For only the sixth time in baseball history, a team ended a postseason series with a home run. The Red Sox swept the Angels Friday night with a walk-off bomb by David Ortiz. The Red Sox are the total package. Schilling and Pedro are the best one-two punch in baseball. From one through nine, their hitting is unmatched. Unlike last year, the Sox bullpen is solid, particularly with Keith Foulke closing games. They are, for once, an above average defensive team with the additions of Doug Mientkiewicz, Pokey Reese, Orlando Cabrera. They even have some base-stealing threats in Johnny Damon and Dave Roberts. But a team is more than the sum of its parts, and what the Red Sox have over all of the competition is chemistry.
Varitek is my guy, a Georgia Tech star (as Nomar was). He is the only baseball player who has had his number retired at GT.
Predictions for the ALCS? Anyone?
To quote Clubber Lang: "Prediction? Pain." Sox win, and Varitek beats up ARod again and Kapler finds a way to lay the smackdown once more on Tanyon Sturtze.
Hey Flynn,
Not going to happen my friend. Yankees lineup is too strong and Sox pitching not quite good enough to contain it. I don't see how any Red Sox fan can be optimistic given history. The Yankees just have a knack for winning and the Red Sox are cursed to lose to New York teams in postseason. I don't see this year being any different. It would be like one of Auc's teams beating one of your teams in a keg race.
My guess is that the curse of the bambino has a 100 year term so my money is on the Sox in 2018.
Besides, if the Red Sox ever won it, a meteor would immediately strike the earth and demolish it.
I'm with SSI Ruffian. I put my faith in the curse, although I must admit that, on paper and in real life, the Sox have a better pitching staff this year than do the Yankees.
Perhaps, as SSI notes, the scales of justice will swing the other way in the next century, but not for now.
My prediction, in the runup to tonights opening game, is another Yankees victory, but in six games this time, so it won't be so heartbreaking for Boston.
DPO
