Boston Red Sox: Five keys to beating Cleveland Indians in ALDS
What do the Boston Red Sox need to do in order to beat the Cleveland Indians? Here are five keys to winning the American League Division Series.
Playoff baseball is back! After a pair of dismal last place finishes left them on the outside looking in on the postseason, the Boston Red Sox have returned to the October stage.
This city has never been content with merely being invited to the party, so this is only the first step toward the ultimate goal of winning a championship. Before they can continue to the next phase of this quest, they first must get past the Cleveland Indians in the ALDS.
Boston stumbled in the final week of the regular season, dropping five of their last six games to surrender home-field advantage in the opening round. This is a significant setback given how well Cleveland plays at home, where they tied for the league-lead with 53 home wins.
While they would have preferred not to have given Cleveland an edge, the Red Sox won’t be phased by starting on the road. Boston owned a league best 46-35 road record and have already proven that they can win at Progressive Field. The Red Sox went 4-2 against the Indians this season, including taking two out of three in Cleveland.
Their success this season against the Tribe gives them confidence entering this series, but they’ll need more than that in order to advance. Let’s take a look at the keys to the Red Sox advancing to the next round of the playoffs.
Win the pitching match-ups
A couple months ago the advantage would have tilted toward Cleveland’s rotation, as they once had arguably the league’s best trio of starters.
That’s no longer the case, with injuries to Danny Salazar and Carlos Carrasco ravaging Cleveland’s rotation. There had been some speculation that Salazar could return from a forearm injury to at least make a contribution out of the bullpen, but he’s not expected to be on the ALDS roster.
This leaves the Indians relying heavily on Corey Kluber, but given that he won’t start until Game 2, the opportunity to give their ace a second start in this series won’t come unless it goes to a full five games. Kluber is also working his way back from a quad injury that forced him to leave his last start, casting a sliver of doubt on his ability to regain his dominant form.
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Trevor Bauer will start Game 1 and presumably be used on short rest for a potential Game 4 due to the team’s lack of depth in their decimated rotation. This is a tremendous advantage for Boston, as they will match him up with potential Cy Young front-runner Rick Porcello to kick off the series. Bauer started the season strong, but posted a 5.36 ERA after the break and owns a 4.73 ERA at home this season.
The other likely starter for Cleveland will be Josh Tomlin, another pitcher that failed to continue a promising start in the second half by posting a 5.59 ERA after the break. He doesn’t strike many batters out and gives up a lot of hard contact, allowing the second most home runs in the league with 36. That’s a bad formula against this lethal Red Sox lineup.
Boston had the league’s best pitching staff after the break, producing a collective 3.50 ERA. They are led by a pair of aces in Porcello and David Price that trump Cleveland’s only remaining ace. The loss of Steven Wright hurts, but Clay Buchholz and Eduardo Rodriguez finished the season much stronger than Cleveland’s back-end options. Based on the current state of these two rotations, the Red Sox have a clear advantage.
Score early, score often
The Red Sox would do themselves a favor by taking advantage of Cleveland’s banged up rotation to avoid having these games come down to the bullpen.
Boston’s bullpen was vastly improved this season, finishing with the fifth best ERA in the league. Their core group of relievers really started to gel once they traded for Brad Ziegler, Koji Uehara returned and Joe Kelly transformed into a valuable late inning option. As good as this bullpen can be, they can’t match what Cleveland can utilize late in games.
Only the Baltimore Orioles had a better bullpen ERA than Cleveland’s 3.45 mark and this unit received a massive mid-season upgrade when they acquired Andrew Miller from the New York Yankees. O’s closer Zach Britton is getting Cy Young buzz, but Miller may have actually had a better season. Britton’s ridiculously low 0.54 ERA is what catches everyone’s eye, but Miller’s 1.45 ERA was next best among pitchers with a least 60 innings pitched, while posting a better batting average against, WHIP and significantly higher strikeout rate. Plus, unlike Buck Showalter, Indians manager Terry Francona won’t be shy about using Miller in non-save situations if the game is on the line.
The top four relievers in Cleveland’s bullpen – Miller, Dan Otero, Cody Allen and Bryan Shaw – are about as good as it gets. That group produced a collective 2.16 ERA, 2.78 FIP, 0.95 WHIP and 10.8 K/9 this season. Remember last year when the Kansas City Royals rode an elite bullpen to a championship? This group has been even better.
Solving the third base riddle
We know who’s on first, what’s on second, but I don’t know’s on third.
The Red Sox enter the postseason with a massive question mark at the hot corner. Brock Holt appeared to claim the job by default down the stretch, but his .239 batting average and .687 OPS in September leave a lot to be desired.
