Series Has the Makings of a Classic

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

It may not have seemed possible in March; it may not have seemed possible even a month ago. Still, the Colorado Rockies have won the pennant on the strength of a run as improbable as any the sport has ever seen, only to meet the toughest challenge baseball has to offer this year. Even those of us who have jeered at a weak National League field should admit it: This World Series has the makings of a classic.

The Rockies have won 21 of 22 games, including a wild card play-in and seven straight playoff games. The Boston Red Sox entered the season widely considered the best team in baseball, tied for the game’s best record, and outscored the team that tied it, the Indians, 30–5 in winning three straight elimination games on its way to the pennant. The Rockies had never won a playoff series before this year; the Red Sox are trying to become the first team to win two championships this decade and could be on the verge of establishing a full-on dynasty. The Rockies played their first game in 1993; the Red Sox played theirs in 1901. Baseball has been plagued this year by record low television ratings, but if they can’t figure out a way to market this one, they should give up.

LINEUPS

The Rockies scored 5.28 runs a game this year, second in their league; the Red Sox scored 5.35, third in theirs. Context makes that more or less a wash. The Rockies play in Coors Field, no longer a historically good hitter’s park but still probably the best in baseball, while the Red Sox play in the higher-scoring American League. The Red Sox had the better offense this year, but it was close. Even over the last few weeks, the teams have been about even. Since the Rockies began shredding the National League on September 16, they’ve scored 6.18 runs a game; the Sox have scored 5.82 over that time.

There are real differences here, though, despite the teams’ similar performance. The main one is that Boston’s hitters are better than Colorado’s. David Ortiz is, by an order of magnitude, the best hitter in the series, even over Colorado’s MVP candidate (and deserving NLCS MVP) Matt Holliday. Boston’s second-best hitter, Manny Ramirez, is better than Colorado’s, Todd Helton; their third-best, Mike Lowell, is probably a bit better than Brad Hawpe, and so on down the line. The differences aren’t always large, but they tend to favor the Sox, who are deeper and keep their iffier hitters toward the bottom of the lineup. For the Red Sox, the problem is that at least two games will be played at Coors Field. Ortiz, a designated hitter, will start at first base. Aside from the havoc this might wreak in the field, it will also take Kevin Youkilis out of the lineup. He’s something like the fifth-best hitter on his team and also sees as many pitches per at-bat as anyone else in the game. His at-bats, which go deep and see plenty of good pitches fouled off, not only grind down pitchers who know Ortiz and Ramirez are looming but tend to force a pitcher to use all of his pitches, letting the rest of the team see what he has. He’ll be missed in Colorado.

On the other side of the ledger, the Rockies may actually have a stylistic advantage in this series because they’re less patient. Both teams drew plenty of walks this year — Boston led baseball, while Colorado was second in the NL — but among Rockies hitters only Helton and Hawpe much exceeded the one walk per ten plate appearances ratio that is a basic rule of thumb for good plate discipline. By contrast, five Red Sox — Ortiz, Ramirez, Youkilis, Jason Varitek, and J.D. Drew — draw a lot of walks. Because both teams’ pitching staffs are deep with strike throwers, and because it’s important to put the ball in play in Coors Field, with its spacious outfield and thin air, the Rockies will have an additional edge at home.

Situationally, the Rockies have one big weakness, which is that Hawpe and Helton, two of their three best hitters, are susceptible to left-handed pitchers, something that will come into play not just against setup man Hideki Okajima, but against Daisuke Matsuzaka, who has a wonderful, lefty-befuddling screwball. Hawpe has batted .220 BA/.295 OBA/.398 SLG in his career against southpaws; Helton has hit them well in his career, but has slugged below .400 against them two of the last three years.

All in all, this is close. The Red Sox have an edge in talent, and they’re deep enough that it’s no surprise when a supporting player like Drew and Dustin Pedroia takes over a game with the bat. If the Rockies can win a game at Fenway, though, neutralizing Boston’s home field advantage, the edges they gain playing under National League rules in a park better suited for their hitting style might be enough to make them stronger. And while Holliday and Helton are not the legendary Ortiz and Ramirez, they’re a lot for anyone to handle.

ROTATIONS

To a much greater extent than is generally realized, the Rockies are a classic pitching and defense team. What makes this impressive isn’t just that they play in a great hitter’s park, but that their rotation is, on paper, a mess. Jeff Francis is a fine pitcher, but like Tom Glavine in recent years, most of his value is in his consistency and durability, and he’s not just the team’s ace, but the only pitcher who made more than 29 starts or pitched more than 166 innings.

