Houston Astros Fans Know Your ALCS Foe – Boston Red Sox

The Houston Astros chopped the Chicago White Sox up like sushi and ate them like Shrimp Te(m)pera. (Sorry, I had to). The Astros begin the ALCS Friday at Minute Maid Park playing against the red-hot Boston Red Sox, who beat out Tampa Bay in a thrilling four-game series.

This should be a highly entertaining series, a contest between recent World Series champs who want to win their second in the last five year.

Know the Astros’ ALCS foe: who are the 2021 Boston Red Sox?

STAT PROFILE: BOSTON RED SOX

The 2021 Red Sox are led by former Astro bench coach Alex Cora and have an All-Star lineup led by JD Martinez, Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts and Alex Verdugo to name a few.

The Red Sox regained the services of Chris Sale late into the season as their number one pitcher, to go along with Nathan Eovaldi and Nick Pivetta. And the Red Sox closeout things with Matt Barnes, an All-Star closer who had a terrific first half of the season but has since been mired in a long slump.

Offensively, the Red Sox are really really good. Boston finished the season third in OPS (.777), third in batting average (.261) and second in slugging and (.449). Boston was perhaps one of the better power teams in all of baseball – they finished the season 10th in home runs and 11th in overall strikeouts.

What’s amazing is how good this offense is at home — they hit it preposterous .281 BA at home and we’re first in the majors in OPS by a large margin. However, the Red Sox offense did drop off when they played the better teams in the — they hit .274 against below .500 teams and only .250 against those above. 500 teams. (For reference, the Red Sox only hit .210 BA and .685 OPS in the seven games they played against Houston this season.)

On the other hand, Boston’s pitching was not so good. Even though they played very well in the ALDS, this is still the same pitching staff that would finish 15th in team ERA (4.26), 23rd in team whip (1.25) and 25th in opponent batting average (.259). When you dig deeper into the numbers, you see the Red Sox have some interesting splits.

This staff finished a dismal 25th in WHIP at home in hitter-friendly Fenway Park, but were league average when they pitched away (15th).  Boston should be better now that Chris Sale and Ryan Brasier are back on the mound, but by and large this Red Sox pitching group was extremely sub-par for most of the season.

The Red Sox heart-of-the-order is lethal.

The Astros lineup might be the best in all of baseball , but there’s an argument that Boston’s “heart of the order” (3-6 spot) might be the best in the game. This is the baseball equivalent of the Golden State Warriors 2016 lineup of death.

The Red Sox have Rafael Devers-Xander Bogarts-Alex Verdugo-JD Martinez as a back-to-back-to-back-to-back combination is pretty imposing. Those four guys combined to hit .290 with 102 HRs, 354 RBIs and an OPS of .876 over the 2021 season.

The ability for Alex Cora to mix-and-match two power righties (Bogarts, Martinez) with two power lefties (Devers, Verdugo) makes it tough for even the best pitchers, especially when you have to see these guys consistently over a seven-game series.

The Red Sox offense jumps out early and comes through in big spots.

This great Red Sox lineup also jumps on teams early. The Red Sox hit .263 against starting pitchers the first time through the lineup for an OPS of .789 – that’s a OPS+ of 123 (league average is 100).

This offense has a well-prepared plan coming into the game and they seem to execute well in the first couple of innings against a starting pitcher. What’s interesting is they actually drop off to around the league average when a starting pitcher goes through their lineup a second and third time: second time through, the OPS+ is 104, and the third time, it is 107.

They also are perhaps the most clutch hitting team (along with Houston) in all of baseball. Boston ranks in the 80th+ percentile in most major clutch batting situations – but they excelled particularly in one scenario the most – two outs and runners in scoring position. With two guys on the bags and two outs on the board, Boston Red Sox hit .262 with a .824 OPS – a SOPS of 128.

Translation: they cashed in on big scoring chances time and time again. We saw this on display during the ALDS where they had big hits down in Tropicana Field that blew open  Game 2, and then timely hits that led to some big walk off wins in Games 3 and 4.

Whether or not they have Lance McCullers for the series, the Astros pitchers will have to play well. If they can keep the bases empty and not get down in the first three innings, Houston should be able to settle in and let their offense wear out the inferior Boston pitching. But if Houston can’t contain this Boston offense early and often, it might be a tough series to watch.

The Red Sox don’t play good defense.

For how good the Red Sox are on offense, there equally as bad on defense. The Red Sox were 29th in the league and fielding percentage and were second in the league and errors (108). Third baseman Rafael Devers was fourth in the league in errors with 22.

Bobby Dalbec has 12 errors and he was called up in August. Kyle Schwarber was a poor defensive catcher and a poor defensive outfielder before his Boston days and hasn’t got much better at first base. This is quite possibly the worst defensive playoff team we’ve seen in years.

The Red Sox don’t have the same pitching compared to postseasons past.

And, as mentioned, the Red Sox are having a down year with their pitching. How down? Of their 14 pitchers who logged 40+ innings this season, only four of them had a WHIP under 1.20 and none had a WHIP under 1.10 (Houston had six under 1.20 and two under 1.10 FWIW).

Teams routinely hit against Boston pitching in clutch situations (sOPS 108) over a 162-game season. And not every team is as good offensively as the Houston Astros.

This will be similar to the ALDS series against Chicago. If the Astros can stay disciplined at the plate and don’t chase, the numbers say this Boston pitching staff will give up some big hits. And this defense might even give the Astros an extra run or two.