Red Sox Advice: Accept the Wild Card and Sit Your Best Players
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The New York Mets were the only team last year to win a series with the home field advantage. The Boston Red Sox shouldn’t worry about the division or home field and focus on the post-season.
The Sox have been in a dismal tailspin for the last couple of weeks:
- Curt Schilling is 2-4 since he returned from the disabled list
- Hideki Okajima has given up 6 runs in 4 2/3 innings this month (Francona is sitting him)
- Tim Wakefield went from unhittable at the end of August to giving up 17 runs in three starts in September
- Dice-K has matched Wakefield with 17 runs given up in September.
- Manny Ramirez is supposedly still hurt
- Big Papi definitely could use some rest
- Jason Varitek is doing his usual August-September exhaustion slide
- Coco Crisp missed last night’s game
- Kevin Youkilis is still recovering from Wang hitting him last week
I have found the winning scenario for the Red Sox to be competitive in the post-season.
- Setup your starting pitchers this week to allow the post-season rotation to be ideal
- Starting pitchers will only pitch five innings or 80 pitches
- Give Manny, Tek, Ortiz and Youkilis 10 more at-bats for the season
- Give Jonathan Papelbon and the rest of the bullpen two more appearances in the next week.
- Eric Gagne will pitch every single remaining inning of the season.
This scenario will freshen up the team and get them ready to compete in the post-season.
Please tell me Red Sox fans how the Sox should play these last 9 games of the season.
Chris
