Earlier today, Alejandro and I previewed the weekend’s Sox-Sox series. I said that the White Sox could win by being patient,drawing walks, and tiring out the Red Sox starters. Get to the bullpen, I advised, and then let ‘er rip. Alejandro argued that the Red Sox could win by staking an early lead.

In Game 1, the Red Sox did manage to stake a reasonably early lead, scoring once in the first, twice in the fifth, four times in the sixth, and once in the eighth. But the White Sox only managed two walks and two hits, while striking out eight times in all and scoring no runs. Not only did Daisuke Matsuzaka pitch well, he also gave Boston 8 full innings of work.

So I’d say Alejandro wins this round. Except that, as a White Sox fan, I’m sure he’d rather have lost.

And a slight change of plan for tomorrow: no longer is Triple-A hurler David Pauley Boston’s penciled-in starter. Nope. Top prospect Michael Bowden will be making his major league debut instead. That doesn’t really change much, strategically—Bowden isn’t likely to go deeper into the game than Pauley would’ve—but it does make this game a heckuvalot more exciting for Red Sox fans.

Boston's Achilles heel

It’s Sox versus Sox this weekend, as the Chicago White Sox come to Fenway for a three-game series against the Boston Red Sox. The two Sox are separated by only one game in the loss column, with the Boston team 4.5 games behind the first-place Rays (and playing them six times in September) in the AL East and the Chicago version just 1.5 games ahead of the Twins (who they play three more times) in the AL Central. The wild card? Still up for grabs.

Short version: this is a big series, folks.

So how can the Chicago nine beat my Boston squad? The answer is simple: get to the bullpen.

Yesterday, after Jon Lester spun yet another quality start, blanking the Yankees for six-and-two-thirds innings, Okajima came in with a runner on second. Okajima has not been good with inherited runners this year. He promptly surrendered a game-tying, pinch-hit home run to Jason Giambi, and the Red Sox lost in the bottom of the ninth.

This scenario is, by now, all too familiar to Red Sox fans. And this series against Chicago should present plenty of opportunities for the same.

Each "tock" brings you one second closer to Javier Lopez

Tonight, Daisuke Matsuzaka takes the hill for Boston. While Dice-K has been very good this year (2.98 ERA, 15-2 record), he averages about 5 and two-thirds innings per start and has a 1.50 K/BB. The Sox will be lucky if he gets through the sixth. Tomorrow, the likely starter is minor leaguer David Pauley, in place of the injured Josh Beckett. Pauley isn’t likely to make it past five frames. Sunday, the Sox have Tim Wakefield going, which could go either way. Wake can still cruise through lineups when his knuckler is fluttering, but at 42, he’s a little old to be left out there to labor.

So in at least two of the three contests, all the White Sox will have to do is play the waiting game.

Chicago isn’t particularly renowned for their patience (they’re sort of middle-of-the-pack when it comes to walks), but they’ll be facing Sir Walksalot in the person of Matsuzaka, a Triple-A pitcher in Pauley, and a knuckleballer in Wakefield. If they can lay off any pitch that’s even remotely borderline, they’ll get their fair share of free passes, and they’ll drive up the starters’ pitch counts.

And when the relievers come in, the White Sox won’t have to wait any longer–they can swing for the fences.

See Alejandro’s assessment of Chicago’s key weakness here.

Yankees fireballer Joba Chamberlain will make his long-awaited debut as a starter on Tuesday. He will be limited to 70 pitches. The entire East Coast media will be drooling.

Pedro Martinez will also make his long-awaited return to the Mets’ rotation Tuesday. Pedro claims that the Mets clubhouse would have been looser if he had been around. Let’s hope he can be awesome and injury free for the rest of the season, because who wouldn’t want to watch just a little bit more acery from one of the most entertaining pitchers of our generation?

No. 1 prospect in America Jay Bruce had 4 more hits on Friday, raising his batting average in his first 4 games to .571. That the Reds not only went out and sign Corey Patterson this winter specifically to block Bruce, but then stuck with him in the leadoff spot, for two whole months, despite his .200 average and his execrable .240 OBP, can only be taken as a searing indictment of Dusty Baker and departed GM Wayne Krivsky, and anyone else in the Reds organization who could have stepped in and put a stop to the madness. Bruce had nothing left to prove in the minor leagues since more than a year ago, and should have been starting in centerfield for the Reds on opening day.

