A few thoughts and notes in anticipation of Game 2 of the ALCS:

• Kevin Youkilis has enjoyed a really freaking good postseason career, particularly in the ALCS. Thanks to his three-hit night in Game 1 against the Rays, he now has a .531 average, .595 OBP and .969 slugging percentage in eight career ALCS games. Those marks all represent the highest of all time by a player with at least 30 at-bats in League Championship Series.
  Somewhere, Ramiro Mendoza asks: “They kept me on the ALCS roster in ‘04? Over HIM?” Mendoza took a loss against the Yankees in two ALCS appearances that year. Viva El Brujo!
• The Sox have 10 shutouts in their postseason history, but Friday’s marked the first in an ALCS game. Who knew?
• David Ortiz said that he saw a different sort of look on the faces of the Rays in Game 1 of the ALCS than he saw during the regular season. Just a guess, but today he will see yet another sort of look: a ticked-off one.
• 

  The Rays could not keep Drew's defense down.

  The lights at the Trop presented challenges to the Sox outfielders, who at times had to fight to find the ball. That made J.D. Drew’s right-field defense all the more impressive–he made a couple of running catches on balls to the gap, one that backed him all the way to the wall in right-center, that were difference makers. “It is brighter than most ballfields,” said centerfielder Jacoby Ellsbury. “(Drew’s defense) was huge. It’s the difference. Every play matters. It’s nice to have him make those plays.”
  With southpaw Scott Kazmir on the mound tonight, it will be interesting to see if the Sox keep Drew (.143, 1-for-7 vs. the Kazmanian devil) in the lineup, or if they replace him with Coco Crisp (.300, 9-for-30) while shifting Jacoby Ellsbury (.286, 4-for-14) to right.
  Drew, it should be noted, seemed no worse for wear after getting winged in the shoulder by a Grant Balfour heater in the eighth inning last night. Perhaps, then, his long pause in a fetal position was related to the pure shock of getting hit. In 1,008 regular season plate appearances with the Sox, Drew has been hit just five times.

• A Game 1 victory in a best-of-seven format is no guarantee of success. since the ALCS went to the seven-game format in 1985, the Game 1 winner has won 57 percent of series. In five of the last eight ALCS (is the plural ALCSes?), the Game 1 loser has come back to win the series. But the history is a bit better for the Bostonians in a Red Sox-specific context. The Sox have taken Game 1 of a postseason series on 15 occasions. They have won 10 of those 15 series, including the last six (2004 ALDS and World Series; 2007 ALDS, ALCS and World Series; 2008 ALDS).
• If indeed the cliche rings true that the postseason is about pitching and defense, then much of the Red Sox’ success can be explained thusly: over their last 12 postseason games (of which the Sox have won a staggering 11 times), the team has a 2.17 ERA. Its starters are 9-0 with a 1.89 ERA. As for the defense, the Sox have made but one error in the playoffs this year, and none since the third inning of Game 1 of the ALDS, when Jed Lowrie booted a ball.
• That level of run prevention has helped the team to withstand a power outage: the Sox haven’t homered since Game 2 of the ALDS. The team’s three-game streak without a longball is its longest since it failed to go deep in Games 2-4 of the 1990 ALCS.

Here are the batter vs. starter matchups for the two teams:

Rays vs. Josh Beckett (listed as batting average/OBP/slugging/OPS, with plate appearances in parentheses):

Willie Aybar: .667/.667/1.333/2.000 (3 plate appearances)
Dan Johnson: .400/.500/.600/1.100 (5)
Rocco Baldelli: .286/.286/.714/1.000 (7)
Evan Longoria: .333/.333/.667/1.000 (12)
Cliff Floyd: .286/.394/.536/.930 (33)
Aki Iwamura: .318/.375/.500/.875 (24)
Jason Bartlett: .333/.333/.444/.777 (18)
Carlos Pena: .176/.263/.412/.675 (19)
B.J. Upton: .250/.250/.333/.583 (12)
Carl Crawford: .261/.261/.261/.522 (23)
Gabe Gross: .077/.143/.308/.451 (14)
Dioner Navarro: .158/.200/.158/.358 (20)
Fernando Perez: .000/.000/.000/.000 (3)

Red Sox vs. Scott Kazmir:

Dustin Pedroia: .560/.621/.840/1.461 (30)
Jason Bay: .333/.455/.778/1.233 (11)
Coco Crisp: .300/.400/.400/.800 (35)
Jason Varitek: .214/.410/.357/.767 (39)
David Ortiz: .205/.295/.385/.680 (44)
J.D. Drew: .143/.250/.429/.679 (8)
Jed Lowrie: .000/.600/.000/.600 (5)
Kevin Youkilis: .200/.310/.286/.596 (42)
Alex Cora: .286/.250/.286/.536 (9)
Mark Kotsay: .167/.167/.167/.334 (12)
Kevin Cash: .000/.333/.000/.333 (3)

Rob and I will be catching up from the park - we’ll look forward to catching up with all of you with the Game Day Blog!

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