Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 06, 2005
Winning Game Plan

Tony Massoratti in the Boston Herald sums up the White Sox winning strategy:

Of course, the White Sox have a pitching staff that ranked among the best in baseball this season, so let's be clear on what has been the key to the first two games. The White Sox have controlled the point of attack. Chicago pitchers are pounding the strike zone ? an astonishing 68 percent of the White Sox' pitches have been strikes ? and the mighty Red Sox are on their heels as a result. Following Graffanino's error, lost in the rubble was this: In the final six innings, Red Sox hitters saw just 70 pitches. Over the last three years, while leading the major leagues in runs scored, the Red Sox have made a habit of running up opposing pitch totals and getting into enemy bullpens. Now their opponent is doing precisely the opposite to them ? keeping pitch counts down and minimizing at-bats ? which gives the Red Sox virtually no chance given the obvious shortcomings of their club.

We've seen this before, the two best examples in my mind were the 1969 and 1990 World Series. Baltimore and Oakland were selective, power hitting teams. The Mets and Reds took away that selectivity by throwing strikes. The Orioles and Athletics could no longer wait for a hitter's count and hit the mistake. They were taken out of their game and easily beaten.

The Red Sox, however, hit for a high batting average. Will they make the adjustment to be more aggressive at the plate with this pitching staff, just trying to put the ball in play? With Chicago's defense, will that even work?

The White Sox are in a very good spot. The worst that can happen to them is going back to Chicago with one of their top two pitchers on the mound.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:57 AM | League Division Series | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Who'da thunk it.

Over at BP, Nate Silver predicted the patient Red Sox hitters would overmatch the finesse pitchers of Chicago. Oh well, he had to come down on one side or the other. So far, no good.

You may recall that Crazee Ozzee marched out to the mound during the first game to "encourage" Contreras to stop being cute and throw strikes.

Sounds like a 2:1 strike ratio might actually be part of a plan. What a wacky guy! And Guillen might just be enough of a "nut-case" to see it through, to boot. Go figure.

Of course, Fenway looms...

Posted by: Bob Kunz at October 7, 2005 02:45 PM