Steeply declining Indians DH Travis Hafner has been put on the DL for generalized suckiness (officially, a “sore shoulder”). Hafner’s bat has fallen off a cliff the last two seasons, beyond what a mere sore shoulder can explain. He may not be truly this bad, but I think it is safe to say that the Indians are going to be regretting signing him to an extension through 2012 for years to come.

Red Sox ace Daisuke Matsuzaka will go on the DL with a strained rotator cuff, missing at least one start if not more. This means an encore performance of the Justin Masterson show. Everyone is talking about how all signs are as good as can be on Matsuzaka’s shoulder, but I don’t know if there can really be “good signs” when we are talking about some sort of rotator cuff problem.

The Carlos Gonzalez era has officially begun in Oakland, where the organization’s top prospect was called up on Friday and quietly got off to a fine 2 for 3 start, amid much less fanfare than that surrounding the callups of Bruce or Clayton Kershaw. I’m not sure if he’s really ready to hit in the Majors - his AAA stats still showed he has some issues with commanding the strike zone - but with Ryan Sweeney going on the DL, the A’s needed someone to play centerfield, and Gonzalez’s plus defense and rocket arm, at least, will play immediately.

Even less fanfare attended the Cardinals’ decision to call up outfielder Joe Mather, and surprisingly, send down Chris Duncan, who hadn’t exactly been sucky. It was already ridiculous how many talented young outfielders the Cardinals have all of a sudden, what with Ducan, and Rick Ankiel, and Skip Schumaker, and Ryan Ludwick, and Brian Barton. You can now add Mather to that list, as he already made a spectacular diving catch in his first game up, and he might have to be on your fantasy radar having already slugged 12 homers and posted a 1.077 OPS so far at Triple-A this season.

Rumors are starting to heat up again about Kenny Lofton possibly catching on with a big league team at last. Despite hitting .296 with 7 homers and 24 stolen bases last season, Lofton has yet to find a taker for his services this year. His defense has declined to the point where he should no longer be an everyday starter, and he can no longer hit left-handed pitching, but he can still put up strong numbers vs. right-handers and should be able to find a place on somebody’s roster as a part-timer. The Cubs and Mets continue to be rumored as destinations, and Lofton would make some sense for both squads. But in my view this is just people stirring up rumors as there has been no credible evidence that either team is willing to sign Lofton. But with lefty stick, ability to hit for average, and still-dangerous speed, it makes no sense that Lofton doesn’t at least have a role as a bench player when people like Mark Sweeney still have major league jobs.

Today is Valentine’s Day, a day for loving the ones you already love, but also for loving the ones you hope to love even more in the near future. So it’s fitting that this year, Valentine’s Day is also the day that pitchers and catchers report, bringing an end to the deadest two weeks in American professional sports, and signaling that spring is finally here.

Because spring training is baseball’s time of love. There is plenty of love to go around for both the veterans you already love, and the young prospects you hope to love very soon. It is a time when every aging veteran has just come back from a new conditioning program and looks better than he has in years. Every rookie seems to have a bit of pop in his bat or a fastball with some good late movement. Everyone seems to have an shot to make the team, and every team seems to have a shot to make big things happen.

What is Spring Training?

Spring Training is Ryan Dempster guaranteeing that the Cubs will win the World Series this year.

It is 2-time AL MVP Juan Gonzalez showing up in the Cardinals camp as a non-roster invitee, two years removed from his last pro season, in which he managed to get only one at-bat.

It is Manny Ramirez embarking on a grueling new workout regimen, promising to be on time to spring training, and boldly declaring that he wants to “be like Julio Franco and play until I’m 48.”

It fans dreaming just how good Clay Buchholz or Joba Chamberlain might be this year.

Spring Training is teams like the White Sox and Astros actually thinking they have any chance of contending. And really, who’s to tell them that they don’t?

Now I know somewhere in the back of my mind that not quite everything is perfect in Baseball Land, and that there was some pretty nasty business going down on Capitol Hill yesterday. And I’ll admit that I myself was riveted to the screen watching it.

