In the last few years, when you think of Red Sox hitters in October, you think of David Ortiz launching longballs into the night, Dave Roberts swiping second base, or Mike Lowell doing his best Mike Schmidt impression. They’ve brought fearsome offenses into the playoffs and made opposing pitchers pay.

Unless something changes in the next few days, the images of Red Sox hitters going forward might be more along the lines of hapless flailing and weak dribblers. For instance:

The great clutch god, David Ortiz, 2008 postseason:

4 for 27, 1 double, 0 home runs, .148/.324/.185

The up and coming star, Jacoby Ellsbury, 2008 postseason:

6 for 32, 3 doubles, 0 home runs, .188/.229/.281

The captain, Jason Varitek, 2008 postseason:

3 for 27, 0 doubles, 0 home runs, .125/.192/.125

The new hero, Mike Lowell, 2008 postseason:

0 for 9, 0 doubles, 0 home runs, .000/.111/.000

That quartet is 13 for 92, a .141 average, and they’ve yet to hit the ball over the wall. It’s hard to score runs when this much of your offense is struggling, and these struggles are the main reason why the Rays are two wins away from the World Series.

The Red Sox need to get some thump from some of their thumpers, or their season is going to come to a close in a hurry.

During the season, one of the questions that no one had a really good answer to was “what happened to B.J. Upton’s power? After hitting 24 home runs in 474 at-bats as a 22-year-old, he regressed to just 9 home runs in 531 at-bats this year. His HR/FB% went from 19.8% in 2007 to 7.4% in 2008. For comparison, his 2007 HR/FB rate was about equal to what Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton had this year, while his 2008 HR/FB rate was about equal to what Dustin Pedroia and Shane Victorino had this year.

If Hamilton suddenly had Victorino’s power, everyone would notice. That’s basically what Upton went through this year, and while he was still a useful player thanks to his walks and stolen bases, the home runs had basically dried up with no real explanation.

Well, worry not, because Upton’s apparently out to prove that the power is still there, launching his 5th home run of the postseason last night in Tampa’s route of the Red Sox. That’s five longballs in just 31 at-bats, by the way. Those five home runs tell us, with almost absolute certainty, that his 2008 regular season home run rate was not his real talent level.

If Upton’s true talent HR level was a rate of one home run per 59 at-bats, as it was in the regular season, then the odds of him hitting five home runs in 31 at-bats would be .0001, one in ten thousand.

When you combine what we know about his performances prior to 2008 with his postseason performance so far, we can just shrug our shoulders at his power outage during the regular season and assume it was just a fluke, because there’s no reason to worry about Upton’s lack of power.

We’ve done several posts this year on how good Jamie Moyer has been for the Phillies, but yesterday, he was pretty lousy. Giving up six runs while only getting four outs kind of lousy. In fact, his start was bad enough to earn a Game Score of 20, which is pretty horrible, especially for a pitcher good enough to be given the right to start a playoff game.

But how bad was Moyer’s start in terms of postseason history?

Not that bad, it turns out. 52 playoff starters have posted a game score lower than 20, and five others matched Moyer’s game score to the tee. In honor of Moyer getting thumped, here’s a look at the worst pitching performance by a playoff starter in MLB history.

October 14th, 1996. 12 years ago tomorrow, Todd Stottlemyre took the hill for the Cardinals against the Atlanta Braves. The Cardinals had a 3-1 series lead in the NLCS, and a win would have sent them to the World Series. He was matched up against John Smoltz, so St. Louis needed Stottlemyre to be at his best. He wasn’t.

He gave up five runs in a first inning which saw all nine men come to the plate, then gave up three more hits to start the second inning before he was mercifully pulled. His final line for the day: 1 IP, 9 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 0 BB, 1 K. That’s a game score of 8, by the way. Smoltz cruised, tossing seven shutout innings in a 14-0 Braves route, and Atlanta would go on to win both games six and seven (the final by a similar 15-0 beating) to win the NL pennant. A good outing by Stottlemyre might not have been enough, but we’ll never know, because in a series clinching game, Stottlemyre had the worst postseason start ever.

