Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
October 11, 2008
Playoffs Today

The Red Sox and Rays send Josh Beckett and Scott Kazmir to the mound in game two of the ALCS. Even with Beckett's poor start in the ALDS against the Angels, he still brings a 2.09 career post-season ERA into tonight's matchup. Beckett posts an impressive 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings in the playoffs. Considering that his career regular season mark is bit under 9.0, and the playoff competition is supposed to be the cream of the crop, that's an amazing number.

Beckett handled the Rays very well this season, making five starts against them for a 2.06 ERA. In 35 innings, he walked just five but struck out 37. He did give up four home runs, accounting for five of the nine runs he allowed to Tampa Bay. If you remove his innings against the Rays from his record, Beckett posted a 4.52 ERA against everyone else. The Rays kept his ERA miserable instead of horrible.

Kazmir won his first post-season start, although he was not dominating. In 5 1/3 innings he allowed eight hits and stuck out just four. He got off to a great start this season after he returned from injury, but the last three months his ERAs were over four as he started to walk batters again. That's not a great way to approach the Red Sox offense.

Boston, indeed, took advantage of Kazmir's walks this season. In four starts, he lasted a total of 18 innings, walking and striking out 14. Couple that with six home runs and the Red Sox hung a 9.00 ERA on Scott. Given the relative success of the two pitchers against the ALCS opponent, the Red Sox should be heavy favorites tonight.

Enjoy!


Posted by David Pinto at 02:56 PM | League Championship Series | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Lost in all the blather about the Rays' supposed "athleticism" and "aggressiveness" is a simple fact: Tampa Bay is a poor hitting team. They ranked ninth in the league in runs scored.

Longoria is their best hitter and he only managed a .874 OPS this year. Right now he's in a bad slump, so the Rays are really going to struggle to score runs against a good staff like the Sox.

Sure, the postseason is a crapshoot and anything is possible. But the Rays don't just need good pitching to win against a great offense like the Sox, they need pretty near perfect pitching. They sure won't win many slugging contests with Boston.

Posted by: Casey Abell at October 11, 2008 04:47 PM

is there no annoucers for tonights game or is something wrong with my tv

Posted by: Howard at October 11, 2008 11:10 PM

Casey -- except maybe the one they won early this morning.

Posted by: Adam Villani at October 12, 2008 03:25 AM
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