2007 World Series: Rox & Sox last two standing
10/22/2007 01:00 PM
By: Willie Bee
Though not as remarkable as their 2004 ALCS comeback, the Boston Red Sox completed their rally in this year’s series Sunday with an 11-2 win in Game 7 over the Cleveland Indians. Armed with their 12th AL Pennant, the Sox now head to the Fall Classic against the Colorado Rockies who recently won their first NL flag.
According to many, there’s no use playing the World Series. The American League’s dominance over the National League has been tossed around for several years, with stats from interleague play, All-Star Games and the past 10 World Series or so brought in to substantiate the claim.
2007 World Series: Rox & Sox last two standing
The folks posting the lines for this year’s Fall Classic, set to begin Wednesday night at Fenway Park, would seem to agree with the Boston Red Sox heavy favorites to take both Game 1 and the Series over the Colorado Rockies. Early numbers had Boston as -200 to -220 favorites to win the World Series, drawing -200 chalk to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven match.
Still, there’s a reason they play the Series each October instead of awarding a paper champion. A look back at the last six MLB Championships finds a split between the leagues, three for the NL and three for AL. The Detroit Tigers were supposed to waltz through their Series with the St. Louis Cardinals a year ago only to see the Redbirds doing the winner’s dance in five games.
That win by the Cards made up a little for being swept three October’s ago by the ’04 Red Sox who, similar to this season, rallied from an oh-three deficit to win their first AL Pennant since 1986. A year before that, 2003, the Florida Marlins were supposed to be shark bait for the New York Yankees. Instead, the Fish celebrated their second World Series title.
In fact, MLB has seen a different champion in each of the last seven years and only twice -- the White Sox in 2005 and the Angels in 2002 -- did the team with the better regular season record emerge from the World Series holding the trophy.
Even with their remarkable run of late, it is tough at first glance to come up with an argument why the Rockies will make it an eighth consecutive different champion this season other than, “They’re hot.” With 21 wins in 22 games, including a 7-0 mark so far in the playoffs, the general rule of thumb is to never bet against a streak.
The Red Sox, however, come into this Series with their own streak going, albeit a much smaller three-win run that gave them their second AL title in four seasons.
So how do these two teams stack up against one another?
Starting Pitching
If name recognition is the main criteria, the Red Sox are miles ahead of the Rockies in this category. Even the most casual of fans know who Josh Beckett, Curt Schilling and Daisuke Matsuzaka are while there’s a good chance that someone who purports to be a knowledgeable fan might have trouble telling you much about Ubaldo Jimenez and Franklin Morales.
Looking at some recent trends, Boston’s Big 3 -- Beckett, Schilling and Matsuzaka -- are 11-4 in the trio’s last five starts each, with the three right-handers combining to pitch 96.1 innings with a 3.45 ERA. The Red Sox are 4-1 in Beckett’s last five starts, with Beckett absolutely on fire in three postseason outings. Funny thing is Boston is also 4-1 in Matsuzka’s most recent five starts despite Dice K sporting an ERA near five. So much for stats sometimes, huh?
Calling Jeff Francis, Josh Fogg and Jimenez the Big 3 in Colorado doesn’t have nearly the same ring to it as Boston’s Big 3. But those are the first three starting pitchers listed for the Rockies, with Fogg slated to go in Game 3 when the Series shifts to Denver. That trio has pitched the Rockies to a 13-2 record in their last five starts combined with the group posting a 3.43 ERA. Add in the fact Colorado is 5-0 in Morales’ last five starting assignments, and recent trends on paper would seem to point to the two teams being fairly evenly matched.
The Beckett factor still leaves me giving the starting pitching edge to the Sox.
Relief Pitching
Once again, Boston has the advantage just looking at the names coming out of each team’s bullpen. Indeed, the one name that many fans will recognize from Colorado’s relief corps -- LaTroy Hawkins -- will probably conjure up images of blown saves.
Jonathan Papelbon had another brilliant season nailing down wins for the Red Sox. Mike Timlin brings a veteran presence while left-hander Hideki Okajima, who was very likely Boston’s most valuable Japanese free agent signing this year, also contributed heavily to their AL Pennant season. Even Eric Gagne, despite his troubles after coming to Beantown late in the season in a trade from Texas, can be an imposing figure on the mound.
Currently a bunch of relative unknowns, if the five primary relievers out of Colorado’s bullpen pitch in this series like that have all month they will become well known to the baseball audience. Hawkins, Manny Corpas, Brian Fuentes, Matt Herges and Jeremy Affeldt have tossed 30 innings together since the end of September, allowing just six earned runs and eight walks to go with 24 strikeouts. The last time Corpas pitched in a game the Rockies lost was way back on Aug 28.
I’m calling this one even for the moment.
Offense
Let me save you the suspense and tell you upfront that the two teams are also fairly even in this facet of the game. Though their ballparks are entirely different in terms of dimensions, layout and fence/wall heights, both Fenway and Coors Field are known for offense. About the only difference is you don’t need a humidor in Boston.
The Red Sox scored 867 runs to rank third in the AL during the regular season. The Rockies scored 860 to rank second in the NL.
Boston batted .279; Colorado hit .280. The Sox tallied a .362 on-base percentage and .444 slugging mark while the Rocks posted .354 and .437 in those two columns.
The Red Sox hit 166 home runs and the Rockies hit 171. Boston stole 96 bases and Colorado swiped 100.
If there’s an edge here, it’s that the Red Sox saw their offense come alive to rally in the ALCS the last three games while the Rockies have been taking BP in a cage for more than a week.
Defense
All you need to know here is that Colorado set a major league record for fielding prowess this season. Boston has some fine defenders in Mike Lowell at third and Jason Varitek behind the plate. But the Rockies win this category hands down.
Managers and other intangibles
Give Colorado’s Clint Hurdle some credit here since he hasn’t made a mistake so far in his first postseason on the top step of a dugout. But Terry Francona’s experience, not just in the postseason but managing under the media microscope in Boston, puts this advantage firmly in the Red Sox dugout.
If you don’t count the weather, there are only three other intangibles that I can see, one of which is the stadiums the two teams call home. The Rockies might have a slight edge in that they paid Fenway a visit during the 2007 season while it’s been over three years since the Red Sox made their one and only visit to Coors. This should only affect the outfielders -- playing off the Green Monster and in the nooks and crannies in Boston as opposed to covering quite a bit more gap-ground and playing deeper in Denver.
A second question is just how Boston will play without the DH when they’re at Coors Field for Games 3, 4 and 5, assuming neither team sweeps. Leaving David Ortiz out creates a pretty big hole in the crucial No. 3 spot of the order for the Red Sox, and using him at first over Kevin Youkilis weakens their defense a bit.
And finally, one of the biggest topics over the past week or more has been just how the layoff will affect the Rockies. We heard this a year ago when the Detroit Tigers had a week between the end of their ALCS win over Oakland and Game 1 of the World Series against the Cardinals. Many still believe that time off hurt the Motown Cats.
But Tigers manager Jim Leyland has waved that off as a non-factor, pointing instead to the shoddy fielding, especially by his pitchers, as the reason Detroit couldn’t hang with St. Louis.
I’m sure the Rockies would have preferred not having quite as much time off, and they’re likely to have a few more butterflies dancing around in their gullets than the Red Sox come Wednesday night. Hurdle has been keeping his squad busy and once that first pitch is tossed and the first at bat recorded on the scorecard, it should be business as usual.
When the dust, or possibly the snow, settles on this year’s World Series, I see Boston in six.
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Nice detailed article on the world series you wrote WillieBee
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