With their backs to the wall on Sunday afternoon, the Chicago White Sox responded as any playoff team should -- they won out. The South Siders beat three different teams in three must-win games in three days, culminating in a 1-0 gem over the Minnesota Twins last night to seal their AL Central crown.
Now, they'll look to win 11 more.
They won't be the favorites. After sneaking into the AL playoffs with 89 wins (88 in the regulation 162), they'll be up against three league heavyweights that have been jockeying all season for the title of baseball's "team to beat." One of them, the Tampa Bay Rays, are rested and ready to take on the Sox at home tomorrow afternoon.
The Rays will lead things off with two young starters, James Shields and Scott Kazmir, who have each excelled in the mild pitchers' park of Tropicana Field. Meanwhile, the Sox have already burned through Mark Buehrle, Gavin Floyd and John Danks in order to reach the first round, and if they want to have a quality arm to start Game 1, they'll be forced to turn to Buehrle on three days rest (again).
On offense, the Sox will look to continue winning games the way they have all season -- via the three-run homer. They led all of baseball in home runs this season by a landslide with 234, and they're lucky to get a first-round draw of the team that has allowed the most homers of the four AL playoff teams. Shields, Kazmir and likely Games 3 and 4 starters Matt Garza and Andy Sonnanstine all allowed between 19 and 24 round-trippers this season and will need to avoid any costly mistakes this week.
For the Rays, the formula is simple -- their stockpile of young pitching studs, coupled with one of baseball's best bullpens and its most efficient defense, should be enough no matter what the offense does. A hit here, a hit there and the Rays should find their way into the ALCS.
On the other coast, the battle to face them begins tonight between two teams with a relatively storied postseason history: Of the seven playoff appearances in the history of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim franchise, three have ended at the hands of the Boston Red Sox (and in each of the three, the losing team went by a different name).
The Red Sox have won nine straight playoff games against the team from Anaheim, a streak dating back to 1986, and in each of the three years, Boston advanced to the World Series, winning it twice.
None of that matters now -- after all, Ervin Santana was a toddler when Dave Henderson's home run off of Donnie Moore in the '86 ALCS began the streak. But what does matter is the truth about this year's teams. Going by their raw numbers of runs scored and allowed this season, the Angels are possibly baseball's luckiest team, while the Red Sox are among the unluckiest.
In terms of pitching and defense, the two teams are virtually the same (the Angels allowed 697 runs this season, with the Red Sox slightly better at 694), while offensively, the Red Sox are way ahead, scoring 845 runs, third in all of baseball, to the Angels' subpar 765. So why, then, did the Angels win 100 games, including eight of nine against the Red Sox this season?
One answer is that the Angels' pitchers have come up big in big games. It's hard to ignore John Lackey's stat line in two starts against the Red Sox this season (2.81 ERA, 0.69 WHIP, .132 BAA); Joe Saunders has been almost as lethal. The other answer is that even in a 162-game season, randomness happens -- and in a five-game series, that's only going to be more true.
The Red Sox, conversely, should be a bit less confident in their rotation -- with a day-to-day injury to last year's playoff ace Josh Beckett, they're forced to bump Jon Lester into the Game 1 slot and slide Beckett down to third in the postseason playoff rotation. That shift will likely hurt them given the pitchers' home-road splits: Lester is forced to start in Anaheim despite his 4.09 ERA on the road compared to 2.49 at Fenway, while Beckett's ERA is 2.85 at home and a jarring 5.65 away.
But again, anything can happen in a short series, and both teams have the bats to do damage regardless of the man on the mound. The Red Sox' hitters have been there before: David Ortiz, Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia enter October wearing their rings from last fall, while the Angels' two stars each have something to prove. Mark Teixeira makes his playoff debut tonight at age 28, while Vladimir Guerrero must be dying to improve upon his gruesome .183/.258/.233 numbers in 16 career postseason games.
The Angels have worked hard this season to put together a 100-win season, the first by any team in three years. But the regular season will be thrown out the window tonight, and a 100-win team hasn't come away with the ultimate hardware since the '98 New York Yankees. The past six months have been fun, but the real season begins now.
