There’s already been plenty of breakdowns and ballyhoo about yet another ALDS battle between the Red Sox and the Angels, so we’ll spare you the Brad Mills quotes about neutralizing the Halos running game. And we’ll let you off the hook if you were looking for indignant thoughts from Torii Hunter about Boston’s 9-out-of-10 game winning streak against the Angels in postseason games dating back to 2004.

Bottom line is these are two tremendously different baseball teams than the squads that met in 2004, 2007 and 2008. Much of the personnel has changed and some of the traditional figures are older and in much different stages of decline. The Sox had never thrown out an MLB-worth 13 percent of base stealers before this season and the Angels had never toted the fourth-worst bullpen ERA in the American League during their other playoff editions. This is a very different series than each of the previos three go-rounds between the two teams.

Instead, I'll post a simple position-by-position breakdown between the Angels and Red Sox along with a key stat – and, of course, who the edge goes toward. Look for that later on tonight as the game is going on.

My prediction: Josh Beckett is going to be much closer to 2008 vintage than 2007 after getting three cortisone shots in his back just prior to the playoffs and Clay Buchholz might have few growing pains during his first playoff experience. Despite that, the Red Sox will take advantage of a leaky Angels bullpen and score enough runs to support a dominant Jon Lester. It won’t be as easy as in year’s past and perhaps the Fenway hex will finally be broken a little bit, but the Sox will eventually down the Halos in five games.

Then it's to the Bronx for a whole other headache. But that's a breakdown for another day.

 

What did you think of this article?

Liked
Disliked
No Opinion