But that was before. That was what we clung to for some semblance of entertainment during the dark and dying days of winter.

Today pitchers and catchers have reported, and I am already forgetting. Now there is only the crack of bats, the smack of leather on leather, blue skies, and the smell of fresh green grass. It is officially springtime, baseball is back, and anything seems possible.

Some pretty interesting facts have come to light over the past few days in the reportage and windbaggery surrounding the announcement of the AL and NL Rookies of the Year yesterday…

1. Did we know that Ryan Braun had the highest rookie slugging percentage in the history of baseball? Wow.

2. Troy Tulowitzki saved the Rockies something like 50 runs on defense, no matter which method you use. That is even more amazing, and probably means he’s the best defensive player in the game today. Although I can’t help wondering if Coors Field may be at least slightly skewing those numbers due to more balls in play or something.

3. Did we know Dustin Pedroia played the last 2 months of the season and the playoffs with a broken hand? Gamer!

4. Daisuke Matsuzaka had a higher VORP than Dustin Pedroia. This makes me feel a bit better about me having picked him as AL ROY back in my October 2 post. Still, after watching Pedroia’s amazing performance in the postseason, and now hearing about the broken hand, I realize I should have picked him over Matsuzaka. Giving that I also went knee-jerk with Braun over Tulo without even looking at the defensive stats, this now puts me in the embarrassing situation of having to admit to Sarah that I was wrong and she was right about BOTH Rookie of the Year picks. Ouch.

1. Finally a World Series that I actually want to watch

So it’s Rockies vs. Red Sox. It’s nice to have the first truly compelling World Series matchup in, well, in a long, long time. I mean, does it get any better? It’s the best squad money and human ingenuity can devise, versus God’s own team.

For so many years now, the World Series has seen an seemingly unstoppable AL juggernaut take on some random, mediocre NL team which happened to rise to the top of an inferior league. Oh sure, once in a while the NL team gets a few breaks and manages to win the World Series, but we all understand this to have been just luck, and there is never really much doubt which team was actually the better squad.

Certainly, there have been a few compelling finishes, especially the 2001 matchup between the Yankees and the Diamondbacks when Luis Gonzalez managed to beat superpowered playoff ninja Mariano Rivera with a walkoff, jam-shot, bloop single in the bottom of the ninth inning of game seven. But as Derek Jeter said later, if the Yankees and the D-Backs replayed that inning 100 times, the Yankees would have won 99 of them.

The problem is that the National League has just been so weak for so many years. Even when an NL champ like the 2004 St. Louis Cardinals has won a major-league best 105 games, you knew in the back of your mind that they did it playing against the weakest division in baseball, and that the Red Sox had proven that they were actually the best team in baseball by winning 98 games in the AL East and beating the Yankees.

But now, for the first time in recent, or even not-so-recent, memory, we have a World Series matchup where we are not really sure who has the better chance to win. Sure, on paper the Red Sox seem to have better players, but the Rockies have some serious mojo going with their current streak. I don’t care what anyone says, if you win 21 out of 22 games, and those games were all baseball games, you are one of the best teams ever.

And this most recent streak actually has the effect of blinding us to just how good this team really is. After a lousy 10-16 April, the Rockies had the best record in the National League the rest of the way. They led the national league in virtually all hitting categories. The tallied the highest team fielding percentage in the history of baseball. And maybe most impressive of all, despite pitching half their games at Coors field, they posted the best ERA in the National League since the All-Star break.

Not to mention that the Rockies crushed the Red Sox in a head-to-head showdown at Fenway back in June, outscoring them 20-5 in a three-game series.

But the Red Sox have some mojo of their own, having just come back from a 3-1 deficit in dominating fashion (7-1, 12-2, and 11-2), and en route battering two of the best pitchers in the American League - C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona - to the tune of 23 runs in 16 1/3 innings pitched. Not to mention that the Sox have two of the greatest hitters in the history of playoffs in David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez, whether you chose to go by stats or just by watching with your own two eyes.

It’s sure going to be fun watching those two hit in Coors Field. And it’s going to be a blast finding out what miracles God is going to pull out of his sleeve next on behalf of His Chosen Men In Purple.

