The 3-Man Rotation

For whatever reason, Major League Baseball has added many extra rest days to the post-season this year, allowing teams with short benches or shallow rotations to hide their flaws on the game's biggest stage. The Boston Red Sox must capitalize on this break from tradition and use only their three best starters in the quest for the club's twelfth American League pennant.

Much was made of Indians manager Eric Wedge's decision to call upon the mediocre Paul Byrd to start Game 4 of the ALDS rather than giving the nod to Cy Young hopeful C.C. Sabathia on three days rest. The move worked out for the Tribe; Byrd limped through five innings while Yankees "ace" Chien-Ming Wang, pitching on three days rest, got the hook from the outbound Joe Torre in the second inning.

The Sox will find themselves in the same position during the ALCS. There is a distinct possibility that Sox ace Josh Beckett could pitch in games 1,4, and 7. He has not pitched since blinding the hapless Angels on October 3rd, and he will take the hill in Game 1 on October 12, giving him eight full days of rest. If Tito keeps the big Texan to a reasonable pitch count, he could come out and pitch in Game 4 on October 16 on three days rest, then return for a possible Game 7 on October 21 on a regular four days of rest.

This setup would have Curt Schilling starting Game 2 (Oct. 13, 5 days of rest) and Game 5 (Oct. 18, four days) and Daisuke Matsuzaka pitching Game 3 (Oct. 15, 9 days) and Game 6 (Oct. 20, four days).

Lets look at another possible permutation that would avoid the short rest altogether and more than likely pass the Game 4 start to the achy Tim Wakefield, who hasn't been right in almost two months. Beckett would pitch games 1 (8 days) and 5 (5 days), Schilling 2 (5 days) and 6 (6 days), and Matsuzaka 3 (9 days) and the decisive Game 7 (5 days).

Putting Wakefield in the rotation also will force the young lefthander Jon Lester to serve as the team's long man in case of an early game explosion by any of the four starters. With three starters, Wakefield could assume the same innings-eater role he took during the 19-8 blowout against the Yankees in Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS. This would free Lester to be used as more of a middle reliever, picking up an inning or two later in the game or in extra innings. (As a side note, the New York Yankees are 4-13 in playoff games since Dave Roberts stole second.)

If we take this experiment another cautious step forward, a three-man rotation coming out of a seven-game series would allow Schilling to start Game 1 of the World Series on five days rest, with Matsuzaka taking Game 2 (four days) and Beckett taking Game 3 (five days). At this point, we'd need to have a Wakefield start in Game 4, followed by the Schilling-Matsuzaka-Beckett attack taking games 5, 6, and 7 on regular rest.

But even that is getting far ahead of ourselves. We already can expect that Eric Wedge will cleanly rotate his pitchers 1-4, as that's what he stuck to in the ALDS and he has no reason to change now. If the Sox went with three starters, the mismatches could be very helpful as the series goes on; we'd see Beckett/Sabathia, Schilling/Carmona, Matsuzaka/Westbrook, Beckett/Byrd, Schilling/Sabathia, Matsuzaka/Carmona, and Beckett/Westbrook. If the Sox can hang tough and take the series to seven games, I feel very good about Beckett's matchups in 4 and 7.

This Cleveland team is very good, with a pesky offense, two strong aces, and two young bullpen guns that can shut teams down in the middle innings. The Sox will have to exploit both the back end of the Cleveland rotation and their eminently hittable closer Joe Borowski if they want to capture the flag and have some quadruple-A expansion franchise over for an early Halloween party. A three-man rotation will be the best path to such an opportunity.