERA) for the Phillies is a towering 5.25 while the Dodgers is a tiny .612. I predict that the Dodgers will take the series in well-fought fashion beating the Phillies bullpen.
Onto the American League. The heated rivalry between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox will be sure to cause some sparks to fly. The top two teams in the American League East have been beating on each other with both the bats and the fists. In a few separate occasions, the benches cleared resulting in one full out brawl.
This series outcome is a but more difficult to predict. Both teams have great strengths and relative weaknesses. When breaking down their strengths, the Rays come out on top in both relief pitching and hitting. The Rays slugged out a .297 batting average in contrast to the Red Sox’ .250. They also had more home runs than Boston, hitting six to the Red Sox’ four. The Rays beat out more triples than the Sox one to zero, and scored collectively more runs than Boston: 21 to 18.
So what do all these numbers mean? Well they means that the Rays score a lot of runs and rely on their bats more than their pitching to win games.
This doesn’t mean that they don’t have good pitching. In fact their bullpen is the complete opposite. Their bullpen in the four games with the Chicago White Sox didn’t give up a single run. They’re totally lights out.
On the other hand, starting pitching hasn’t been their bread and butter. The Rays starting staff is very good, but very young. With their inexperience they make rookie mistakes; mistakes that the starting pitching for the Boston Red Sox don’t make.
The Red Sox’ stating rotation is amazing. Anchored by lefty Jon Lester who gave up zero runs in his two starts against the Angels, their rotation is nearly unbeatable. The other two members of the Sox’ staring rotation are Diasuke Matsuzaka and recently removed from the disabled list Josh Beckett. While Matsuzaka and Beckett are great pitchers, they’re more prone to giving up walks and runs, having a combined 6.3 ERA. With the bullpen of Boston being less than stellar (ERA of 3.58), I see the Rays taking the series. The pitching for the Rays added to their powerhouse offense, they just cant loose, beating the former MLB champions in a very hard very well fought series.
So get ready for a Dodger/Rays World Series.
I’ll be back!
