Posts tagged DustinPedroia at FanHouse

From the Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

Before the season MLB FanHouse ran a series entitled "Old Boss/New Boss," in which possible new-school rivalries were discussed. Josh Alper covered a possible development in the AL East involving the Rays. See, we knew this year's group was feisty enough to make some noise on and off the field ... we just missed which large market team would step forward.

Well, we know now. The Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox have a burgeoning rivalry. Just check out a few elements that create a true rivalry.

- The "we don't like each other" factor. Well, they've had this for quite a while. Go back to the Gerald Williams-Pedro Martinez fight and a few other dust-ups from in recent history. With these two specific groups, you had a huge brawl in Beantown this year when Coco Crisp went after James Shields to conclude a series worth of incidents... only to smugly accuse the Rays of fighting "like girls" in post-game interviews. The fight was unlike most, because you had two teams really wanting to fight each other. Usually there are like three dudes brawling and everyone else standing around. Not this one, it was the dictionary definition of a brawl. These teams do not like each other one bit, and I love it.

Strip away everything about last night's game but the final score. Now look at that score with the score of Game 1 in the ALCS. Red Sox 2-0. Rays 9-8. The Red Sox still got their split in Tampa this weekend. As the lower seed in this series, getting the split in a stadium where the Rays have a decided home field advantage is huge.

Everything that could be looked at as a negative result for the Red Sox last night can be replicated for the Rays, except for the final score. Josh Beckett was alarmingly bad last night, but so was Scott Kazmir. The Red Sox bullpen threw a lot of pitches, but so did the Rays' pen. Someone was eventually going to win that game and whoever did would immediately claim the "momentum" from the pundits, but the truth is that both teams are equally beaten up after last night.

There were a lot of red flags for the Red Sox last night, but with them the Red Sox offense finally came alive with Dustin Pedroia having a huge game and Jason Bay continuing to bash the crap out of the ball in this post-season. As worried as all Sox fans likely are right now, they're still only a big Jon Lester start away from having a 2-1 lead in this series. That's exactly where they would've wanted to be before this series started.

The ALCS begins tonight. With the Red Sox and Rays getting ready to face off, the MLB FanHouse crew took some time to discuss the important issues of the series. Are the Rays too inexperienced? Does it matter that they don't have a closer? Do they stand a chance against the defending world champs?

Pat Lackey: This really is about as David and Goliath as baseball playoff series gets, isn't it? I know the Rays weren't intimidated by the White Sox, but I think there's more of a potential for them to be starstruck in this round. Not to use a gratuitous hockey/Pittsburgh comparison, but this match-up reminds me a lot of the Stanley Cup Finals in June where the young Penguins blew threw the Eastern Conference without serious challenge and met the experienced Red Wings in the Finals. The Pens played the Wings even for the final four games of the series, but they were starstruck and got blown off the ice in the first two and by the time they pulled it together, it was too late. There's certainly the potential for that to happen here, isn't there?

The season is almost over, and we're finishing up with the Yankees and the Red Sox. And hey: I'm glad to be rid of at least one of them.

So begins our annual switchover to playoff-themed Dugouts. Or, if you want to be specific, "How Hard Is It To Do Four Dugouts A Week About The Angels."

Tonight's Dugout (chock full of new and seldomly used screen names) is after the jump.

The final week of the 2008 season has been one long requiem for all things Yankee. On Sunday, Yankee Stadium closed it doors after 85 years. Two days later, the second longest string of postseason appearances was officially snapped. The eulogies have been written, but the game presses on.

Five days from now, the Yankees will finish their final game of the season at Fenway Park and they hurtle headlong into an offseason of transition the likes of which hasn't been seen in the Bronx in more than a decade. Moving across the street might be one of the smaller changes.

It's clear that the Yankees have fallen a step behind their hated rivals to the north. But they've also fallen behind the Rays and the Blue Jays and Orioles are improving rapidly. A massive payroll just isn't good enough on its own anymore.

That's a lesson the Red Sox learned back in 2006. Boston wilted down the stretch under the weight of injuries to Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez and Coco Crisp and a woeful pitching staff and ended up winning a disappointing 86 games. That Red Sox team let Mark Loretta, Alex Gonzalez and Trot Nixon walk and replaced them with a prospect named Dustin Pedroia and free agents Julio Lugo and J.D. Drew.

This Yankees team never really got going because of significant injuries to Jorge Posada and Chien-Ming Wang and a patchwork pitching staff. It will probably wind up with a win total in the high 80s. It will let Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi walk this winter, and possibly Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina as well.

So what now? Given all the similarities, can the Yankees get back to the playoffs and beyond in 2009 as the Red Sox did last year?

