During the first two installments of this preview series, we looked at how the Boston Red Sox match up with two potential American League Championship Series opponents: the Indians and the Astros.
Obviously, that was a little presumptuous, because the Red Sox have to win a playoff round to set up either of those showdowns. That means, of course, that barring a miracle that somehow gets the Rays or the Mariners into the playoffs, the Red Sox will have to get past either their ancient rival, the New York Yankees, or the AL's surprise team, the Oakland Athletics.
With the Red Sox and Yankees playing a three-game set in New York, let's see how an AL Division Series between these two old combatants stacks up. Some comments on the Red Sox are repeated or slightly altered from the earlier installments, if they still apply.
Between now and then
The Red Sox are going to be the AL East champs and are almost as certain to enter the postseason as the top overall seed, both in the AL bracket and in a potential World Series appearance. Boston has already a higher win total than any National League team can possibly get to. That said, Boston's regular-season work is not done.
As we know, New York is in a neck-and-neck battle with Oakland for the top wild-card slot and the home-field advantage that designation carries with it for the coin-flip game on Oct. 3. For the Yankees, that means the difference between leaving after their season-ending series at Fenway Park and flying across the country to play the A's, or simply hopping down to New York. If it's the former scenario, and New York survives the A's, the Yankees would again crisscross the nation to begin the ALDS in Boston. The A's finish the season in Southern California, so they are looking at a more friendly travel outlook one way or another.
It's probably a small thing from a probability standpoint, but every advantage you can get, you might as well get. And it would be an advantage for the Red Sox to force the Yankees into those two long plane rides.
Boston's stars have plenty left to play for in terms of individual goals. Mookie Betts is the AL MVP front-runner, and J.D. Martinez is alive in that chase as well. Martinez also still has a shot at the Triple Crown. And now that Chris Sale is back from the disabled list, he's got a couple of more chances to add to what is already a solid case for his first Cy Young Award.
The Yankees are playing for that top wild-card seed, but perhaps just as important is their quest to regain some momentum after an injury-ravaged second half that has sidetracked New York's anticipated return to dominance. It has been more of a gradual slowing down than a collapse. At the All-Star break, the Yankees were on pace to win 106 games and post a run differential of plus-223. They are now on pace to win 99 games and finish at plus-170.
The problem has mostly been on the run-prevention side, and the Yanks are running out of time to right that ship. At the break, New York was on pace to finish 120 runs above average on offense; it is at 110 now. However, the pitching-and-defense departments were on pace to be 103 runs better than average, a figure that has dropped all the way to 60. That's a bad formula for taking on a Red Sox team that leads the big leagues in runs.