Speaking of blunders, here is a list of the most famous and classic of them:

1. Never get involved in a land war in Asia
2. Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line
3. Never take copious amounts of pitches if the pitcher is a renowned strike-thrower

From the start of Game 3, the Red Sox still seemed to be in the funk that plagued them in the last week of the season.Josh Tomlin‘s 4.17 DRA and 1.86 HR/9 aren’t because he’s ineffectively wild, but because he throws a lot of pitches in the zone, and hitters often capitalize. The Red Sox tried to wait out Tomlin, hoping he’d throw a mistake, but they found few. Their strategy was to take pitches to run Tomlin in five innings, but Tomlin was undeterred, throwing strike after strike after strike. Three of Tomlin’s first four innings of scoreless baseball were clean and perfect, and that was enough for the Indians to gain a lead.

Read the rest at Baseball Prospectus.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

Cleveland Indians – Current Record: 78-80

The Indians have home field advantage and their own quest to run their record to .500 or above.  Like the Red Sox, the Indians have played their best baseball in the second half off the season, going 36-33 with a run differential of +38 over that time.  This record is identical to the Red Sox’s over the same time span, however the Red Sox have boasted an even more impressive run differential of +48.  The Indians team as a whole pitches pretty well, ranking ninth in ERA but third in baseball in DRA with a mark of 3.88.  Hitting has not been as good for this club as they rank just 22nd in baseball with a TAv of just .255. The Red Sox, by comparison, have hit .261 as a team, good for 17th.  Thankfully for the Indians they have been much more able with the lumber at home, posting a 106 OPS+ at Progressive Field while struggling with a 96 OPS+ while away.  Needless to say, horrible defense aside, these Indians will not be an easy opponent.  The Red Sox are 2-1 in the season series as they look to continue that trend and their recent winning ways.

Probables

Henry Owens vs. Josh Tomlin, Friday, 7:10 p.m.

Owens is just one start removed from closing out the season at Fenway Park in style.  In what was undoubtedly his best outing of the year, Owens gave Don Orsillo a proper farewell by going 7.2 IP to shut out the Orioles at home, striking out five batters and allowing just three hits.  While the Orioles were one of the weakest teams in the league vs. left-handed pitchers, the Indians are actually a bit better than league average, posting a 104 OPS+.  Against left-handed starters alone they have been much worse, though, with a mark of 93.  Also working in Owens’ favor is that the Indians have never faced him before and he has a 1.99 road ERA, light-years ahead of the 5.00 ERA he has posted at home.

Tomlin has only been starting since August 17, however the results have been mostly positive in this limited sample size.  Over 59.1 IP he has struck out close to eight batters per nine while walking less than one. Tomlin is fairly prone to the fly ball, posting a rate of 48.2% and a HR/FB rate of 15%.  The way the Sox have been swinging the bats these past few weeks, home runs could quickly become an issue.  Slight advantage for the Red Sox here.

Craig Breslow vs. Corey Kluber, Saturday, 7:10 p.m.

With Eduardo Rodriguez shut down for the season due to workload the Red Sox will once again hand the ball to Breslow in what should be a fairly taxing day on their bullpen.  Last time out on September 26, Breslow and co. combined for a bullpen-only shutout of the Orioles, with Breslow himself contributing four strong frames, striking out just two.  I am less optimistic this time out.

The Klubot gets to make one last start in front of the home crowd where he has posted a 3.05 ERA this season.  It was also the site of the most impressive pitching performance of the season when he struck out 18 Cardinals over 8 IP in May. Those same Cardinals just won their 100th game on Wednesday so this performance plays up in my mind.  Despite his 3.62 ERA the advanced stats continue to like Kluber more than Drew Carey loves Cleveland.  His DRA is 3.35 15th best in baseball and his cFIP of 71, which is predictive, is even more impressive, ranking him seventh best in baseball among starters with 100 IP.  This one is likely a loss.

Rick Porcello vs. Danny Salazar, Sunday, 3:10 p.m.

The final matchup of the year for both teams looks like a mismatch on paper in favor of the Indians.  Salazar has had a pretty solid year, posting a 3.51 ERA and a very healthy K-BB rate of 18.6%.  Porcello on the surface looks like the turd he was for much of the season, countering with an ugly 5.02 ERA and a decent K-BB rate of 14.9%.

Lately, the story for both of these pitchers have been very different. Salazar has struggled in September with a bloated ERA of 4.76 while Porcello has surged with a mark of 3.74.  While Porcello has been by no means elite anyone that has watched him knows he has been attacking batters differently.  This contest is too close to call.

Opposing Lineup

Perhaps no lineup in all of baseball possesses more switch-hitters than the Indians, however, this has not led them to success.  The team has been slightly harder on left-handed pitching than it has righties but they aren’t keeping any pitchers up at night.