This season’s playoffs should be a lot of fun – the Brewers and Rays are easy to root for, the Red Sox-Angels series could be lots of fun, Ozzie Guillen’s crazy quotes, the hilarious awesomeness of Jamie Moyer, and every inning qualifying as high leverage. October baseball is just great entertainment.

However, I’m getting married on Saturday, so you guys will have to enjoy it for me. I’ll be back in a couple of weeks – I’m sure Eric, Matthew, and Marc will hold down the fort here in my absence.

Go Rays, and I’ll see you all in a couple of weeks.

When the Mets were surging early while Ryan Howard was doing his best impression of Pedro Cerrano impression, it was hard to imagine the Phillies repeating as NL East champions. However, they got enough good performances, especially on the pitching staff, to carry them back into the playoffs. What do they need to do to make Eric a happy, happy man?

Don’t overreact to Burrell’s struggles

He’s been pretty horrible the last couple of months of the season, but if Charlie Manuel decides that represents a real change in talent and limits his October playing time, he’ll be taking a right-handed power bat out of a line-up that needs right-handed power. Burrell’s not as good as he was early or as bad as he was late, and they can’t just react to the recent performance – it’s not more predictive than his body of work overall. Taking Burrell out of the line-up makes the Phillies worse, slump or no slump.

Don’t trust J.C. Romero

You can’t evaluate relievers by using ERA, and with a guy like Romero, that’s even more true. He had a shiny 2.75 ERA this year, but his command is so dreadful that he’s a very risky option as a high leverage reliever. He gets enough groundballs that he probably won’t kill you by giving up the big home run, but you can’t afford to let him walk the bases loaded while trying to find his release point. If ever there was a guy who needed to be on a much shorter leash in the playoffs than he was given in the regular season, it’s Romero.

Ride the big four

There’s a significant talent gap between Hamels/Myers/Moyer/Lidge and the rest of the pitching staff. As much as possible, the Phillies need to maximize the number of innings that quartet throws. The more innings they give to Joe Blanton or the middle relievers, the less likely they are to win. With a wide open National League, Philly has a real chance to reach the World Series this year, but they’ll have to lean on their best pitchers to get them there – the role players aren’t good enough.

On the left arm of CC Sabathia, the Brewers made the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. It wasn’t an easy season by any means, but their survival resulted in a playoff berth via the wild card, and with that, a first round NLDS matchup against the Philadelphia Phillies. What will they need to do in order to go from Wild Card to World Champion?

Get on Sabathia’s back

The big southpaw has been ridiculously great since coming over from Cleveland, and with their season in jeopardy the last few weeks, he’s repeatedly answered the call on short rest. He’s made three starts on three days of rest and has given up six runs with a nifty 4/21 K/BB, averaging over 7 innings per start on short rest.

Well, he’ll have a chance to do it again in Game 2, as he went Sunday to get them in, but they can’t give up their chance to get him two starts in this series. With Ben Sheets likely on the shelf for at least for the first round, the Brewers need Sabathia to throw as many innings as he possibly can, and that means keeping him on his three day rest schedule. The odds of them beating the Phillies if CC only makes one start are not good, and if CC’s willing to keep pitching with abbreviated rest, the Brewers have to take him up on it.

Swing For The Fences

The Brewers hit 198 home runs as a team, and the middle of their order features some fearsome power – they even get longballs from unusual sources such as SS and CF. They play big baseball, and if they buy into cliches about bunting and making productive outs to win October, they’ll be cutting their offense off at the knees. They have a lot of guys who can hit the ball a long way, and they need to let them try. The less often they bunt, the better off they’ll be. Swing away boys.

