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Down But Not Out by Jared Carrabis
Get Ready For ALCS Comeback Part III

This is it; this is where we separate the diehards from the bandwagon fans. Many of you when you saw the final score go up got a sickening feeling in your stomach that the October Magic has run dry and that your beloved Boston Red Sox have failed you. I would just like to remind you that this series is a best of seven, not five. Each team has to win four games before the other does. Little did some of you out there know, that is doesn’t matter what order you win your games in, all that matters is that you win four games before they do. That’s all that matters.

We’ve been in this situation before but if this team is going to get it done again, it needs to come full circle with starting pitching. The starting pitching for the Red Sox so far this series with the exception of Daisuke Matsuzaka in Game 1 has been abysmal. Everyone wants to know what has happened to the Red Sox offense, well if you want the answer to that question you have to dig a little deeper. The answer is the Red Sox starting pitching, plain and simple. Give all the credit in the world to the Tampa Bay Rays for perfectly executing their plan of attacking the Red Sox starting pitchers to get out to early leads.

Those early leads quickly have become large deficits and those large deficits have evolved into insurmountable leads. When the Rays jump out to these big leads early in the game, it puts a great deal of pressure on the Red Sox offense to perform or play “catch up”. It may or may not cause the Red Sox hitters to swing at pitches that they might not normally swing at when the desperate need for run production isn’t so high. If the Red Sox are to come back in this series, they have the perfect set up to do so. I don’t care how confident the Rays are after pounding out all of those runs here at Fenway Park, this game is all about momentum.

With the new format for the American League Championship Series introduced in 2007, an off day follows Game 4 whereas games 3, 4 and 5 used to be played all in a row. Momentum is everything in the postseason and hopefully the day off will cool off the bats of the Tampa Bay Rays and level the playing field between the two teams. In games 3 and 4 the Rays have dominated the Red Sox on all cylinders but we all know that the Red Sox are better than what they are showing us. To quote Jason Varitek in 2004, the Red Sox haven’t played their best games yet. I know it’s tough without Mike Lowell in the lineup but the bats that should be stepping up in place of Lowell so far have not.

I think of this Red Sox team almost as a procrastinating college student (much like myself). I have a feeling that this team keeps putting off and putting off delivering the fatal blow to this Tampa Bay Rays team and they won’t give a full out attack until they have their backs against the wall. Much like putting off a term paper until the night before it’s due and then banging it out at three in the morning when you have class at seven. Almost the entire team from 2007 that needed to win three straight ALCS games to advance to the World Series are still with the team and those that weren’t here can only benefit from the experience that their teammates can rub off on them.

Daisuke Matsuzaka gets the ball in Game 5 on Thursday at Fenway Park. The very same pitcher that no-hit the Tampa Bay Rays through six innings and shut them out through seven. The Red Sox bullpen had to do some work in Game 4 but the big guns were kept out of action to be used later hopefully when they are really needed. Daisuke Matsuzaka will be making his first postseason start at Fenway Park of this postseason and his first at Fenway since Game 7 of the 2007 ALCS. Matsuzaka will be taking on the Tampa Bay Rays on full rest and during the regular season Daisuke was 9-3 with a 3.34 ERA at Fenway Park.

In Game 6 Josh Beckett will be handed the ball for the third time this postseason. If you watched Game 4, Josh Beckett did not move from the top step of the dugout all night long. You can tell it’s eating him alive that he hasn’t been able to contribute in a big way yet this postseason. If Josh Beckett gets the call in Game 6, expect a return to postseason greatness for the right-hander. You can say “Yeah so what are you basing that on?” all you want but my answer to that is that no statistical information can lead me to make that assumption but I can tell you that I have had the privilege of watching Josh Beckett pitch since 2003 and you can only push this guy down a few times before he knocks you out.

If this series can make it to Game 7, the Red Sox will be American League Champions. The beating that Jon Lester took in Game 3 of this series was nothing but a hiccup in Lester’s 2008 dominance of the American League. He was due for a loss and one can only assume that after not giving up any runs in his two previous two postseason starts that he was feeling a little pressure that he had to some how “out do” himself or that the pressure to live up to the “automatic win” in Game 3 may have got to him. We don’t expect a no-hitter every game, we don’t expect a shutout, but we do expect the very best out of Jon Lester every fifth day. If Jon Lester comes back in Game 7 and pitches like we all know he can, the Rays don’t have a chance in the world in defeating him.

Over the next 24 hours or so we are going to hear a million comparisons to the 2004 and 2007 comebacks in Red Sox postseason play. It’s time to let go of 2004 and 2007. The celebrations are over and the champagne bottles have long been empty. We will never forget 2004, and 2007 was just as incredible but it is time to move on and be hungry for another one. This is October baseball folks, anything and everything can happen. This series is all but over so all that I ask is that no one throws in the towel and no one count these guys out. It may not have looked like it these past two games, but they want it just as bad as you do. They didn’t grind out a 162 game season to get this far just to roll over to their new division rival. It’s do or die, and if history serves us right, we've got 'em right where we want 'em.

(Just replace Manny Ramirez with Kevin Youkilis/Dustin Pedroia/Jason Bay and Curt Schilling with Jon Lester/Daisuke Matsuzaka)