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Wild-Card Races Taking Shape: This isn't quite what we expected a week ago. The AL wild-card race was supposed to come down to the wire with Boston, Minnesota, Chicago and just maybe the Yankees battling for two spots in the postseason, while the NL was supposed to be a foregone conclusion, with the hard-charging Brewers cruising into October.

But just the opposite has happened. Boosted by the superb play of Dustin Pedroia and the strong returns of Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell, the Red Sox are pulling away in the American League and making a strong push to win the East again.

Milwaukee, on the other hand, is slumping at the wrong time -- pulled down by a miserable relief corps. The Phillies are now lurking four games back of the Brew Crew. It's still unlikely that Milwaukee will miss out on the October festivities, but both of the NL East clubs have played well enough that a wild-card bid is not out of the question for either.

Time is growing short, but all it takes is a week for things to shift dramatically.

With the playoff chase coming down to the wire, our MLB editor rounds up the five biggest pennant race stories in Eye Toward October.

- Wild, Wild West: The contenders in the NL West might not have gaudy records -- only the Diamondbacks sit above .500 entering play Thursday -- but that doesn't mean the race won't be plenty entertaining. Think about the last couple of days.

Tuesday Dodgers phenom Clayton Kershaw and prized acquisition Manny Ramirez powered Los Angeles to within 1 1/2 games of first-place Diamondbacks. Wednesday Arizona's own trade catch Adam Dunn gave the D'backs a walk-off win and some breathing room ahead of their final series with the rival Dodgers.

All the while, the Rockies, the darlings of last year's postseason, are lurking. Colorado is 17-14 since the beginning of August, and lest you think it isn't a real factor well back of Los Angeles and Arizona, the Rockies will play both clubs a combined nine times in the coming weeks.

The beauty of a protracted pennant race, especially one with three teams battling for a lone playoff spot, is that it's bound to be exciting even if the teams aren't great, or even very good.

Is Dustin Pedroia an anarchist? Probably not. But that doesn't mean he respects Red Sox Nation authority the way a young whippersnapper -- even one of his prodigious talents -- might. Why, here's Pedroia telling a few lucky fans exactly what he thinks of Sox announcer and Red Sox Nation President (that this is a real, actual title continues to baffle me) Jerry Remy. He's not exactly kind:



Oooh, slam! I would say that Pedroia is probably just poking a little interorganizational fun at Remy, the way the good old boys presumably do, but is there any chance he's not joking? After all, it's true: Jerry Remy did stink at baseball.

(HT: Red Sox Monster)

The stupid thing about the MVP race is that half of it involves perception. Is his team good regardless of how he performed as an individual? Is he a clutch player based on stuff we think we've seen but might not actually know? Is he the type of baseball player worthy of the honor of being selected by us sportswriter types as the best in the game? Is he tall? Is he handsome? Etc, etc.

These ridiculous perceptions are probably why -- despite what the fans think -- Dustin Pedroia will not win the MVP this season. Don't believe me? Just ask Ozzie Guillen, who called the smallish in stature second baseman a "g*dd*mn jockey".

''I never thought I was going to walk a goddamn jockey,'' Guillen said of the 5-7 Pedroia, a player he actually admires. ''Walking a guy who just came from being on top of Big Brown. Right now, he's on a roll. This guy right now is on fire. No matter what you throw up there, he's going to get it. I can't believe you can change professions in one year, go from the Kentucky Derby to the Boston Red Sox ballpark.''

Pedroia has reached base in 10 consecutive plate appearances and became the first Red Sox player with four hits or more in consecutive games since Wade Boggs did it in June 1989.

When he stepped to the plate in the eighth inning, Pedroia was met with cheers of ''MVP, MVP.''

Now, in fairness to Ozzie, he then proceeded to discuss the fact that Pedroia was the heart and soul of Boston's team right now.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Toronto Blue Jays (75-60) at New York Yankees (68-67) 1:05 PM ET

If Alfonso Soriano can get booed, then why not the player he was traded for? There are probably still some people who want the merciless booing of Alex Rodriguez to stop. But they're getting harder and harder to find after Rodriguez's latest ninth inning gag job: a double play with the winning runs on base and nobody out against B.J. Ryan and the Blue Jays on Saturday. It's gotten so bad, the "Get Rid of A-Rod" websites are starting to turn up. While the Soriano booing might be a little bit silly with the Cubs steaming towards the playoffs, the Rodriguez booing can be understood a bit more with the growing reality that the last season of Yankee Stadium is going to end in September. (P.S. Your inevitable argument that all the injuries are to blame more than Rodriguez is probably valid. But it's harder to boo a player on the disabled list. Trust me, I've tried.)