The Dodgers had an up-and-down season, coming from behind to overtake the Diamondbacks and win the N.L. West after Manny Ramirez breathed some much needed life into their offense following his acquisition at the deadline. For the final two months, Manny swung the bat like the best hitter in baseball and offset some of the other problems the team was having. But Manny can’t win a title by himself, so what do the Dodgers need to do to take out the Cubs and march towards a World Series title?

Heal Rafael Furcal

Furcal was the team’s best player for the first five weeks of the season, but then missed all but the last four games with a serious back injury. The Dodgers struggled to replace him, finally settling on Angel Berroa for most of their September playoff push. The only problem is that Berroa is horrible – he hit .230/.304/.310 in 226 at-bats and that might have been playing over his head. He racked up a -1.57 WPA/LI in just over a third of a season, a truly horrible offensive performance. Even if Furcal isn’t completely healthy, he’s almost certainly an upgrade over what they’ve had at the position. The more often they put him in the line-up, the better their chances of winning.

Use Juan Pierre as a pinch-runner only

Despite the fact that he pales in comparison the both Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier, Juan Pierre has still started five of the last 15 games the Dodgers have played. Joe Torre likes putting him in the line-up despite the fact that Pierre can’t hit. He has value as a baserunner, and high leverage steals can make a big difference in a single game (Dave Roberts, anyone?), but there’s just no reason to write Pierre’s name on the line-up card. He shouldn’t start a single playoff game, and if Torre can’t resist the urge to keep him on the bench, the Dodgers will suffer for it.

Don’t be afraid to use Clayton Kershaw

While I advised the Cubs to keep their talented young pitcher to low leverage situations, I’d suggest the opposite for the Dodgers. Clayton Kershaw is significantly ahead of Samardzija as a pitcher, putting together a solid season as an above average starting pitcher at the age of 20. If he’s unleashed as a reliever who can throw max effort for 20-30 pitches a night, he could sit comfortably in the high-90s with a devastating breaking ball to boot. He’s good enough to be used in tight situations, and Torre should ignore the fact that he can’t legally drink yet.

Life was good for the Cubs this year – they won 97 games, best in the National League by a comfortable margin, and essentially ran away with the NL Central. They were the only NL team to crack 800 runs scored, and only the Dodgers allowed fewer than the 671 runs they gave up. They hit, they pitched, they fielded well – they were the league’s best team and played like it all season long.

So, as they look to open their NLDS series against the Dodgers, what is the path to success that will lead the Cubs to a WS Championship?

Get Carlos Zambrano fixed

Three starts ago, Big Z threw a dominating no hitter, shutting down the Astros in a game that seemed to state loudly that his arm was fine. His next two starts were a disaster, however, as he gave up 13 runs in 6 1/3 innings. His command was gone (7 walks), he wasn’t missing bats (3 strikeouts out of 35 batters faced), and hitters were pounding the pitches they swung at (4 of the 9 hits he allowed were XBH knocks).

The Cubs need Zambrano to win it all. The most important variable for the Cubs this October is getting him pitching like the guy he’s been for the last few years. If they can’t, the odds of them holding a parade drop significantly.

Low Leverage Jeff Samardzija

His no-clue-where-the-strike-zone thing is worked well in August, when he posted a .256 BABIP, which kept runs off the board even as he put baserunners on. However, he simply couldn’t sustain that kind of performance, and he was pretty lousy in September – more walks than strikeouts with 19 of the 47 batters he faced reaching base. Velocity can be seducing, and it’s tempting to want to hand the ball to the guy who throws 98 as often as possible, but Samardzija isn’t a very good reliever right now, and the fewer important innings the Cubs give him, the better off they’ll be.

