As the World Series begins tonight, the Boston Red Sox have a clear advantage in the starting-pitching matchup, according to Pitching Runs Created through the first two rounds of the playoffs. In fact, Boston’s Game 1 starter, Josh "Mr. Blister" Beckett, has himself accumulated nearly as many PRC as the Rockies’ scheduled starters. With 13 PRC in the ALCS alone, he certainly deserved his MVP award (Kevin Youkilis wasn’t far behind with 11.6 RC). But after Game 1, it’s going to be anyone’s ballgame, as Ubaldo Jimenez and Josh Fogg (combined salary: $4 million) have so far outpitched Mssrs. Schilling and Matsuzaka (combined salary: $27.5 million). After that, though, the Rockies seem to have a deeper bullpen, tonight’s debacle notwithstanding.

We’re not sure that the Rockies even deserve to be here, since streaky teams — as soon as they stall — have no chance against good teams, but they’ve worked the system. After all, didn’t someone once say that the playoffs, as currently constituted, are a crapshoot?

A few rhetorical questions as we watch the game:

• If a team is so bad that it can’t play after an eight-day layoff, does it really deserve to be in the World Series?
• Is Jacoby Ellsbury the (future) rich-man’s Orlando Palmeiro?
• Whom is Manny Ramirez waving in, anyway?
• How many walks does Clint Hurdle want to endure before pulling Speier? Does he want to actually win this game?
• Is it just us, or does Matt Herges look an awful lot like Joe Magrane in the face?
• Royce Clayton may not be able to play anymore, but he’s pretty funny (re: Taco Bell bit), isn’t he?

This entry was posted by Pip on Wednesday, October 24th, 2007 at 10:34 pm and is filed under by the numbers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.