{"id":2593,"date":"2008-10-10T13:54:03","date_gmt":"2008-10-10T18:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.capperspicks.com\/blog\/?p=2593"},"modified":"2023-02-07T07:10:15","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T15:10:15","slug":"preview-2008-alcs-101008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/mlb-baseball\/preview-2008-alcs-101008\/","title":{"rendered":"2008 MLB ALCS Betting Preview – Baseball Playoff Odds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gambling Preview: 2008 ALCS – Sportsbook.com<\/h2>\n

If familiarity breeds contempt, the ALCS between rivals Boston and Tampa Bay will be a great one beginning tonight.<\/p>\n

The pitching matchup for Game 1 is Boston\u2019s Daisuke Matsuzaka versus Tampa Bay\u2019s James Shields. First pitch is set for 8:37 pm ET and Tampa is a slight -110 favorite. <\/p>\n

The series odds from Sportsbook.com are Boston (-135) and Tampa Bay (+115) despite Tampa Bay having home field advantage.<\/p>\n

In the first 13 games between these teams, the home team won every time. Tampa Bay finally broke the string on Sept. 9th in Boston and won the next day also, winning a series in Beantown for the first time in their existence (1-23-2).<\/p>\n

Later in the month, the Red Sox won for the opener in Tampa and many believed this is where they would roll past the Rays and win the division. Instead, Joe Maddon\u2019s young team stood up and won the next two games, effectively holding serve and later capturing the AL East crown.<\/p>\n

Having seen how well Tampa Bay played all year, it\u2019s easy to forget how incredibly bad this franchise has been since its inception. Until this year, Tampa Bay had never been above .500; in fact they had never won 71 games in a season.<\/p>\n

The Boston Red Sox are the best example of what a well run organization looks like in baseball today. The Sox were New England\u2019s version of the Chicago Cubs for decades. They had several close calls over the years to be World Series champions, but always came up short.<\/p>\n

That was until 2004. With a new ownership group in place, Red Sox management hired 28-year old Theo Epstein to be their General Manager and the farm system was immediately revamped and has worked to near perfection with two World Series titles in four years.<\/p>\n

Daisuke Matsuzaka (18-3, 2.97 ERA) will pitch tonight in Tampa, mostly because how well he has pitched on the road with a 9-0 record and Boston winning 11 of his 13 starts. Josh Beckett (14-12, 4-12ERA) will follow, with Red Sox manager Terry Francona saying Beckett is healthy and was just rusty against Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Back home, baseball\u2019s best postseason starting pitcher of late, Jon Lester (17-6, 3.01ERA) will go in Game 3 and Tim Wakefield (10-11, 4.13ERA) will start Game 4.<\/p>\n

Manager Maddon will go with the rotation he had for the ALDS, with James Shields (15-8, 3.58ERA) leading off at Tropicana Field, where he and the Rays are 15-3 this year. Left-hander Scott Kazmir (13-8, 3.48ERA) is next being their most experienced member on the staff.<\/p>\n

When they travel to Boston, Matt Garza (11-10 3.82ERA) will start Game 3 despite being 4-7 on the road. Andy Sonnanstine (14-9, 4.34ERA) will complete the initial go-round.<\/p>\n

\"\"StatFox Take<\/strong>: Because Boston is so patient at the plate, their approach can be demoralizing to competitors, ask the Angels about the number of two-strike hits and two-out runs the Red Sox scored in the ALDS.<\/p>\n

Because Tampa Bay pitchers don\u2019t have overpowering stuff other than Kazmir, Boston will have their chances to score if they continue the same approach. Tampa Bay actually is similar to the Red Sox in how they work the count, with a high walk total. The Rays hit more home runs and can make things happen on the base paths with 142 steals this year.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox are a tough, intelligent team that understands how to win. Their starting pitching beyond Matsuzaka and Lester is a question mark coming into this series, but will Tampa Bay\u2019s youth catch up to them? Tampa Bay won the season series 10-8, however the \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d approach of Boston wins out in a long series.<\/p>\n

Saturday October 11
\nBoston (Beckett) at Tampa Bay (Kazmir) 8:07 EDT<\/p>\n

Monday October 13
\nTampa Bay (Garza) at Boston (Lester) 4:37 EDT<\/p>\n

Tuesday October 14
\nTampa Bay (Sonnanstine) at Boston (Wakefield) 8:37 EDT<\/p>\n

Thursday October 16
\nTampa Bay at Boston if necessary<\/p>\n

Saturday October 18
\nBoston at Tampa Bay if necessary<\/p>\n

Sunday October 19
\nBoston at Tampa Bay if necessary<\/p>\n

Offensive \u2013 American League<\/strong>
\nRuns scored Boston 2nd Tampa Bay 9th
\nHome Runs Boston 6th Tampa Bay 5th
\nTotal Bases Boston 4th Tampa Bay 8th
\nSlugging Ptc. Boston 3rd Tampa Bay8th
\nWalks Boston 7th Tampa Bay 2nd
\nOn base Ptc. Boston 1st Tampa Bay 5th<\/p>\n

Pitching & Defense<\/strong>
\nERA Boston 4th Tampa Bay 2nd
\nStrikeouts Boston 1st Tampa Bay 3rd
\nWalks Boston 6th Tampa Bay 8th
\nOn base Ptc. Boston 4th Tampa Bay 2nd
\nPutouts Boston 5th Tampa Bay 1st
\nErrors Boston 3rd Tampa Bay 4th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sportsbook.com ALCS preview between the Red Sox and the Rays. The pitching matchup for Game 1 is Boston\u2019s Daisuke Matsuzaka versus Tampa Bay\u2019s James Shields.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[3247,30,3248,2692,1477,632,2058,672,678,3047,692,911,1390,1178,1186,1867],"class_list":["post-2593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-baseball","tag-08-alcs","tag-30","tag-2008-alcs","tag-2008-world-series","tag-cbb-picks","tag-lines","tag-mlb-baseball-betting","tag-mlb-baseball-gambling","tag-mlb-betting","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-previews","tag-odds","tag-runlines","tag-sportsbookcom","tag-spread","tag-world-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2593"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106514,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions\/106514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}