Get Fontenot in the line-up

Mike Fontenot hs had a remarkably good season as a reserve infielder who played when Mark DeRosa was playing something besides second base. His .305/.395/.514 line made him one of the Cubs best hitters, though obviously those numbers are inflated by his limited playing time. However, there’s a good case to be made that Fontenot is a better player than Kosuke Fukodome right now, and the Cubs best line-up involves moving DeRosa to right field in order to keep Fontenot in the line-up. As good as the Cubs offense is, you don’t want to be leaving runs on the bench in a playoff series, and the difference between Fontenot’s bat and Fukodome’s could end up deciding a game. Play your best players, and right now, Fontenot is one of your best players.

While there are still a few pennant races to be determined, we have a pretty good grasp on at least one series that will open next Tuesday – the Red Sox and Angels will be squaring off, as Boston’s the very likely wild card entry and the Angels will almost certainly finish with the league’s best record.

This is a tough draw for the Angels, because despite not winning their division, it’s pretty easy to make a case that the Red Sox are the best team in the AL this year. They have the league’s best run differential (+165), and no one else is particularly close. They’ve scored more runs than each of the other AL playoff teams (only Texas scored more often overall) and they’ve allowed the second fewest runs, 12 behind Tampa Bay.

On top of that, the Red Sox are built extremely well for the playoffs. Their big weakness this year was the #5 starter position, which was filled by a variety of players at different times. Overall, the starters beyond Beckett/Lester/Matsuzaka/Wakefield pitched 231 innings and had a 4.81 FIP, compared to the 3.91 FIP that the four playoff starters managed to total.

In addition, the best innings of the #5 starter group came from Justin Masterson, who has been terrific out of the bullpen for the Sox, giving them another RH setup man to bridge the gap to Jonathan Papelbon. With Hideki Okajima, Javier Lopez, and Manny Delcarman, along with Masterson and Papelbon, the Sox have five quality relievers for high leverage situations.

Assuming that the nine main pitchers for Boston log a significant majority of the playoff innings, the Red Sox probably have the best playoff pitching staff of any team headed into October. Beckett’s a legitimate #1, Lester and Matsuzaka are inconsistent but occasionally brilliant, and Wakefield’s knuckler makes him one of the best #4 starters around.

This isn’t to say the Angels don’t have a chance – they have a good team with some quality arms themselves, but their reward for having the AL’s best record is a date with a team that is probably superior in most ways. If the Angels end up bowing out in the first round, it won’t be because they couldn’t handle the pressure – they’ve just drawn a better opponent.

Heading into the final weekend of play, there are some playoff races that look like they could go down to the wire, and last night, we saw some huge plays that could end up being season altering for the teams involved. Here’s a look at the biggest hits.

8th inning, White Sox lead 6-5, runner at first, 1 out: Denard Span triples off Bobby Jenks.

Span’s hit was huge, adding .419 WPA by driving in a runner not already in scoring position to tie a crucial game with just five outs left before the Twins lost. That hit set the stage for

9th inning, Twins-White Sox tied at 6, runners at first and third, 2 out: Alexi Casilla singles off Jenks.

A game winning single by Casilla gives the Twins the win and the division lead, though he should share the .360 WPA credit with Nick Punto, who was able to draw the walk that eventually led to the winning run. By winning again, the Twins have taken the division lead from the White Sox headed into the final weekend of play.

10th inning, Brewers-Pirates tied at 1, bases loaded, 2 out: Ryan Braun hits a home run off of Jesse Chavez

The Brewers are in a race to the finish for the Wild Card, and they needed a big. Ryan Braun’s walkoff grand slam added .339 WPA and sealed the win for Milwaukee, allowing them to keep pace with the Mets because…

9th inning, Cubs-Mets tied at 6, runners at first and second, 2 out: Carlos Beltran singles off Kevin Hart

Beltran gave the Mets a walkoff win of their own, racking up .386 WPA for his game winning single. Seriously, MVP voters who want to give an award to a Met named Carlos – you’re focusing on the wrong one. Beltran’s been tremendous for the Mets this year, and while he’s obviously not the NL MVP, he’s the better candidate on the boys from Queens.