This could be looked at as a bad thing, but it was actually very impressive. Eight different Rockies started more than five games this year, all of them homegrown pitchers or fringe journeymen, and every one of them gave at least an average performance. The Rockies didn’t have a fireballing ace, but they also didn’t have the kind of shoddy back end starters that destroy many teams’ hopes of contention. No matter how well sketchy young pitchers Ubaldo Jimenez and Franklin Morales or longtime rotation-filler Josh Fogg have pitched over the last two months, this isn’t a strong area for the Rockies. The team has an effective philosophy, emphasizing ground balls and not giving in to hitters, that’s reminiscent of the late-’90s Mets teams pitching coach Bob Apodaca oversaw. Still, a team that is seriously considering starting Aaron Cook, who hasn’t pitched in a live game since September 1, is a team flirting with danger.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, are outright imposing. Josh Beckett is so far the best postseason performer of his generation; Curt Schilling, arguably the best of his, has been brilliant in two of his three starts. Beckett is everything a team could want in an ace, and he’s all the more terrifying because his style is so straightforward. He just throws high, hard fastballs and the odd curveball, and doesn’t waste pitches outside the strike zone. There’s nothing particularly refined going on here; he’s just hard to hit and very aggressive. Schilling, who turns 41 next month, is at this point in his career more reliant on psychology than stuff, but still makes Boston the favorite in any game he starts. As they were in the ALCS, Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield are the question marks here. Wakefield is not healthy and didn’t pitch well in his only postseason start, but he could do anything at all short of throw a no-hitter; a knuckleballer’s recent performance is almost irrelevant, given the mysterious behavior of the fluttering pitch. Matsuzaka was, as they say, plenty gritty through five tough innings in the decisive Game 7 of the ALCS, but something like a five-inning, three-run performance may be the best that can be expected from him.

The Sox have a 2–0 edge in proven aces, but I’m not sure this is as big an edge as it seems, just beause one of those aces is a senior citizen by baseball standards. Schilling has been shelled once already this October, and as an older pitcher, he’s liable to have days where he just has nothing on his fastball. If that happens and the Rockies take advantage, they’ll go back to Colorado for two straight games in which each team will just be hoping for five passable innings from their starters. That sounds like a crapshoot to me, and if no one has noticed, luck has been going the Rockies’ way lately.

BENCH

In the games played under American League rules, at least, neither the Red Sox nor the Rockies will be particularly reliant on their bench, which is good because neither has a strong one. Boston’s main asset is a plethora of outfielders. Depending on circumstances, they could have anyone from J.D. Drew to Coco Crisp to rookie phenom Jacoby Ellsbury in reserve for a crucial late inning at-bat. Much the same is true of Colorado, which fields a firmly set lineup and whose best reserves are outfielder Ryan Spilborghs and Cory Sullivan. Neither team’s manager goes in at all for Tony La Russa-style gamesmanship, so it’s just as well that the games will mainly be decided by the starters.

Under National League rules, of course, the Red Sox will have a big advantage as they’ll have regular first baseman Youkilis available to come off the bench, and in Wakefield’s start catcher Jason Varitek will be on the bench as well. The edge here goes to the Red Sox, but heroics from either side’s reserves are not to be expected.

BULLPEN

Between them, key Rockies setup men LaTroy Hawkins, Matt Herges, and Jeremy Affeldt have pitched for eight teams since 2005, mostly badly, and Hawkins in particular earned a reputation for being at his worst when the pressure was the greatest. The three have given up one run in October. As good as they were — and any one of them would have been, Joba Chamberlain aside, the best setup man in New York this year — it’s very hard not to see this as a weakness for Colorado. These are fringe pitchers, albeit talented ones, with long histories of being pumpkins. They’re backed by better pitchers — lefty Brian Fuentes, a longtime Rockie who has quietly been one of the better relievers in baseball for years, and closer Manny Corpas, who throws hard, keeps the ball down, and has been pitching like a true ace all year — but if the fairy tale ends, I suspect it will end at the hands of the relief veterans.

While the Red Sox don’t have the depth of relief pitching the Rockies do, they do have two great advantages. The first is that in Jonathan Papelbon and Okajima, they have perhaps the two best relievers in the series; the second is that they can both pitch multiple innings at a time. If a starter can last five with a lead, these two can close out the game themselves. Colorado’s crew is maybe more likely to stabilize a game, and Boston’s to shut one down. Which proves more valuable depends on the shape the games take.

DEFENSE

One of the benefits of young players is that they still have their speed; all else being equal, a young team will generally be better in the field than an old one, and the Rockies are both very young and very good. It’s hard to know how good they are, because fielding analysis is notoriously difficult and because Coors Field is such an odd park that it makes analysis still more difficult, but they won’t be giving away any unnecessary runs, and while avoiding errors is not the end all of defense, they did set a record for fielding percentage. Certainly the success enjoyed in Colorado by a variety of pitchers with long, poor track records speaks well of the team’s glove-work. And they play with real style.

Boston isn’t thought of as a great defensive team, but they did tie for second in baseball in turning balls in play into outs, and every one of their position players save Pedroia and Ramirez enjoys a reputation as being among the best in baseball at his position, with Varitek and Mike Lowell being particularly well-regarded. It will be interesting to see which team actually plays better during this series. Defense is a mystifying thing.

tmarchman@nysun.com


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