{"id":17405,"date":"2013-10-06T11:02:28","date_gmt":"2013-10-06T10:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=17405"},"modified":"2013-10-12T15:34:05","modified_gmt":"2013-10-12T14:34:05","slug":"advantage-boston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=17405","title":{"rendered":"Advantage Boston"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re two games into each of the four Division Series.<\/p>\n

The Boston Red Sox are in the strongest position after they jumped on the Tampa Bay Rays\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ace David Price for seven runs on Saturday to take a 2-0 series lead.<\/p>\n

Big Papi David Ortiz has lost none of his flair for the dramatic as his big hits have led a strong Boston offence that has been too good for the Rays in the first two games. Frustratingly for Tampa Bay, they haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t helped themselves by committing several defensive miscues, most notably in Wil Myer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got it, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got it … oh no I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t\u00e2\u20ac\u009d turn in Game One.<\/p>\n

The Rays don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to forage far back in the memory bank to remind themselves of their ability to recover from adversity and their scheduled starter for Game Three, Alex Cobb, has been one of their most influential players in that regard of late. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to see whether a change of scenery will lead to a change in fortune for Tampa Bay on Monday.<\/p>\n

The other American League Division Series will move to a Game Three on that day too. It will be an early start for the Detroit Tigers and Oakland A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s making for a very convenient 18.07 first pitch for us in the U.K.<\/p>\n

The series is perfectly poised at 1-1, something that A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fans (including myself) are mightily relieved about. Max Scherzer got the better of Oakland in Game One, carrying on his tremendous regular season form, and that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bode well for the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s with their 2012 nemesis Justin Verlander taking the mound for Detroit in Game Two.<\/p>\n

Verlander was his excellent normal self, but he was matched by rookie Sonny Gray in an enormously impressive eight inning performance by the 23-year-old.\u00c2\u00a0 Stephen Vogt then added his name to the list of relative unknowns getting big postseason hits by singling home the game\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only run in the bottom of the ninth inning for a 1-0 victory.<\/p>\n

After facing Scherzer and Verlander, it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get any easier for the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in Game Three with Anibal Sanchez scheduled to start. Oakland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Jarrod Parker had a couple of poor outings during September after pitching brilliant in August and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll need to re-find that form if the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s are to take a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n

Before then, the two National League Division Series will move on to Game Three on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles had the perfect start to the series in Atlanta with the perfect starter on the mound in Clayton Kershaw. There are some very talented pitchers around but if I had to pick one to pitch a crucial game for me then I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d struggle to look past Kershaw. He was terrific in Game One and gave his team a 1-0 advantage before the Braves hit back in Game Two to level the series.<\/p>\n

The post-game analysis largely focused on whether Dodgers manager Don Mattingly handed over the hard-won 1-0 advantage with his tactical pitching changes in the crucial seventh inning in Game Two. The sky-high expectations that come with skippering the most expensively-assembled team in the Majors mean some are already speculating that Mattingly will be shown the door if his team goes on to lose this series. \u00c2\u00a0The best way to put those comments to one side will be to win Game Three and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what the Dodgers will try to do behind Korean pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu.<\/p>\n

As for the Pittsburgh Pirates, their magic carpet ride hit some turbulence in Game One of their NLDS as the St. Louis Cardinals bashed A.J. Burnett aside in a comprehensive 9-1 victory. However, the Buccos haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t simply flown into the postseason on a hot streak and a bit of luck. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve proved themselves to be a resilient team over the course of the season and their Game Two performance was testament to that.<\/p>\n

They could have been swept up by the home crowd and feared the worst for their postseason coming to an early end. Instead, rookie Gerrit Cole took control with six strong innings that showed he already has the composure to go alongside his undoubted talent.<\/p>\n

Now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Cardinals that will have to dig deep, heading to what will be a raucous PNC Park to face the Pirates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ace Francisco Liriano in Game Three. That game will start at 21.37 BST and kicks off what will be several days of gripping baseball. Here are the current scheduled start times in BST for the remaining Division Series games.<\/p>\n

Sunday 6 October<\/strong><\/p>\n

21.37. St. Louis at Pittsburgh (Kelly \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Liriano) ESPN<\/strong><\/p>\n

01.07. a.m. Atlanta at LA Dodgers (Teheran \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Ryu) ESPN<\/strong><\/p>\n

Monday 7 October<\/strong><\/p>\n

18.07. Oakland at Detroit (Parker \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Sanchez) ESPN<\/strong><\/p>\n

20.07. St. Louis at Pittsburgh (Wacha \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Morton) ESPN?<\/strong><\/p>\n

23.07. Boston at Tampa Bay (Buchholz \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Cobb) ESPN?<\/strong><\/p>\n

02.37. a.m. Atlanta at LA Dodgers (Garcia \u00e2\u20ac\u201cNolasco) ESPN?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tuesday 8 October<\/strong><\/p>\n

22.07. Oakland at Detroit (Straily \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Fister) ESPN<\/strong><\/p>\n

01.37. a.m. Boston at Tampa Bay (Peavy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Hellickson)*ESPN<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wednesday 9 October<\/strong><\/p>\n

22.07. Pittsburgh at St. Louis (Burnett \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Wainwright)* ESPN<\/strong><\/p>\n

01.37. a.m. LA Dodgers at Atlanta (Kershaw \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Medlen)* ESPN<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thursday 10 October<\/strong><\/p>\n

22.37. Tampa Bay at Boston (Moore \u00e2\u20ac\u201cLester)* ESPN<\/strong><\/p>\n

02.07. a.m. Detroit at Oakland (Scherzer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Colon)* BTSport1<\/strong><\/p>\n

It looks like all of the games will be on ESPN, with the exception of a potential Game Five in the Tigers-A’s series that would be covered on BT Sports 1. On Monday, it’s probable that ESPN will simply switch to the next game when the previous one comes to an end.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re two games into each of the four Division Series. The Boston Red Sox are in the strongest position after they jumped on the Tampa Bay Rays\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 ace David Price for seven runs on Saturday to take a 2-0 series lead<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[82,532,535,70,553,66],"class_list":["post-17405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-coverage","category-mlb-2","tag-bst-guide","tag-bt-sport","tag-espn","tag-gamedayaudio","tag-mlb-2","tag-mlb-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17405"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17445,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17405\/revisions\/17445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}