State of Affairs Wednesday October 24, 2007

Talk about Parody:
On the eve of a huge BCS matchup between #2 BC and #8 VT let's take at college football's current landscape. In case you have forgotten this college football season has again proved why we play the games. Of the ESPN/USA Today's top ten only 4 teams, LSU, OU, VT, and WVU, are currently in the BCS top ten. Of the teams currently in the BCS top ten, 5 teams, BC, KU, USF, ASU, and Oregon, began this season unranked. We all should have this coming when perennial powerhouse and National Championship contender Michigan lost opening week to 1-AA Appalachian State. Each of the currently undefeated teams have tough roads to remain that way with Kansas and BC having the easiest. ASU and O$U each have teams ranked 2-5 within their respective conferences. With that being said it is almost certain that the season will end without any meaningful undefeated teams. That leaves teams like LSU, Oregon, and VT in the driver's seat along with O$U to duke it out for the right to play for the National Championship. If there has ever been a year where a playoff system of some sort would make sense it would be this one. One of the best teams in the country already has two losses, Florida and the team atop the rankings,O$U has a average rank* of 82. So who knows what this will all look like when the dust settles, but one things is for sure there will be plenty to talk about...

Rockies Sox, World Series '07 Preview:
With game one of the Series to be played tonight in Fenway Park, I thought it appropriate to take at the 2007 World Series, noticeably missing the Tribe. For the Rockies the last month has been a whirl wind ride. Winning 21 of their last 22 games the Rockies surged from the middle of the NL West into the World Series. This momentum will likely have dwindled by the Josh Beckett throws out the first pitch of the Series around 8:20 Eastern. With an 8 day layover since sweeping the Diamondbacks look for the Rockies to be a bit rusty and come back to earth, at least for a game or two. The Redsox have had a much different fate this past month. Having clinched a playoff spot fairly quickly Boston coasted into the playoffs and proceeded to win 4 straight games including a sweep of LAA and a huge game 1 win over the Indians. They lost the next three and were forced to fight for their lives and win three elimination games in a row to claim a place in the Fall Classic. People will say that once a giant such as the Redsox has been awaken they are unstoppable. Since they were tested they are now ready and prepared to take what is rightly theirs namely a World Series, according to some. However, I have been witness to many occasions where the beast hits the snooze and continues to sleep until it is too late. Most notably the Uconn Huskies in the 2006 NCAA tournament. They were given increasing trouble by Albany, Kentucky, and Washington until they finally lost to George Mason in the Elite 8. So, which story will shape the 2007 Series, let's take a deeper look...
On the surface the teams have produced incredibly similarly on the offensive end with just 7 being the separation of runs scored and of points in OPS. Some would argue that the Coors field park factor, and weak NL would cause the Rockies to have inflated numbers here. But with the consideration of the pitcher vs. the DH it seems to me that all these extra factors basically even out and I feel safe in saying that the Sox and Rockies have similar offenses on the average. As far as the other half of the position players, fielding, I also believe the teams are fairly similar. From what I know and have seen of each team, they are both effective defensively and both teams do a very good job in the field across the board. This leaves the last 50% of the game, pitching. The Redsox have a dominant advantage in this respect. The Redsox have today's best big game pitcher, Beckett, and yesterday's best big game pitcher, Schilling, along with one of the game's best bullpens. What about the Rockies you ask, not so much. Its not that the pitching of the Rockies is bad its that it isn't anything. It lacks the experience and frontend quality of the Redsox staff and although some of this can be attributed to Coors, the Sox also pitch must better away from home.
With that being said, let's check out the game by game matchups. Game one features Beckett and the lefty Jeff Francis at Fenway. Boston lead the league in OBP against lefties this season and this will only spell disaster for the Rockies as Boston rarely waists its base runners. This combined with the fact that the game is in Boston, that Colorado hasn't played in a week, and O did I mention that they have to face Josh Beckett, will lead to a 1-0 for the Redsox. Game 2 also in Fenway features Schilling and Ubaldo Jimenez. This is similar to ALCS games two and 6 featuring Schilling and Fausto. With that being said the nod again goes to Boston because of the home field and Jimenez' extreme lack of ML experience (hes only been up since August). Now back in Colorado for game three. This is where the tide will turn. With Boston forced to either leave Papi out of the lineup or have him play 1B and leave off Youkilis, the Rockies will have a chance to steal a game and make this a series. With an ERA over 7 since September 1 and a lack of success on the road at times this season look for the Rockies to capitalize on Daisuke and rely on the lack of DH to aid Josh Fogg's pitching to 2-1 series deficit. Regardless of whether the Rockies can must back-to-back wins and tie the series at 2 after game 4, 2 games will be enough for the Sox to figure out Coors and the NL rules and will go back to Boston with a 3-2 series lead on the back of ace Josh Beckett. The rest is all just a formality as one of the games best playoff pitcher's ever will seal the deal at Fenway in game 6 if they haven't won it already. The Rockies will come close but in the end Boston's superior pitching will be decide the series in favor of the Sox in 6 games.

Next post: Saturday I will outline some of the games flaws and what can be done to fix them....

*=http://www.dolphinsim.com/~andy/ncaa_fb/