Jason Kipnis – 2B – L
Jose Ramirez – 3B – S
Francisco Lindor – SS – S
Carlos Santana – 1B – S
Yan Gomes – C – R
Lonnie Chisenhall – RF – L
Chris Johnson – DH – R
Abraham Almonte – CF– S
Mike Aviles – LF – R

Offense along with improved defense are where the Red Sox hold the advantage over Tito’s boys.

Recap

It’s been a long year for Red Sox fans across the nation who have had to suffer though some pretty ugly months of baseball.  Lately, what we have seen from the club has been inspired play that leaves me dreaming about what the team could look like during the 2016 campaign.  Every position on the team has an answer as we head into the off-season, but some are more pronounced. Pablo Sandoval at third base, Hanley Ramirez at first base and Rusney Castillo in the outfield are far from sure things.  If one or two of those issues can be addressed via free agency or trade and Dombrowski can land his coveted ace the Red Sox will be half a bullpen away from being a complete team.  Stay with us over what I expect to be one of the busiest and exciting off-seasons we will have ever covered and thanks for reading our stuff all year.

Photo by Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports Images

Top Play (WPA):

The Red Sox appeared to catch a break on what ended up being the top play of the game. With the bases loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the second inning, Mookie Betts swung and missed at an 0-2 pitch in the dirt. The strikeout would have been the second out of the inning, getting Indians’ pitcher Trevor Bauer closer to squirming out of the jam. But, luckily for the Red Sox, the umpires got together and ruled that Betts had actually fouled the pitch. Replays on the NESN broadcast showed pretty clearly that this was not the case. Regardless, Betts lined the next pitch to the wall in left-center field for a bases-clearing double, pushing the Red Sox lead to 4-0 (WPA: + .149).

How about an off-the-field top play? Yesterday was the first of the two-day Jimmy Fund radio-telethon. For those unaware, the Jimmy Fund supports Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer institute by raising funds for adult and pediatric cancer care and research. Each year the radio-telethon is a great fundraising event, and this year, perhaps, takes on a little more meaning for the Red Sox with the recent news about John Farrell. Donate if you can!

Bottom Play (WPA):

The bottom play of the night came in the bottom of the first inning. After Brock Holt tripled, Xander Bogaerts hit a hard, high chopper down the third base line that was caught by Indians’ third baseman Mike Aviles right at the bag. Unfortunately for the Red Sox the ball got to Aviles quickly enough that Holt was unable to retreat safely to third after having taken his secondary lead on the pitch. Xander ends up with a fielder’s choice on your scorecard (WPA: -.072).

Key Moment:

Eduardo Rodriguez pitched really well last night. I felt that a key moment came in the top of the seventh inning. The first batter of the inning, Michael Brantley, took Rodriguez deep on a 1-0 slider, and then the second batter of the inning, Carlos Santana, ripped a 2-0 fastball to right field for a single. The middle of the Indians’ order was getting to work their third time seeing Eduardo, or so it seemed. After those first two batters, he got Ryan Raburn to roll over on a 3-2 changeup for a 6-4-3 double-play, and then got Roberto Perez to ground out to Xander ending the inning. It might seem silly to suggest that the key moment was late in a 7-0 game, but it was really nice to see Rodriguez avoid having things go off the rails quickly and force the shaky Red Sox’s bullpen into the proceedings.

Trend to Watch:

Blake Swihart was thrown into a difficult situation this season. He was probably slotted to spend the year at Triple-A Pawtucket continuing to develop as a player, but then injuries happened to the Red Sox’s planned catching duo and he was called up. Over his first 101 plate appearances he hit .208/.240/.292, striking out in 26.7 percent of the time. Over his next 105 PA he has posted a .296/.343/.388 line, although still striking out too often (24.8% K%). A hundred plate appearances is too small a sample to make any strong conclusions, but it appears as though Swihart is much more comfortable hitting major league pitching. The power numbers are still a little ugly, but even in the minor leagues Swihart’s game was never really driven by power. In last night’s game he worked a walk against Bauer, eventually scoring on Betts’ top-play double, and then collected two hits off Indians relievers. He looked quite comfortable at the plate.

Coming next:

The Red Sox will finish up their series with the Indians tomorrow night before the Royals come to town for the weekend. On paper the pitching matchup is supreme, as the Sox will send Joe Kelly to the mound, while the Indians counter with 2014 American League Cy Young winner, Corey Kluber. Despite his great stuff, Kelly has yet to consistently show why the Red Sox think he can be part of the rotation going forward, but his last two outings have been better. Taken together he has pitched 11.1 innings, allowing only three runs on 11 hits, while walking four and striking out 13. Kluber hasn’t been quite as great as he was in 2014, but his numbers this season (3.34 ERA, 2.58 FIP) are still very impressive. The Red Sox offense has a tough test coming. Ideally, tomorrow brings a well-played ballgame and positive news about John Farrell’s first chemo treatment.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

This was not a good time.

