behind the dugout

The ALCS starts Friday night in Boston. The Red Sox coming off a three game sweep of the Los Angeles Angels in the ALDS will be hosting the Cleveland Indians. The Indians defeated the New York Yankees 3-1 in their ALDS matchup.

On the bump will be C.C. Sabathia and Josh Beckett. In Beckett’s first start this post season he dazzled the Angels with a complete game shutout allowing just four hits. Sabathia on the other hand wasn’t that impressive in his start against the Yankees.

In the series against the Yankees the Indians showed they had the bats as well as the arms to be a dangerous post season team. In Game 1 of their ALDS series they scored 12 runs against 19 game winner Chieng-Ming Wang. In Game 2 they relied on the pitching of Fausto Carmona, a swarm of insects and a single by Travis Hafner to escape with a 2-1 win in 11 innings.

The Indians were one of the biggest disappointments in baseball last season and few predicted them to do much. The bullpen had been maligned, the starters were a but of a mystery and there were even some questions about the offense.

When the regular season ended the Tribe had 96 wins tying them with the Boston Red Sox for the most in baseball. They stayed close to the Detroit Tigers all season but by the end of August they had put 5.5 games between them thanks to a 8-game win streak to finish the month.

Could the Indians hang with the Red Sox in this seven game series? Looking at the lineup you have to feel that there is at-least hope in a city that has not seen a World Series in almost 60 years.

The Rotation

C.C. Sabathia has been one of the best in baseball the few seasons. The big left hander is a work horse who left the majors with 241.1 innings pitched. Sabathia also finisehd the season with 19 wins and a 3.21 ERA and in terms of stats appears to be the deserving winner of the AL Cy Young.

It doesn’t stop there though. Fausto Camona also won 19 games for the Tribe and finished with a 3.06 ERA pitching 215 innings. Not bad for a guy who was 1-10 last season and had made just 7 big league starts going into the season.

Jake Westbrook who has twice won 15 games in a season goes in Game 3. Westbrook had an uneventful start to the season but appears to be headed in the right direction at the right time. Paul Byrd is scheduled to start Game 4 of the series. It was Byrd’s performance against the Yankees that ensured the Tribe would be able to send out ace C.C. Sabathia in the first game of this series. You have to atleast like these guys chances against the Red Sox. Daisuke Matsuzaka who was horrid in his first post season start against the Angels pitches for Boston in the third game of this series and the starter for Game 4 has not yet been announced.

The Lineup

Catcher Victor Martinez was the Indians best offensive weapon this season. Martinez notched 25 homers and topped 100 RBI. Teammate Travis Hafner didn’t quite have the season the Indians were expecting but it’s kind of hard to complain about a guy who hit 100 RBI and notched 24 homers. Center-fielder Grady Sizemore may be the best in the business at his position and it’s been his presense at the top of the order that has gotten things going. His .385 OBP and team high 111 runs scored have given many a pitcher a fit to start the game.

Veteran Casey Blake and youngster Jhonny Paralta also have had productive seasons at the plate and if there’s an offensive weakness it’s likely second basemen Josh Barfield.

Kenny Lofton was brought back by the Tribe to play left-field and it was his bat that helped get things started for the team in the ALDS. Lofton has long been a Cleveland favorite and a World Series ring is about the only thing missing from his career.

The team also has youth in right fielder Frankin Gutierrez and first basemen Ryan Garko. Garko seems to be poised to make a career out of proving people wrong. The former Stanford catcher hit 21 homers this season, his first full time.

The Bullpen

The two guys to know here are both named Rafael. Rafael Perez from the left side and Rafael Betancourt. Perez had a 1.78 ERA, 0.92 WHIP and just a .187 BAA. On the other hand Betancourt posted a 1.47 ERA, 0.76 whip and held the league to a .183 average.

Joe Borowski pitching in his 12th big league season is the teams closer and possibly the weak link of the pen. Despite 45 saves Borowski has been hit well by the opposition. His 5.07 ERA is not very ninth inning like and a 1.43 WHIP including a .289 BAA have made the ninth inning interesting all season. Last season the opposition hit 54 points less against him. Manager Eric Wedge stuck with him this far so don’t expect things to change now.

In conclusion the Indians have a pretty good shot of defeating the Red Sox. Of course the only member of the team to have considerable post season experience is Kenny Lofton. In addition they have to go into Boston for the first two games of this series and face Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling. Not to mention the Red Sox still have a pretty good team themselves. Last time I checked Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were still pretty good bets at the plate.

I’m not saying the Indains will defeat the Red Sox cause that would be quite a prediction but I do expect this series to go either way. If the Tribe can avoid being down 0-2 going back to Cleveland they very well could take this series. This is a chance for the Indians to show everyone that there are other teams in the AL besides the Yankees and Red Sox. What better way to do that then by defeating both in back to back series.