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HOUSTON — No, the 2018 Red Sox aren’t a perfect baseball team.
But the deeper they play into October, the better they are playing and the closer they get to chiseling away remaining weaknesses.
What they have become this month is the most dangerous team in baseball, as well as the favorite in the 2018 World Series.
There is no one specific secret to their success but an inordinate number of players up and down the roster have risen to the occasion of October baseball and played to their talent level. It’s the game-planning the Red Sox put in place that showed the players the way to execute to the most of their skills.
In the ALCS the teams were evenly matched, although a good case could be made Houston had the more balanced roster. But when it counted, the Red Sox made more adjustments between games and between innings to reinforce what was working and change what wasn’t.
Red Sox hitters drove in their baserunners and the Red Sox pitchers kept Houston batters from doing too much damage time and time again.
Craig Kimbrel keeps walking batters or getting hit hard by batters?
The coaches discovered he was tipping his pitches and he was a little smoother in closing out Game 5.
Joe Kelly settled down, Ryan Brasier was nearly unhittable and Matt Barnes was there when needed.
David Price was bad in his Game 2 start against New York in the ALDS and better, but not great, in Game 2 against Houston in the ALCS?
He went to work with the coaches and rediscovered his changeup and was brilliant in Game 5.
“No, no, we’re not perfect,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “That’s the cool thing about this team. We feel that we can keep improving. And we have one more series to go, but we’ll keep looking for stuff, just like Craig. We found that out (that he was tipping his pitches Wednesday). We made adjustments and you saw the at-bats (Thursday). They were a lot different. Too bad it took us so long to find it. But we keep searching for stuff for them to be better and hopefully that’s going to help us to win four more games.
Pitching coach Dana LeVangie mentioned how a deep plunge into Astros batters’ tendencies allowed Price to understand how devastating increased usage of his dipping, darting changeup could be alongside commmand of his rising fastball.
“More than anything we understand where guys typically like to swing the bat where they like the ball and his changeup was incredible (Thursday),” said LeVangie. “The movement, it worked underneath the swings where typically those guys like to swing the bat.”
The Sox neutralized a New York lineup that hit more home runs in the regular season than any team in history. Then they held off a Houston lineup that was almost as powerful and even deeper.
“I’ve been saying all along, attack the blue zone and hopefully it’s the safety net and if they hit it, it’s a single,” said Cora. “We did an outstanding job all around. The starters that came in were amazing — Brasier and Barnes and Craig (Thursday).”
Offensively, the Red Sox’ overall offense was not demonstrably better than Houston’s formidable offense in the five games — Astros-Red Sox: .722-.711 OPS; 6-5 homers; 10-11 doubles; .219-.233 batting average — but the bottom line is always runs, and there the Red Sox prevailed.
Gerrit Cole was the Astros’ second best starter? The Red Sox scored four runs off him in Game 2.
Justin Verlander is unhittable in the postseason? In Game 1 he virtually was. In Game 5 he really wasn’t.
It didn’t hurt that Cora and bullpen coach Craig Bjornson were with the Astros only one season ago.
“One thing for sure. CB, our bullpen coach, he was with the (Astros) organization five years and he was part of the pitching plan, and we met right before the series started . . . and talked about each individual, their strength, their weaknesses, how they’re going to attack hitters,” said Cora. “That’s a great pitching staff — and give us credit, we were relentless the whole series. We pushed them to make a lot of pitches and foul pitches off. And it was a great game plan.
“So it’s all teamwork, and it was amazing. They did an outstanding job. Offensively amazing, battling since the fifth inning in Game 1, we started battling at-bats and trying to win every pitch. And if it wasn’t in the zone, we were going to take it. And we grind and grind. And now we’re going to the World Series.”
They enter the World Series with a full head of steam, even more than they had when they finished the regular season with a franchise record 108 wins. They’re better now than they were then. That’s why they’re going to be awfully hard to stop.
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