Will Red Sox End Rockies Hot Streak?
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by Niteowl049
Baseball Notebook
Will Rockies Hot Streak End?
The Boston Red Sox will be facing a much stronger offense than the Cleveland Indians, as they face the Colorado Rockies tonight in the first game of the 2007 World Series. The Indians team they defeated in the ALCS only had two players with over 78 RBIs while the Rockies have five players with over 90 RBIs.
The Rockies also know they can beat Josh Beckett, since they beat him 7-1 on June 14th. It was the only game this season that Beckett struck out only one batter. Beckett gave up 10 hits in that game. Only the Minnesota Twins and the Texas Rangers, who also had 10 hits, and the New York Yankees who had 13 base hits had 10 hits or more against Beckett this season. So the Rockies will not be intimidated by Beckett since they have already beat him this year.
The negative for the Rockies is that they have never been in a World Series game. To my knowledge, only Willy Taveras has even been in a World Series game so that is a definite advantage for Red Sox. Tonight's opening game should be a pitcher's battle but with these two explosive offenses anything can happen.
Will be very surprised if the Rockies continue their hot streak against the Red Sox especially since they will only get to play three home games at the most in Colorado with the the other four games if necessary being played in historic Fenway Park.
The loss of Tim Wakefield could hurt the Red Sox since anytime you take a 17 game winner out of a World Series starting rotation it has to affect the team. Almost cerainly Terry Francona will start Jon Lester in Game 4 since he is not likely to start no-hit pitcher Clay Buchholz in the World Series. Lester has a 4-0 record this season. Lester has had control problems issuing 31 walks in 63 innings. In comparison Josh Beckett has issued 40 walks in 200 innings which is only 9 more walks in 137 more innings than Lester pitched.
The Red Sox have to be favored because of the homefield advantage and having had great control from their first three starters who have combined to walk only 3 hitters in 35 innings in the ALCS with Curt Schilling issuing no walks in 11 innings.
