Can the Wild Card Red Sox get back to the World Series again?
October 8, 2009 – 9:00 am by Jimmy Shapiro
This post was written by Zach Krantz of WQAM in Miami. This MLB season in the American League turned into the year of the Yankees. They had some big offseason pickups in CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, and Mark Teixeira, but it’s the Red Sox that have had all the post-season success in the recent years. Since the 2003 season the Sox have been in 4 ALCS’s and have won 2 World Series, while the Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2000. Terry Francona took over the Red Sox in 2004 and since then the team has been the most successful team in the major leagues.
The Red Sox finished this regular season 2nd in the AL East behind the Yankees and won the wild card berth. They start a series with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim tonight and are hoping for an ALCS with their archrival, the New York Yankees. Francona has a great pitching staff which is key in the playoffs and he has a powerful lineup led by Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay.
Terry Francona joined WEEI in Boston and talks about the small layoff before the opening game for them in the playoffs, his pitching staff for the playoffs and his opponent in the first round, the Angels.
Asked if he thought David Ortiz could be the threat he was in the postseason as recently as 2007, 2005, and 2004? Because he wasn’t that much of a threat last year:
“Yeah, I definitely think so. I think there are a lot of people that actually owe David an apology. Having an opinion is one thing. And everybody’s supposed to, I understand that. But there were some pretty nasty opinions. And some pretty vocal: He ought to quit. He ought to go home. His first two months were miserable. I mean, they were flat-out miserable. His last four months have been just about as good as anybody in the game. So, that’s just not righting the shift. That’s a pretty good pace. He had a chance his last at-bat, if he could have found a way to get a hit, to have a hundred RBIs. From where he started, that was incredible.”
Asked why is Lester the No. 1 starter?
“Well, if you look at the way guys have pitched, Beckett would have been on normal rest and Lester would have been like nine days’ rest. Flip-flopping them around didn’t make a whole lot of sense. We were going to have to get a little bit imaginative. And it didn’t make any sense, especially if we could end up pitching them both. That was kind of the idea all along. We have a chance, possibly, to pitch both of these guys without having to get real creative on days off and re-doing the rotation — Clay Buchholz fell right in line. So, we really thought what we were doing was correct. We just wanted a chance to sit down and talk to each player, make sure they understood. And then, especially when a guy like Lester gets one off the leg, let the season play itself out. If something happened to Buchholz on Sunday, I don’t know that you want to go to another pitcher, or publicly, and then go back and say, well, we didn’t mean that. We really need you. So, sometimes you just need to let things play itself out.”
Asked if the speed of the Angels and the style of play of Mike Scioscia a major concern for him going into this series?
“It’s something that we certainly need to be aware of. There will probably be times where we’re not as concerned as people want us to be. There’s probably going to be some times where we can’t stop it. You don’t steal that many bases — I mean, you can’t stop every one that they’re going to steal. There are other times when we’re going to place more importance on the hitter. There’s also going to be hopefully times when they’re not on so they can’t steal and we have a lead. It’ll be a little bit of a combination of all of the above. If it gets to the point where they’re running wild, something’s not going right for us.”
Listen to Terry Francona on WEEI in Boston with Dale & Holley
Tags: AL Playoffs, ALDS, Boston Red Sox, David Ortiz, MLB Playoffs, Red Sox vs. Angels, Terry Francona
