Boston Red Sox AL Division Series prediction and thoughts
After 162 games, playoff baseball is here, Red Sox nation. Your 93-69 Boston Red Sox head into the postseason facing off against the 101-61 Houston Astros. Let’s take a look at the tape.
The Boston Red Sox scraped and claw their way to an AL East division title over the weekend. They’ll now face the Houston Astros, the same team they ended the season with, in the postseason.
Now, this isn’t the Astros from the first half of this decade when you could pencil them in for 100+ losses. This team is stacked with a mix of young talent and veteran leadership.
Young guys like Carlos Correa and George Springer and veteran guys like Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran led Houston to be the top run producing team in the MLB.
Oh, and they also have Jose Altuve who is probably going to win the AL MVP and hits every ball in sight.
On the pitching side, Houston strikes out a lot of people and have some (in the words of Larry David) “prettay prettay pretty” good pitching with guys like Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel.
Key Points for the Sox
Look we (pretty much) know what this Red Sox team is. A gritty team that can come back into games and is on fire when all aspects of their team are clicking.
But they face an uphill battle once again. They have to play the first two games down in Houston and are without the clutch postseason play of one Big Papi this time around.
That means guys like Mookie, Benintendi, Bogaerts, and JBJ need to step up their game offensively.
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If there’s one guy who really needs to step it up, it’s Mookie. He had a horrible postseason last year and is considered to be the golden apple of this Red Sox team. Either play like the Mookie Betts we know or don’t bother showing up.
Just like the offense, there are a couple of pitchers that need to elevate their pitching. The three main guys being who people once thought would be a pretty good starting trio.
Those guys are Chris Sale, Rick Porcello, and David Price. For Sale, he’s never pitched an inning in the postseason and we don’t know how he’ll react to the bright October lights.
Porcello has to bury the memory of his awful outing vs Cleveland last year and be the Rick Porcello who won the AL Cy Young last year.
As for David Price, this is a make or break postseason for him. We all know his postseason history. Is he going to finally get over the hump or is he going to continue pitching horribly?
Next: David Ortiz joining FOX Sports this postseason
Final Thoughts
Look, everyone knows the Sox are underdogs here. But there’s something about this team, their “never say die” attitude towards games, that’s making me think they’ll come out the victor of this battle against Houston.
Prediction: Sox in 4