Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2018: NINE REASONS...

MARCO'S BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2018: NINE REASONS…

... WHY THE RED SOX WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES

1/ Hot Hitters. The Red Sox just carved up the team with the best bullpen in baseball (New York Yankees) and the team with the best starting staff in baseball (Houston Astros). The Dodgers' staff is good, but not as good as either of those two teams. The hallmark of hot hitters is hitting with two strikes and hitting with two outs. A lot of Sox hitters have been coming through in those situations a lot of the time in the Playoffs.

2/Too many K's. The Dodgers play “Big Swing” baseball. They don't care if they strike out a lot as long as they hit a homer every now and then. Against good pitching they can go very cold. Against the Brewers good staff they had more strike outs than hits.

The Red Sox had more hits than strike outs in the ALCS against one of the best strike out rotations of all time. (Verlander, Cole, Morton, Keuchel plus McCullers)

3/Fenway Park. Fenway is the weirdest park in the majors, especially the outfield. None of the Dodger outfielders have ever played there. The Red Sox have a great outfield who know the strange bounces in right field (the Pesky Pole), left field (remember the ball bouncing like a demented rat down the padding on Bradley Jrs. double in ALCS game two?), the odd triangle in center where Bradley's glove is where triples go to die and of course the famous Green Monster where Benitendi is an expert playing the caroms. Good luck to the Dodger left fielders trying to get used to the Wall. Also, with almost no foul ground down the lines, its easy for outfielders who don't have the feel of the field (sorry) to go crashing into walls chasing shots down the line.

4/ Bring out your Southpaws. The Dodger pitching rotation features three lefties. The Red Sox have killed lefties all year. And lefties have to know how to deal with right handed power hitters in Fenway. They have to learn to prevent them from pulling bombs. The Dodger pitchers just haven't had the experience at Fenway.

5/Mookie Betts is due. The Red Sox just murdered two of the best teams in baseball with their best player and presumptive league MVP batting .205.

6/Tired Bullpen. The Dodgers have a good pen but they overused it getting through the Milwaukee series. The Red Sox used their's too, but didn't have the work load that the Dodgers did. Also, it's hard to imagine Craig Kimbrel, the Sox closer, pitching any worse. He was evidently tipping his breaking balls and hitters could lay off. His control of his fastball was also way off. He did better in Game 5 against Houston. Maybe he'll be back in balance.

Alex Cora has fearlessly used his starters as strategic relief specialists. Sale, Price, Porcello and especially Eovaldi have all made effective relief appearances to muscle up the Sox bullpen. It hasn't affected their next starts very much and they helped the Sox win some games.

Dave Roberts has used Kershaw and his other starters out of the pen too, but it seems to have taxed them a little bit more.

7/Catching. The Dodgers had to sit Yasmani Grandal (love that name) after a 2 error, 3 passed ball game cost Kershaw. Barnes is better defensively but not as good offensively. They are now afraid to even play Grandal. The Red Sox don't depend on their catchers for offense. But both Sox catchers...Vasquez and Leon... are great blocking pitches in the dirt, throwing and calling the game. The main thing is, the Sox can rotate their catchers without worrying about defense in tight ballgames.

8/Offensive philosophy. The Dodgers are updated and Twenty-First Century...everybody go into launch mode and don't stop hacking. The Sox take walks, hit grounders through the holes and don't always hit into the shift. They are very early Twentieth Century with bunts, hit and runs (which are almost extinct in modern baseball) and lots of steals. And they still led baseball in extra base hits, average, runs etc. etc.

It's a winning philosophy in the current environment because they can hit velocity and keep pressure on teams with lots of runners on base.

9/”Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics”. That's a famous quote from Mark Twain and it applies to these two teams. Don't listen to people who say these two teams are “so even”. The Dodgers had a stacked lineup and got one of the best players in baseball (Machado) to help them in the stretch. Even with a MUCH better pitching staff, they barely won a fairly weak division (flawed Colorado and Arizona, crippled San Francisco and rebuilding San Diego). The general level of competition in the National League was much lower this year and the Dodgers should have hammered teams. They didn't.

