Vigilante Sports

The Fall Classic is upon us. One team was expected to be here, the other had to string together one of the hottest streaks in baseball history to even make the playoffs (winning 21 of their last 22). These teams are built differently and for different reasons.

The Red Sox are built to dominate. They have a big, strong, smart lineup and a pitching staff of power arms (save for Tim Wakefield, but he was left off the World Series roster). The Rockies are a team that is young, and put together based on character (not that the folks in Boston don’t have solid character). They have publicly stated that when evaluating talent, a players character and faith play into the equation a lot more than other teams.

Colorado doesn’t have a lot of All Star caliber pitchers. Jeff Francis, who will start Game 1, emerged this year as their ace. Before this year he was a middle of the road, .500 pitcher. And he’s their ace. Boston will be sending Josh Beckett to the mound in Game 1. He is 5-2 in post season for his career with a 1.78 ERA. Scary. He has been dominant and whether or not he is able to maintain that dominance is the key to this series.

Colorado has a very potent offense led by Matt Holliday and rookie sensation Troy Tulowitzki. Their lineup is really well-rounded. It has youth (Tulowitzki, Brad Hawpe and Ryan Spilborghs) , speed (Willy Taveras and Kaz Matsui), power (Holliday, Garrett Atkins and Tulowitzki) and veterans (Todd Helton). Can they handle the overwhelming pitching staff of the Red Sox?

There is the question of who has momentum? The Red Sox are coming in on the heels of coming back from a 3-1 deficit against Cleveland. Colorado is definitely riding high on their 21 out of 22 streak, but they haven’t played in eight days. That’s the longest layoff for a team between a League Championship Series and the World Series. How will that affect them? Can they maintain the intensity.

The Red Sox seemed like a team destined to win the World Series in 2004. It’s starting to feel that the Rockies are the same type of team this year.

My Prediction: Rockies in 6

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 10:26 am and is filed under Baseball, MLB. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.