| 30 September 2009
"It doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you're in."
That's what Dustin Pedroia had to say to the media at Fenway Park last night after the Rangers lost and the Red Sox clinched a spot in the playoffs.
Dustin is correct, but the Red Sox ae backing into the post season, having won just two of their last eight games. They're making it hard to get excited, but history has proven that you don't have to be the hottest team in September... Once you're in, you only have to be hot in October.
Flipflopflyball has a cool graph that proves this theory:
In 2007, the Red Sox were the best team in baseball and they went on to win the World Series. But the year before that Cardinals were the worst team in the bunch with 83 wins - yet they still won it all. As the graph says, since 1995 only two teams have tallied the best record in the regular season and gone on to win the World Series.
In fact... only five teams total have made the World Series after recording the most win of any playoff team, while six wild card teams have gone on to play in the World Series.
The Yankees have played an intersting role in all of this...
In 1997, the Yankees themselves were the wild card team, but lost the World Series to the NL wild card Marlins.
In 2001, they lost the World Series to the 92-win Diamondbacks after beating the 101-win A's and the 116-win Mariners in the earlier rounds.
In 2002, they has the best record in baseball, but it was the wild card Angels that won the World Series that year.
In 2003, those pesky wild card Marlins beat the Yankees in the WS again, despite the Yankees leagues best 101-61 record. We don't like to think about it here in Boston, but they almost didn't even make the World Series...
We all know what happened in 2004, but just to remind everyone, the Red Sox were the wild card team that year as well and they beat the Cardinals, who happened to have the best regular season record with 105 wins...
In 2006, the wild card Tigers beat the Yankees and went on to play in the World Series.
And in 2007, New York was the wild card team, but the Red Sox won the World Series.
Bottom Line: The Yankees won four rings in the late 90s, but fate has not been a Yankee fan in the 2000s. 2009 will not be a slam dunk either... consider this:
Should the Tigers win the AL Central, Justin Verlander will start Game 1 and would be on six days rest for Game 5 if needed. Verlander is very capable of shutting down the Yankees and putting them in a must win scenario in Game 2... with AJ Burnett on the mound.
Verlander is 1-1 with a 1.29 ERA in two starts against NYY - blanking them through seven innings on April 27th and holding them to two runs through seven on July 18th... in Yankee Stadium. Edwin Jackson would start Game 2 and has a 1.38 ERA and a .196 BAA in two starts against the Yankees.
Meanwhile... the Angels are cursed when forced to play the Red Sox in the postseason.
I'm just sayin' is all...
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