The Red Sox faced another 100-win team in their division in the Yanks and the team with the best record in baseball in the second half in Tampa Bay plus an outclassed but scrappy

team in Toronto in their division. They had one patsy in Baltimore. The American League had very dangerous teams this season...Cleveland, Houston, Oakland and Seattle.

The Red Sox won going away with a record 108 wins. Boston is obviously the better team.

The Series will be decided by these factors:

1/Top starters. Kershaw is a little better than Sale coming off injury. Rookie Walker Buehler (the Dodgers only rightie starter) with his good stuff is probably even with a newly resurrected David Price. But Eovaldi has found his confidence and with that fastball is much tougher than either Ryu or Rich Hill as a third starter. Porcello is at least even with whichever of those two Dodgers pitches the other game.

2/Right handed sluggers. Manny Machado and Justin “Yard Gnome” Turner are consistently dangerous hitters from the right side. The Boston lefties have to negotiate them.

Betts and J.D. Martinez are murderous against lefties. Which pair of sluggers will have the better series?

3/The strangely inconsistent secondary hitters. The Dodgers have Bellinger who can rake with the best but struck out 17 times in the post season last year. They have Puig who for some reason can't hit lefties at all, can scare you to death with his opposite field power or can go into a complete hitting miasma of swinging at unhittable sliders in the dirt. Max Muncy is another player who can kill you one day and wear golden sombreros of 4 strike-out-games the next.

The Beantowners have their own cadre of mystery hitters. Jackie Bradley Jr. is a perfect example. He batted barely Mendoza level in the regular season and hit only .200 in the Playoffs, yet was the playoff MVP with 9 ribbies on 3 huge, game winning hits. Eduardo Nunez plays alternately brilliant and Strange-glovian defense and alternately hits really bad pitches for extra base hits when he's not grounding into double plays. Rafael Devers is a goofy kid who hits like he doesn't have a conscience and seems to enjoy striking out as much as he enjoys hitting long bombs.

Who gets hot and who tanks?

4/Extra first sackers. L.A. brings out former Series MVP David Freese to play against left-handed pitchers and play first base. He's dangerous and often overlooked. Steve Pearce has played way above his head this post season and a lot more than he expected because of Mitch Moreland's leg injury.

These are the kinds of guys who can surprise you in a short series.

5/Platoons. Casey Stengel would be proud. Both of these teams are skillful platooners. Alex Cora uses two catchers, two second basemen (Kinsler, Brock Holt) and even three if Mookie plays some second base in L.A. to keep J.D. Martinez in the lineup. He also mixes Nunez in with Devers at third and Moreland with Pearce at first. Each of the three main Bosox outfielders can play great center field when required.

Dave Roberts has one of the most versatile lineups ever, with 7 players playing double digit games at second base. (Logan Forsyth, Chase Utley, Max Muncy, Austin Barnes, Brian Dozier, Enrique Hernandez, Chris Taylor). Bellinger shifted from center field to first base which is weird and Hernandez and Taylor hopped around from outfield to infield all year. It's really hard to get an advantage against the Dodgers versatility in the platooning department.

Milwaukee tried the “Lie like a dog” starting pitcher gambit: they announced left-hander Miley as a starter, then pitched him to one batter and brought in the right hander to foil the right handed Dodger lineup for that game. Roberts didn't sweat it, he just moved a guy from there to here and brought in one new player and adjusted.

Who gets the Cecil Tovar* Memorial Versatility award?

*(an almost forgotten but very good player who manned all the infield and outfield positions for Minnesota back in the late sixties and seventies. He's one of only six players to have played all nine positions in a single game. I know it's just a stunt, but Tovar was truly versatile.)

This series will probably come down to some big confrontations:

David Price will have to pitch to Manny Machado with the tying runs on base.

Kenley Jansen has to pitch to a wild child like Rafy Devers after intentionally walking Martinez.

Or Craig Kimbrel stares out of his red-beard-pre-wind-up-crouch at Justin Turner's red-beard-batting stance in an Epic, “Night of the Yard Gnomes” moment.

Sox in Six!

Enjoy the Torment!

And Happy Halloween!

--Marco