Top Play (WPA): Lonnie Chisenhall (real name) hit a double with one out in the top of the fourth to score two runs (.187). That’s not so bad, but the third, fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth top plays of the game came in the top of the fourth, too. Matt Barnes did not have a good top of the fourth.

Boston’s top play of the game came courtesy of Travis Shaw, who hit a solo shot off of Danny Salazar in the third (.119). That’s about all the Sox had going for them today.

Bottom Play (WPA): Francisco Lindor was caught stealing in the top of the first (-.80). Riveting stuff.

Key Moment: It’s hard to pick. The entire top of the fourth was really the key inning here, and served as yet another damning reminder of how disappointing Barnes has been to this point in his career. Other key moments include: Hanley Ramirez being awful at defense, David Ortiz extending his hitting streak and this catch by Mookie Betts.

Trend to Watch: Travis Shaw, though. The corner infielder/future MVP hit yet another homerun last night, his fifth of the year in just 63 PA. Shaw also drove in Boston’s only other run of the night and has been very impressive overall. In the long-run he’s probably still more of a platoon/bench bat than a legit starter, but he’s been one of the lone bright spots in Boston over the past two-plus weeks.

As for the other trend to watch, it’s looking more and more like Matt Barnes just isn’t good. On the one hand he’s just 25, but on the other he was touted as a fast-moving mid-rotation starter out of college, and that looks like quite the longshot at this point. Hopefully he improves his command to the point where he can at least be effective out of the pen, but yikes.

Coming Next: It’s a battle of two enigmatic young pitchers, as Eduardo Rodriguez toes the rubber against Trevor Bauer. This game could easily be 10-8 or 1-0: nothing would surprise me with these two mercurial talents on the mound. You could say they both have great stuff.

Photo by Mark L. Baer/USA Today Sports Images

Anyway, this year’s Indians are a construction marvel. Nearly the entire starting roster spot is filled by a reasonably paid, above-average baseball player in his prime. What the front office, led by Chris Antonetti, lacks in maneuvering room with its roster, it makes up for in construction efficiency, save for Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn, the albatrii in the outfield. It’s taken a while to get contend, and they’ve rebuilt during a period in which the Red Sox have purged, binged, and purged again, only to find themselves in the same spot as Cleveland after an August, September and offseason of trying.

The Red Sox are no longer Mad Money rebuilders; they are no longer concerned with showing the size of their… spreadsheets? That’s Dodgers and Cubs territory now, which is why the Cubs ended up with Jon Lester for $6 trillion through age 452 (453 season), while the Sox have Rick Porcello for four years and $80 million. The Red Sox are not hurting for cash, but they are emulating the clubs that are. The Indians don’t have a starter who is 30 years old. The Rays went three years without having a starter over the age of 29. The conventional wisdom has always been that relievers are fungible; the Red Sox’s business plan presupposes that with the advantages they’ve accrued on offense, live-enough-arms are fungible as well.

The Red Sox are no longer Mad Money rebuilders; they are no longer concerned with showing the size of their spreadsheets.

Cleveland’s starters aren’t fungible, but they’ve been at it longer because they lack the Buy it Now freedom that the Red Sox, Dodgers, Yankees and Dodgers, for example, have in perpetuity when it comes to  top pitchers. The Lesters of the world aren’t for the Indians, though they had a shot at him, in theory. Sometimes the ruling parties don’t even give them a chance at top talent. The Red Sox-Dodgers sending-kids-to-live-with-their-uncles trade of Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett was the singular event that sent us toward MLB’s status quo in what was basically ruling-class collusion. The only recourse teams like the Indians have is to put away the bank slips and beat butts on the field.

The is the beauty of the sport: talent overcomes all, and, generally speaking, most good baseball players are between the ages of 25 and 30. The Indians, Rays, and Red Sox (and others — this is not meant to be a comprehensive list) have placed bets on reliable gains in productivity across the entire roster instead of obviously overspending on one or several players. The Indians have overspent twice, and it has burnt them insofar as they’ve lost most of their wiggle space, outside of what seems like the inevitable trade of Jose Ramirez to San Diego. The Red Sox have far more room, and they’ve made space, mostly in the rotation, by buying patently above-average baseball players at market price, provided the age was more or less right.

It’s so simple that it’s brilliant, and in a way it renders a lot of analysis — well, not meaningless, but certainly less dense. The Sox’s rotation is one you could make from reading the stats on old baseball cards, and the Indians have shown that if you get guys who are are just good enough, one of them might go from relatively anonymous starter to Cy Young Award winner, and a second to do it the next year, and, voila, you’re contenders, at least to your enthusiastic biographers. To them, to me, the Indians are exciting: a team primed to reach its peak. The Red Sox want to make it their baseline, and I’m all for it.

Photo by Kelly O’Connor, sittingstill.smugmug.com