There may be a few Red Sox fans out there who breathed a sigh of relief when their team got out of Philadelphia. With a victory in the series finale, Boston might be able to turn its back on a pretty difficult stretch. Also, with the team flying to Houston for the final three games of a long road trip, it was hard not to take note of one significant detail.
The Astros are the worst team in baseball.
Indeed, for all the complaints of interleague play and what it does to a team like Boston when it has to venture into National League parks, it has afforded the Red Sox a chance to play the only team in the majors still trying to get to 30 wins.
That doesn’t mean this series is without peril. In fact, there’s one specific factor that could level the playing field between the high-powered Red Sox and the floundering ‘Stros — the speed of Michael Bourn.
Bourn leads the majors with 34 stolen bases. He has been caught just four times. The Red Sox’ ability, or lack thereof, to keep Bourn off the bases could be the difference in the series.
Boston’s catching tandem of Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Jason Varitek has vastly improved its success rate in throwing out runners as the season has worn on. However, the team still ranks among the worst in baseball in that category at just 22 percent.
In addition, Tim Wakefield, a guy your grandma might want to test if she ever got on base, starts in the opener of the series. Bourn will be licking his chops if and when he reaches Friday night.
The same could be said for Saturday, when lanky lefty Andrew Miller takes the mound for the Red Sox. Miller does not possess a good move to first and has such a long frame that runners can get easy jumps against him. In his rather spotty career, Miller has seen opponents steal against him at an 85.1 percent rate (40-of-47).
The series finale has Josh Beckett starting for the Sox. 44 of 52 attempts against him have been successful in the last three years, good for an 84.6 percent rate.
Boston may have caught a break with a recent injury to Houston’s other burner, Jason Bourgeois. He was placed on the disabled list earlier this week with a quad injury. After Bourn and Bourgeois, who has 17 steals in a part-time role, no other Astro owns more than four stolen bases.
Keep Bourn off the bases, and this very well could be a mismatch. Fail to do so and Houston could make things difficult on the Sox.
