King Kaufman's Sports Daily

ALCS preview: Red Sox have the sluggers, the pen and two all-time great playoff starters. Indians in 7. Plus: NFL Week 6, the Patriots vs. Cowboys era.

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Oct. 12, 2007 | The Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians tied for the best record in the majors, and now, having dispatched the Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees in the first round, they meet in the American League Championship Series beginning Friday night at Fenway Park.

The ALCS figures to be a very different animal than the NLCS, a series that features just one true ace, Arizona's Brandon Webb, who wasn't very acey in the Arizona Diamondbacks' 5-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies in Game 1 Thursday night.

And that's about all this column has to say about NLCS Game 1, except that that automatic double-play call on Justin Upton in the seventh inning was bogus but probably didn't matter. Also: People at the games, don't throw stuff on the field, OK? It makes the TV announcers get all sanctimonious.

Each team in the American League opens with a pair of aces, meaning at least four games will be started by studs. If either club takes advantage of the new day off after Game 4 and sends its No. 1 starter out for both the fourth and seventh games, it would be five games started by studs. And, hey, if Daisuke Matsuzaka can regain the dominance he showed at times early in the season, we're talking about six or even seven games with an ace on the hill for the Sox.

C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona both won 19 games for the Indians and were among the league leaders in earned run average. An argument could be constructed for either as the best pitcher in the league this season. Josh Beckett of Boston, the only 20-game winner in baseball this year, probably wasn't the best pitcher in the A.L., but he was in the photo.

He and Curt Schilling, though, who'll start the first two games, are among the best postseason pitchers of all time.

With all due respect, that is, to Paul Byrd, who was anointed the second coming of Christy Mathewson by the TBS announcers after his typical shaky-effective performance in Game 4 against the New York Yankees Monday. Byrd and Jake Westbrook, who had a solid year after a horrible start, are the rest of the Cleveland rotation.

The Red Sox's back end is Matsuzaka, the $100 million man who seemed to tire down the stretch and had a 7.14 ERA from Aug. 15 onward, and Tim Wakefield, who was worse than that at the end and is returning from a back injury.

Next page: Hard to pick against the Sabathia-Carmona comination. Plus: NFL Week 6. That is: Pats-Cowboys