Red Sox playoff opponents — who should they want to face?
· Yahoo Sports
The Boston Red Sox will be playing baseball in October.
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Who will they be playing? Where will the games take place? How long will their postseason run last?
I can’t answer those questions, but we can take a look at the regular season schedule and take them into account when trying to answer the most important question of all…
Who should they want to play?
I’ve compiled a list of the five most likely candidates, so let’s take a look at each and decide which one is most appealing:
Houston Astros/Texas Rangers
The Lone Star State will almost certainly be home to the winner of the American League West.
Houston is currently ahead in the standings, and while that organization has given you fits in the not-so-distant past, this isn’t the same group that made it to the World Series in 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2022.
Justin Verlander, Charlie Morton, Dallas Keuchel, and Framber Valdez were absolutely terrifying members of their routinely stacked rotations, which finished first, second, or third in team ERA in 2018, 2019, and 2022. Peter Lambert, Mike Burrows, and Spencer Arrighetti kinda stink, which is why they currently rank 24th. Yordan Alvarez is as terrifying as he has always been, but instead of being protected by Kyle Tucker, George Springer, Alex Bregman, and Jose Altuve, his best running mates are Christian Walker, Isaac Paredes, and the worst version we’ve seen of Altuve.
Texas is probably a bit scarier.
Nathan Eovaldi, Corey Seager, and Joc Pederson have the postseason pedigrees, and many of the other guys on the roster have potential, but they straight up find ways to lose games and are on the outside looking in at this point in the regular season.
It’s safe to say those two teams present challenges, but given the fact that you would need to slip into the third spot in the wild card race to face them and the unlikelihood of happening, we lumped both into one very unintimidating entry.
VERDICT: If you end up facing one of these two teams, something very bad happened in September.
Cleveland Guardians
Cleveland is currently holding onto that last spot in the wild card race, so you quite literally can’t face them at this point.
VERDICT: I just told you it’s not going to happen…
Toronto Blue Jays
Toronto is really weird.
The Blue Jays have spent the majority of the regular season hovering around .500, but their schedule is extremely favorable down the stretch and they kickstarted their run to the 2025 World Series by sweeping their final series of that regular season against the Tampa Bay Rays.
If they take care of business over the next three weeks, it seems likely that they land in that final playoff spot — but that won’t be enough for you to face them.
VERDICT:It’s not going to happen, which might be a good thing.
New York Yankees
2021. 2025. 2026.
It’s going to happen again, isn’t it?
New York is the likeliest opponent, so despite the fact that this is supposed to be a story identifying the opponent you want to play we’re going to put all of our focus on the opponent you will play.
I’ve made the argument in recent weeks that you actually match up quite well against this team and under these circumstances, despite the fact that you just lost a four-game series at Yankee Stadium.
Sonny Gray, Payton Tolle, and Ranger Suarez/Jake Bennett gives you at least two left-handed starting pitchers to face their lineup — which is favorable against guys like Ben Rice, Amed Rosario, Spencer Jones, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. Roman Anthony, Trevor Story, Adley Rutschman, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Willson Contreras should also be full strength, which will help against their stacked and suddenly healthy starting rotation — which will be missing one of Gerrit Cole or Carlos Rodon.
Aroldis Chapman, Garrett Whitlock, and Erik Miller already give you the better bullpen, but we could also see the returns of Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck, Tyron Guerrero, and Justin Slaten — with even two of those returning swinging things all the way in your favor.
I want it to be the Yankees. You should want it to be the Yankees. We all should want it to be the Yankees.
VERDICT:If you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best.