Boston Red Sox From Wire to Wire

October 26, 2018

Many people in Chicago-land stopped watching baseball when the Cubs were eliminated from the playoffs. I, however have been watching. There has been some drama but overall the games have been disappointing.

If you are a Red Sox fan, you’d be giddy right now as they are two wins away from a World Series Championship. After posting 108 wins during the regular season, they quickly disposed of the N.Y. Yankees who had the second best record in baseball. The Houston Astros, coming off the sweep of the Cleveland Indians, were next up. Houston, a very good team, could only muster a game one victory losing the next four.

The National League provided the only drama. The L.A. Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves in four games. The Milwaukee Brewers kept up their hot streak sweeping the Colorado Rockies. The Dodgers beat the Brewers in an up and down seven game series.

Although this may have been exciting for the fans of these two teams, it wasn’t the same baseball I grew up watching. Ever since the Kansas City Royals won a championship with their starters going six innings and having three quality relievers closing out games, teams have tried to copy that formula. However, managers of both teams were pulling starters after three or four innings, making a plethora of pitching changes. All these stoppages of play drained a lot of the excitement.  Only starter Clayton Kershaw went more than five innings. The Brewers could have had taken hold of the series if not for Milwaukee Manager Craig Counsell’s bad bullpen move In Game 1.  With Milwaukee ahead 5-1, he brings in reliever extraordinaire, Josh Hader in the fifth inning. The man he replaced had homered off Kershaw and had pitched two scoreless innings. When you’re ahead by four runs I am saving Hader if there is trouble in the late innings. Instead he pitches three innings, making him unavailable for game 2.  In that game the Dodgers won on an eighth inning two-run homer that may not have occurred if Hader is pitching.

Hence, the Dodgers earned the right to lose to the Red Sox in the World Series. It doesn’t matter how good the Dodger pitching is. The Red Sox are the only team that consistently beats other teams 1 & 2 starters. They have the strongest one through seven hitters, play great defense (aside from third base) and have a very solid pitching staff. Believe it or not, the only team that had a winning record against the Red Sox were the Chicago White Sox...

                              American League                                                     National League

MVP                     Mookie Betts – Boston                                     Christian Yelich - Milwaukee

Runner up           J.D. Martinez- Boston                                              Javier Baez  –  Chicago

Cy Young          Blake Snell – Tampa Bay                                   Jacob deGrom  -  New York         

Runner up         Corey Kluber – Cleveland                                  Max Scherzer – Washington

Rookie            Shohei Ohtani – California                                       Juan Soto – Washington

Runner up       Miguel Andujar – New York                                     Ronald Acuna – Atlanta

Manager          Bob Melvin – Oakland                                             Brian Snitker – Atlanta

Runner up       A.J. Hinch – Houston                                             Craig Counsell - Milwaukee