Red Sox at Dodgers: World Series Preview?
The A. L. East leading Boston Red Sox will visit the N. L. West leading Los Angeles Dodgers this weekend. Are we witnessing a World Series preview? It is certainly a possibility as the Sox have been on top of the American League standings virtually all season long and there is no hotter team in baseball as the Dodgers. We thought a couple of weeks ago that the Tampa Bay Rays and the Dodgers might be a World Series preview, and it may have been. But the series was a disappointment as the only good game was Friday when the Dodgers came back from a 6-0 deficit to beat the Rays with David Price pitching. The other two games were Dodger routs.
Let’s hope the Red Sox put up more of a scrap with the Dodgers this weekend. On Friday night, the Sox will throw John Lackey against Ricky Nolasco for the Dodgers. Both pitchers have been tougher than their records would show. Lackey is 8-10 with a 3.22 ERA and Nolasco is 9-9 with a 3.60. The Dodgers have won 18 of 21 games this month including the last three in a row. The Sox have won 10 of 20 for the month but have maintained their lead in the division by a slim margin over the Rays.
On Saturday, Hyun-Jin Ryu brings his 12-4 record to the hill against Jon Lester who is 11-7. On Sunday Jake Peavy will pitch for the Sox and Chris Capuano for the Dodgers. The pitching match-ups seem to be fairly even for the series. The Sox may look to have a better match-up on Sunday but they may have a slight disadvantage on Saturday.
This should be a highly entertaining series with a lot of good pitching and also some good offense. Big Papi playing in the field is almost worth the price of admission alone. We don’t get to see that very often.
Yasiel Puig is always a good show. Sometimes it works out well for the Dodgers. Sometimes it does not. But it’s never boring. He has a cannon for an arm, unfortunately sometimes he likes to show it off too much, allowing runners to take extra bases. Sometimes he takes hits away and erases runners too. So tune in.
The Dodgers go into the series with a very comfortable 9.5 game lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Sox are only a game over Tampa Bay. So the games mean a bit more to Boston, although the Dodgers are still in a tight race with the Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals for the best record overall in the National League. Right now the Dodgers are ties with the Pirates, one game ahead of the Cardinals and two behind the Braves.
