I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the Boston Red Sox are in the postseason. In fact, they play their first postseason game today, as they’ll take on the Cleveland Indians in Game One of the ALDS.
With first pitch now just a little under eight hours away, I polled the BP Boston staff to see how far they think this Red Sox team can go in the playoffs. Let’s just say we’re an optimistic bunch.
Yes, out of the eight writers who responded, only one (yours truly) does not believe the Red Sox will make the World Series. Four think the Red Sox will win it all, while five think Red Sox – Cubs is going to be the World Series matchup.
In terms of individual players, we’re pretty high on David Ortiz (insanely so, if you’re Bryan Joiner or Jake Deveraux) and less optimistic about Rick Porcello and Craig Kimbrel. I was expecting David Price to be a more divisive figure, but overall our team is pretty confident in him, believing he’ll post a playoff ERA in the low-to-mid 3s.
If we learned anything from our preseason predictions post, it’s that we’re sort of ok at making predictions! Seven of the nine participants way back in April predicted that the Red Sox would make the playoffs, with four thinking they’d make it as far as the ALCS and just one of us — Mr. Joiner — serving as a true World Series believer from the beginning.
Got any predictions of your own? If so, you have a few hours left to drop ‘em in the comments. After that, they won’t be predictions at all anymore, will they?
Photo by David Richard/USA Today Sports Images