Answering Kurkjian’s Questions

In his preview of the Angels/Red Sox impending match up, ESPN’s Tim Kurkjain asks five questions about the series.

*What is it about the number five that makes it so tidy for lists of this sort?

Here are my responses to Tim’s questions. Consider this answers from one Tim to another.

1. What is the state of Boston’s starting pitching?
While Kurkjain calls the staff “a little shaky”, I like to think of them “biding their time to excel”. We all held our collective breath for the days between the collision of baseball and Jon Lester’s knee and his next start. The collective exhale of Red Sox Nation may have been the driving force behind the Tornado warnings that hit some counties in Connecticut this weekend.

Behind Lester, the next three starters all have potential question marks to be sure. Josh Beckett’s close to the season was something of concern. His August was nothing short of abysmal with a 5.03 ERA over six starts where he allowed twelve home runs and walked twice as many batters as he did in the months prior. September saw some improvements with most of his component stats bouncing back to pre-August levels; a .351 BABIP clearly didn’t help his overall numbers. Last year in the playoffs, it was apparent that Beckett was merely a shell of himself physically. Even with the scrapes of a full season on his shoulders, there aren’t many pitchers that I would rather see toe the rubber in game two of the series.

Both Buchholz and Matsuzaka have the ability to throw seven innings of near shutout ball anytime they take the mound. Unfortunately, they also have the ability to go the other way and throw a stinker. I would be most worried about the looming Buchholz/Kazmir matchup in game three at Fenway Park. The Red Sox need to (and should) get a split out of the first two games alleviating some of the pressure on the young right hander, allowing him to pitch a little more freely. As for Dice K? The enigma can not be predicted. But his stuff looks as good as it has in a Boston uniform since coming off the disabled list.

Can you call the staff “shaky”? I am not sure that’s the right adjective, but if it performs as such, the Red Sox hopes to win the series sure are in jeopardy. For me, I still consider the rotation the Red Sox largest weapon instead of a potential weakness.

2. How much better offensively are the Angels than last year?
Kurkjain pretty much sums it up. They are much better. That said, consider this:
Angels batting vs. the Red Sox

I was terrified of the impact of Mark Teixeira in the Angels lineup last year in the playoffs. This team may be deeper and Kendry Morales is a force replacing Teixeira, but the season splits for Angels batters against the Red Sox paint a different regular season story than the broad strokes of the full season.

3. Who will get the big outs in the sixth and seventh innings for the Red Sox?
First off, if the Red Sox starters aren’t managing the sixth inning, we’ve likely got some issues. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Francona use Bard or Wagner aggressively in pressure situations earlier in games and push Papelbon for multiple inning saves with Saito behind him as a fail safe. The key player in the pen might be Hideki Okajima. His ability to get the big out whenever called upon in the past is certainly in question going forward. If Oki can throw some big at bats, this pen is certainly deep enough to shut the door post-starters. I think the most important piece to the bullpen however will be Terry Francona’s management of it. He’ll be much more aggressive in the use of his studs in the playoffs than he was in the regular season. He understands that we are no longer running a marathon, more like a 200 yard sprint or quarter mile.

4. Who is the Angels’ ace?
Kurkjain nails this one. It’s on Jon Lackey to set the tone and get game one for the Angels against a team that he hasn’t had the edge against over the course of his career.

5. Where is Boston’s offense these days?
J.D. Drew in the eight hole, Jason Varitek on the bench. Do you need to know anything else? The offense will perform, especially once they get back to Fenway Park for games three and four.

Seriously though, the Red Sox offense is deep and the addition of Victor Martinez at the deadline turned this team around at the plate.

Before the deadline: .264/.347/.441/.789
After the deadline: .279/.359/.474/.833

The post-deadline Red Sox offense was approximately 5.5% better than before across the board.