Red Sox & Rays: Keep Your Friends Close, Your Enemies Closer

The Boston Red Sox head to Tampa Bay Friday night as the Sox and Rays open the American League Championship Series. The two teams battled often during the regular season—quite literally, with a notable brawl on June 5.

Since the Rays won 10 of the 18 regular season meetings, does that mean Tampa Bay will roll into the World Series? Or does the experience of the defending champions give Boston the edge?

Statistically speaking...

Much has been made of the pitching match-ups, with many analysts giving an edge to Tampa Bay because of the balance in the rotation and the depth of its bullpen. Don't get carried away with citing regular season stats, though; after all they include a host of players and circumstances that have no bearing on this series.

Four-man rotations are the norm in the playoffs. Tampa Bay's four started 122 games in the regular season, Boston’s started 119. So let’s toss out team figures and instead consider the following:

Tampa Bay's rotation of Shields, Kazmir, Garza, and Sonnanstine: 3.79 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, opponents batted .251

Boston's rotation of Matsuzaka, Beckett, Lester, and Wakefield: 3.59 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, opponents batted .239

It doesn't appear that Tampa Bay has a decided advantage when we look at the starting four. In fact, it could easily be argued that the Red Sox hold the edge.

Some pundits have given the Rays the nod in the series by virtue of the back end of the rotation. Andy Sonnanstine has been a solid fourth starter, while Boston is going with the aged knuckleballer, Tim Wakefield. Is that really an advantage for Tampa Bay?

Wakefield had a better ERA, better opponent’s batting average, and allows fewer baserunners. What everyone is really saying by giving the nod to Sonnanstine is that they prefer dependability to the potential that Wake's knuckler won't dance.

Speaking of being unpredictable, Matsuzaka's penchant for walks and high pitch counts has been a hot topic. Yet again, the numbers tell a different story. Dice-K allows 1.32 baserunners per nine innings, marginally higher than Sonnanstine's 1.29 and Kazmir's 1.27. Speaking of Kazmir, Matsuzaka actually goes deeper into games than Tampa Bay's ace, and Dice-K averages only one more pitch per inning than Kazmir.

So what does all this mean? It means pay less attention to stats than you have been. They can be twisted, polished, and manipulated to mean whatever you want—a fact all too clear during election season.

Other non-numerical rumblings…

The Red Sox have gone to great lengths to make the point that Beckett is 100 percent and will be the postseason pitcher of old now that the rust has been shaken off. The fact that he's not pitching Game One tells you that assertion is utterly false.

The explanation that starting Dice-K then Beckett would give them both the same amount of time between starts rings rather hollow. If Beckett were the Beckett of old, Terry Francona would rush him out the hill for the opener, no questions asked.

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