2. All is well with the Universe: JD Drew and Julio Lugo have remembered that they suck

It was nice to see J.D. Drew and Julio Lugo returning to their normal selves after a cosmos-rattling game in which Drew hit a clutch, two-out grand slam and Lugo had a timely two run double.

This time, Drew came up in an almost identical situation, once again finding himself at bat with the bases loaded in the first inning, and happily, grounded into an inning-ending double play. Likewise, Lugo made an inexcusable error on an easy pop-up, giving the Indians a golden chance to tie up the game in the 7th.

But in any case, these are good omens for Red Sox fans. After a momentary collision with a parallel universe in which Drew and Lugo actually do helpful things in crucial situations, the universe is all back to normal now and the Sox can go back to being the team which compiled the best record in baseball, despite Drew posting a VORP of 15.1 (less than 2 points higher than Jacoby Ellsbury’s 13.6 in more than 400 additional at-bats), and Lugo actually posting a negative VORP of -1.3.

3. By my count, he still had another 162 pitches left

Fans of Daisuke Matsuzaka have to be really encouraged by his performance after a lackluster outing in game 3. Although his final line of 5 innings pitched doesn’t look that great, with the entire Boston pitching staff available to go with the exception of an injured Tim Wakefield, there was no reason to keep him in longer than 5.

If you are Terry Francona and you have the option of effectively shortening the game to those 5 innings by pitching Okajima and Papelbon for the last 4, you’d be crazy not to go to the bullpen early (although I have to say, I was aghast when Francona sent Okajima out to start a third inning after he barely escaped the 7th - there is no universe in which that was a good idea).

Most encouraging about Matsuzaka’s performance was that a guy whose only two real weaknesses this past year were walks and home runs, did not allow a single walk or home run to one of the best offenses in the game with its back to the wall. Not to mention that Matsuzaka did not allow a baserunner for the first 3 innings, and he only made 88 pitches in the five frames he threw.

The word is that Matsuzaka spent pretty much every waking minute since his previous start studying videotape, working on mechanics, and pondering how he could do better if there was a game seven. But then again, in this stereotyped world we live in, could we possibly expect any less than absolute hardcore-ness from an inscrutible Japanese like Matsuzaka? After all, Japanese people never panic, get tired, or die.

But the real point is, Matsuzaka showed that he can and will make adjustments, and that bodes well for continued improvement as he continues a major league career which is only just beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

First, tonight’s Metro GameDay column: a game of millimeters.

Now, the keys to tonight’s game:

For the Red Sox

1. Daisuke Matsuzaka must go big or the Red Sox will go home. He can’t afford to make mistakes—he must locate his fastball, and his breaking stuff must break. It won’t matter if he can’t get out of the 5^th inning again (the Red Sox bullpen now includes starters Lester, Wakefield, and Beckett, as well as a rested Papelbon, Timlin, and Okajima) as long as he can keep the Indians from having a big inning.
2. The Sox offense needs to solve Jake Westbrook. They’ve been on a tear since the late innings of Game 5 in Cleveland, and with the Sox back in the friendly confines of Fenway Park, that momentum has only gathered steam. But they can’t wait until Westbrook leaves the game to score—Rafael Betancourt has just been too good.
3. Terry Francona needs to choose his relievers carefully. Eric Gagne will no doubt stay on the bench after working last night (and after being so dreadful in Game 2). Nonetheless, Manny Delcarmen has been knocked around by the Indians both times he’s appeared in this series, and I would be very surprised (and, let’s be honest, completely infuriated) if Tito tapped him again.

For the Indians

1. Westbrook’s sinker needs to sink as well as it did during Game 3. He needs to keep the Red Sox offense off-balance—and keep them hitting into those double plays. This is no less important for being glaringly obvious.
2. The Indians offense must be patient with Daisuke. Even with his high strikeout rate, he has walked about one batter for every two strikeouts. Plus, opponents’ OBP on full counts is almost .500—in other words, if the Indians can work the count full, they have about a 50-50 chance of reaching base.
3. The Indians need to score first. The Red Sox showed at the Jake on Thursday what can happen to a great home crowd when the enemy team strikes first. If the Indians can do the same thing at Fenway, they might be able to take the crowd out of the equation.