DENVER – If you think you have seen this Red Sox offense somewhere before, you have. This is the offense the Yankees used to win championships under Joe Torre.
After facing the Yankees in the World Series in 1996 and 1999, Braves ace John Smoltz had both admiration and frustration for the Yankees’ patience, their feistiness to turn each at-bat into a relentless battle. “That was the Yankees. They were the team that wouldn’t swing,” he said.
The Yankees’ philosophy never changed under Torre. But for some reason – a greater edginess in October than ever before, perhaps – the more recent Yankees regularly lost that discipline in the postseason.
The Red Sox, on the other hand, have done a splendid job in retaining the attack, and that has been almost uniformly up and down the lineup. One AL scout said of Boston’s approach, “It was good during the season and for some reason it is even better now.”
Again, think of the Yankees’ championship ways: Work the starter, build up his pitch count, get him out of the game, and get into the soft underbelly of middle relief.
Well, through 12 Red Sox playoff games, one opposing starter (Cleveland’s Jake Westbrook) made it to the seventh inning. Opposing starters against Boston this October have an ERA over 7.00 and are averaging fewer than five innings an outing, no surprise since they are averaging nearly 20 pitches per inning – or roughly 100 for five.
Two executives, asked for their opinion of what is happening, offered two theories beyond the excellence of Boston’s lineup:
1. “The Red Sox are the best I have ever seen at recognizing a slider or curve. They see spin and they don’t swing,” Executive 1 said. Executive 2 added, “Why do you think (Angels ace John) Lackey never beats them? His best weapon is a breaking ball that he gets hitters to chase in the dirt. The Red Sox don’t chase. It is frightening how good (Kevin) Youkilis and Manny (Ramirez) are at laying off good breaking balls that break out of the zone.”
2. “The umpires call a tighter zone in the postseason because they know every pitch is being dissected on TBS or FOX with that strike zone box,” Executive 2 said. “So essentially you are giving the team with great discipline an extra weapon. Pitchers are throwing pitches that usually make it 0-1, and instead they are 1-0 and facing an opponent that feasts when ahead in the count.”
Both executives agreed opposing pitchers must work their fastballs to both sides of the plate and be able to throw an off-speed pitch consistently for strikes. The best success, so far, was by Cleveland’s Westbrook and Paul Byrd. Colorado’s Game 3 starter, Josh Fogg, is much like finesse-oriented Byrd, and Game 4 starter Aaron Cook is a groundball specialist like Westbrook. Cook, however, has not pitched since Aug. 10.
“Hey, I don’t think much of Fogg,” Executive 2 said. “But in consecutive starts (in June) he beat the Red Sox at Fenway and the Yankees in Colorado (allowing a combined three runs in 12 innings).”
Executive 2 also said Colorado, which trails two games to none, was simply dealing with more than a nine-day layoff since sweeping Arizona.
“I don’t want to just beat up the Diamondbacks, but consider that their No. 3-4 hitters were Eric Byrnes and Tony Clark, and now you are facing Manny and David Ortiz,” he said. “That was a team that used a pitcher (Micah Owings) to pinch-hit and didn’t pinch-hit in some big spots for Augie Ojeda because they didn’t have a bat good enough to do it. That really shows the differences in leagues.”
In an NL city now, however, the Red Sox will lose the DH, which means either Ortiz, Youkilis or Lowell has to sit each game. Ortiz has been bothered by a right knee problem all year, which could make his suspect first base play even more so.
Interestingly, in the 2003 World Series, Jason Giambi was dealing with a left knee issue. Torre decided to play Giambi at first base over Nick Johnson in Games 3-4 in Florida. Before Game 5, Giambi essentially pulled himself from the starting lineup – a move that did not go over well with many of his teammates. It looked worse when he pinch-hit a homer in the ninth.