No Clear Team to Beat in AL - Red Sox

This year the AL playoff pennant is wide open, there is no clear cut "team to beat". Every team has their strengths that could win it for them, and their flaws that could cost them everything, with the Red Sox its injuries and the bullpen tailing off, the Indians have an unreliable closer in Joe Borowski, the Angels don't have a real power threat behind Guerrero and Sheilds hasn't been his normal self, and the Yankees don't have the starting pitching to win in a short series. I'm going to take a little bit more in depth look and analyze each AL playoff teams strengths and weaknesses.


Red Sox:

Strengths - Lineup (for the most part), starting pitching, closer and setup, defense
Weaknesses - Injuries, middle relief, lack of good bench bat
Neutral - Bench

Offense - When healthy, the offense is very strong from top to bottom and is very balanced with a good mix of speed, power, and average. Lowell and Pedroia have had amazing years, with strong years from Ortiz, Crisp, and Youk and a good month of filling in from Ellsbury. However, Drew has struggle badly this year, though he has been very, very good this month, with a very mediocre line of .270/.373/.423 with only 11 home runs. They have also been hit with injuries to important hitters like Youk and Manny, Manny has come back pretty strong, but Youk still hasn't played consistently since the injury happened. In the end, I don't think the offense will be a problem in the postseason, especially with Drew and Ortiz having good final months to the season and Lowell having the best year of his career, this will be a strong suit for them during the postseason.

Defense - The Red Sox have been extremely good defensively this year. Pedroia and Crisp are both Gold Glove deserving, along with past winner Mike Lowell manning the hot corner and Youkilis still hasn't made an error this season at 1B. Crisp has caught everything hit near him this season and Drew is an above average fielder with a hose in right, Manny plays the Monster well but can be lackadaisical at time and doesn't play very good defense outside of Fenway. Lugo has had an unusually good year defensively, by his standard, and Pedroia has established himself as one of the best defensive second basemen in the AL. Lowell hasn't been himself defensively this year, but there is no reason to think that hes gonna suddenly turn into Steve Sax, and as I said before Youk still has yet to make an error this season. 'Tek will call a great game as always and throws out a decent percent of base runners. There are also good replacements on the bench, with Ellsbury, Cora, and Kielty all being strong defenders. The defense shouldn't cost them too much, but we all remember Buckner too.

Pitching - The starting pitching has been very good all season with Cy Young contender Josh Beckett, playoff tested Curt Schilling, knuckle baller Tim Wakefield, lefty Jon Lester and Japanese phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka all having strong seasons. The playoff rotation in the first round is almost certainly going to be Josh Beckett going games 1 and 4 or 5, Schilling going games 2 and 4 or 5, and Dice-K going game 3, which bodes well for the Red Sox. The bullpen was very good early in the season, with great seasons from Papelbon and Okajima along with the emergence of Delcarmen, but it started to fall apart once Gagne got here and suddenly lost his ability to get guys out. Gagne has been better lately, but Okajima is still shutdown with a deadarm and wasn't doing well even before it was thought he might have an injury. I would expect Okajima to return and be good, though probably not the sub 1.00 ERA guy, Papelbon should continue to be great, though it will be interesting to see how Delcarmen reacts in the playoffs and how Lester performs out of the bullpen. I wouldn't expect the Red Sox to blow any huge leads this postseason and that the bullpen will be very, very solid.

Overall - I think the Red Sox are one of the stronger teams in the AL playoffs this year and if there is a team to beat they definitely may be it. Expect them to put up a strong fight all postseason and probably advance very deep into the playoffs.

Next up will be the Indians later tonight or tomorrow.