Red Sox - White Sox Playoff Series Preview

The Battle of the Soxes

Make no mistake about it. These are not your 2004 Boston Red Sox, who completed a miraculous comeback after being down 3-0 to their rival New York Yankees and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in last years World Series.

Pedro Martinez will not be taking the mound at U.S Cellular Field. Dave Roberts will not be available to pinch run in a crucial situation. Doug Mientkiewicz will not be a late inning defensive replacement at first base. Keith Foulke will not be summoned from the bullpen to slam the door shut on a Red Sox victory.

These are the 2005 Boston Red Sox. A team that led the AL East for most of the season, only to see the Yankees clinch the division title on the second to last day of the season. A team that still won 95 games despite several question marks in their starting rotation and in their bullpen.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona still has the luxury of penciling in a potent lineup. Johnny Damon is still the igniter and David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are still two of the most dangerous bats in all of baseball. Ortiz and Ramirez combined for 91 home runs and 288 RBI during the regular season.

The Red Sox offense is not the concern. Pitching is where the Red Sox come up short in this series, especially against the White Sox who are loaded with arms. Curt Schilling was mediocre at best as he spent time in both the bullpen and starting rotation during the regular season. Schilling will be hard pressed to win games on sheer guts and will alone like he did in the 2004 post season. Francona will be counting on David Wells and Tim Wakefield to come up with big games, but it is Matt Clement who gets the nod in the opening tilt of the series. After having a solid first half, Clement struggled after the all star break and won only 3 of his last 14 starts. He needs to come out strong so that the Red Sox don1t fall behind early in defense of their World Series title.

The Red Sox will be relying on Mike Timlin to close out games for them. Keith Foulke missed most of the regular season due to injury and Timlin stepped into the closer role. No longer a set up guy, it remains to be seen if Timlin can get the job done as a closer in the post season.

The Chicago White Sox finished the regular season with a record of 99-63. Manager Ozzie Guillen had his team on a feverish pace early on but they cooled in the second half and a 15 game lead over the Cleveland Indians on August 1st shrunk to as little as a game and a half late in the season. It was looking like a showdown with the Indians at Jacob1s Field on the final weekend of the season was going to decide the Central Division title. However the Indians faltered in the final week and the White Sox finished the regular season with 5 straight wins and make their first post season appearance since 2000.

Guillen has 4 starting pitchers that had at least 14 wins and the pitching staff had the second best ERA (3.61) in the American League. Mark Buehrle, Freddy Garcia, Jon Garland and Jose Contreras will be tough to beat no matter how Guillen lays out his rotation. Contreras takes the bump in the opener and he was an impressive 11-2 in the second half of the season.

The White Sox have a formidable bullpen with the likes of Bobby Jenks, Cliff Pollite and Dustin Hermanson, but Guillen will be looking for his starters to go deep into games and keeping a Red Sox lineup capable of exploding at any time at bay.

The White Sox batted only .262 as a team in 2005 but the lineup does have some pop. Paul Konerko blasted 40 home runs and Jermaine Dye chipped in with 31. Scott Podsednik makes things happen at the top of the order with his speed and gives the team an element they were hoping would come in handy in the playoffs when they traded slugger Carlos Lee to Milwaukee to get Podsednik last winter.

The series features a strong pitching club versus a strong hitting club. The White Sox led the majors with a 35-19 record in one run games. The Red Sox led the American League with a .281 BA and the Big Papi, David Ortiz has established himself as one of the greatest clutch hitters in the history of baseball. It almost seems as though the Red Sox win many of their games by keeping it close and then relying on Ortiz for the big hit. They are going to need to do more than that on both sides of the ball if they want to win their second straight World Series.

The Red Sox won the season series against the White Sox 4-3.