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The three starters that the Red Sox are likely to face in this series are all right-handed, which should take Aaron Hill out of the conversation to start. He could be a useful option off the bench to face a lefty reliever, but he’s not the solution at this position.
Travis Shaw has the most upside of this trio and provides the most pop, but his bat has been in a deep slumber since the break with a batting average that dipped below the Mendoza Line in the second half. He’s a streaky hitter that could catch fire at the right time, but can the Red Sox afford to take that chance?
Could Marco Hernandez be an unexpected source of production? The utility infielder barely played down the stretch and was a surprise addition to the ALDS roster, but he did hit .294 in limited opportunities this season. Sometimes a role player stepping up in a key moment can spark a deep postseason run. Maybe Hernandez can be that guy.
Overcoming postseason jitters
Boston’s expected starting lineup includes five hitters that have never started a postseason game, including Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Sandy Leon, Andrew Benintendi and Holt (or Shaw, depending on which of them starts at third). Xander Bogaerts received a brief taste of October baseball as a rookie on the 2013 World Series title team, but more will be expected of him now that he’s an All-Star starting shortstop.
The youngsters aren’t the only ones with limited postseason experience. Hanley Ramirez has only been to the playoffs twice, in 2013 and 2014 with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He has a mere 13 postseason games on his resume, but has hit a scorching .356 with a 1.031 OPS in those games. It’s a small sample size, but Ramirez finished this season on a tear with 10 homers and 26 RBI in September, paving the way for him to add to that strong postseason profile.
As for the pitching staff, Price’s playoff struggles have been well documented. He is 1-7 with a 5.46 ERA as a starter in the postseason. In his defense, his bloated ERA is heavily influenced by a seven-run shellacking at the hands of the Red Sox on their path to a title in 2013. Now that he’s on our side he at least won’t have to deal with this lineup.
Porcello only has two postseason starts, plus a few relief appearances, which isn’t much to go on. His 4.41 ERA in the playoffs isn’t encouraging, but then again he’s never had a season anywhere near as the one he produced this year. He’s a different pitcher now, so I’m not concerned about his lack of postseason success.
You never know which version of Buchholz you’re going to get. He was named as the Game 3 starter after posting a 3.22 ERA after the break and allowing two runs or less in each of his last three starts. We’ve seen him be dominant for extended stretches before, but the flip can switch at a moment’s notice. Will he keep rolling through October or will the postseason pressure cause him to unravel again? This is perhaps the biggest question facing the Red Sox in this series.
Rodriguez has been sporadic all season and has never pitched in the playoffs. He was solid down the stretch, racking up 22 strikeouts over his final two starts, but let’s just hope the Red Sox aren’t facing elimination in Game 4 when he takes the mound.
The pressure is more intense under the bright lights of October. This Red Sox team is loaded with players coming off of excellent seasons, but how they perform on the postseason stage will be another story.
Cool off the bats in Cleveland
Coughing up home-field advantage down the stretch is a concern for the Red Sox in large part due to how well Cleveland plays at home.
The differential is highlighted most by their offensive splits. The Tribe scored the second most runs in the league this season, fueled by the 5.6 runs per game they scored at Progressive Field. However, their lineup stumbled to 4.0 runs per game on the road, which ranked 13th in the AL.
Red Sox fans surely remember Mike Napoli coming up with key hits for them in the 2013 postseason, including a pair of home runs. Napoli had an outstanding season for the Indians this year, smashing a career-high 34 homers, 22 of which came at home. On the road he hit only 12, while hitting a meager .198. Familiarity with Fenway could snap him out of that road funk, but Cleveland’s best power threat is clearly more dangerous when the Tribe plays at home.
Most teams hit better in their own ballpark, including Boston, but the Red Sox were the league’s highest scoring team both at home and on the road. The environment won’t stymie this lineup, but the same can’t be said for the Indians. In the three games that these teams squared off at Fenway Park this season, Boston outscored Cleveland 16-7.
In an odd twist of fate, starting the series on the road may carry one benefit for the Red Sox in that it ensures their top two pitchers will be on in the mound in Cleveland, where the opposing lineup is most dangerous. When the series shifts to Fenway, the drop off to Boston’s No. 3 and 4 starters will coincide with Cleveland’s struggles to score runs on the road.
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This is of course assuming that Boston’s top starters take care of business to begin the series in Cleveland. Porcello and Price need to pitch like aces to keep a strong Indians lineup in check. If they can do that to steal at least one game in Cleveland to start the series then they should be in great shape to advance to the ALCS.