The good news for the Red Sox: they’re in the World Series! That’s amazing! And they have home-field advantage, too, thanks to the heroes and zeroes included in this box score. At this point, while both the Red Sox and Cardinals are quite good, you have to think of the Red Sox as being the favorites. Yet, there’s bad news for them as well: as an American League team with a quality designated hitter, they’ll have a decision to make before the games in the National League ballpark. David Ortiz and Mike Napoli can both hit the crap out of the ball, but when Boston’s in St. Louis, one of them is going to have to sit, at least for the first several innings.

John Farrell has already gone on record as saying that Ortiz will start at first base at least once, maybe twice. And, who knows, he’s free to change his mind at any point, since he’s the one who draws up the lineups. It’s only natural to want to investigate the same question. Who should start at first in St. Louis, between Ortiz and Napoli? Which starter would most increase Boston’s win probability, and thus Boston’s World Series win probability? Getting to the answer is almost impossibly complex. Because of that, in a way, it’s also unthinkably simple.

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The league’s getting faster. Not the time of game — fastball velocity. And throwing some of the fastest fastballs in a league of fast have been the Cardinals, whose 92.6 mph average as a staff was good for third overall this year. The Red Sox did fine against a Tigers team that was only .3 mph short of that average, but going into this World Series, it’s still fair to say they will see some fastballs that are over 94 mph. And it’s fair to wonder how they’ll do against that added oomph.

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After several years of trying to fill the post-Manny hole in left field with the likes of Carl Crawford, Bill Hall (!), Scott Podsednik, & Jeremy Hermida, the Red Sox actually managed to put together a cost-effective and productive platoon situation in 2013.

Returnee Daniel Nava would hit the righties (and he did, with a .392 wOBA), and free agent acquisition Jonny Gomes would hit the lefties, which he did as well, putting up a .346 wOBA split. Including the surprising Mike Carp, who was acquired in February when the Mariners couldn’t find room for him and who shockingly hit everyone (.382 wOBA), the Red Sox left fielders put up the team’s most valuable season for the position since 2009, also known as “the last year Jason Bay was any good”.

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Yesterday, the names of the World Series umpires were released, with John Hirshbeck serving as the crew chief. Like I have done for the first two rounds in the playoffs, I will examine each umpire’s strike and ball calling tendencies. Overall, the group is pretty solid, with the exception of Bill Miller, who calls one of the league’s largest strike zones.

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Like many relievers, Koji Uehara basically throws something fast, and something offspeed. Unlike many relievers, Uehara doesn’t really throw a breaking ball. He throws a pitch that breaks — every pitch breaks — but you don’t look for him to throw a slider or a curveball. After Saturday’s ALCS Game 6, when Uehara was all the rage, someone on FOX asked Boston manager John Farrell if Uehara had  thrown a curve before. Farrell said his closer thew one once and hit a guy; he hadn’t thrown a curveball since. Everything else was fastballs and splitters, and because of those pitches — and because of Uehara’s command of them — he didn’t need anything else on the way to one of the greatest relief seasons in recent history. You could say Uehara’s third pitch is location. That wouldn’t make sense, but people would know what you meant.

I decided to fact-check Farrell’s remark. At least, I think it was Farrell, but it doesn’t matter in this instance. Uehara did throw a curveball this season. According to Brooks Baseball, it was one of the least frequent pitches in the league, like Kris Medlen‘s slider, or Mark Melancon’s changeup. But it did exist. Just not exactly as Farrell remembered it. In fact, this past season, Koji Uehara threw three curveballs. These are their stories.

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Astute readers with the internet access necessary to read this article are probably aware that the Boston Red Sox will be meeting the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2013 World Series. They are also probably aware that it was Shane Victorino who played hero for Boston, delivering a game winning grand slam in the seventh inning. Before Victorino’s home run, it was a bit touch and go for the Sox.

The Tigers threatened a monster of a rally in the top of the sixth. With no outs, two runs already plated and runners on first and third, Jhonny Peralta grounded out into an…interesting…double play. Dustin Pedroia tagged Victor Martinez on his way to second before throwing home. Prince Fielder – caught in a rundown – desperately tried to make it back to third. He fell short.

Still, the Tigers did take a 2-1 lead in the inning. Between Max Scherzer and a strong bullpen, the Tigers must have felt good about their roughly 80 percent chance to win.

The Sox weaseled their way out of a second potential rally in the seventh. Austin Jackson singled with one out but was promptly picked off. Jose Iglesias followed with a hit and Torii Hunter reached base on an error. Unfortunately for the Tigers, the shell of Miguel Cabrera grounded out to end the inning. With the Tigers out of it, we’ll be left to wonder if things would have been different with a healthy Cabrera. And there’s no doubt that plenty of analysts will second guess Jim Leyland’s decision to continue to play Cabrera through injury for most of the season.

Having handled two potential rallies while keeping the game within reach, Boston’s offense got to work in the home half of the seventh. Scherzer was lifted after recording one out and allowing two base runners to reach. Drew Smyly was brought in to face Jacoby Ellsbury, but a costly error by Iglesias allowed the Sox to load the bases. With Victorino coming to the plate, Leyland brought in former Astros closer Jose Veras to limit the damage. Let’s just say that some moves work out better than others. After Victorino’s home run, the Tigers went quietly into the night.

But slightly different circumstances could have led to a very different outcome (that’s always the case in baseball, but bear with me). Prior to Game 5, Victorino made the decision to begin switch hitting again. Ostensibly, he wanted to counter Detroit’s difficult all-right-handed rotation.

Victorino has switch hit for his entire major league career, but gave up batting left-handed in early August due to injuries. Batting lefty against Anibal Sanchez, his first two at bats produced weak results – a strike out and a fielder’s choice. Victorino reverted to batting right-handed for his third at bat. Coincidentally, that resulted in a strikeout against Veras.

Since giving up batting left-handed, Victorino has had one of the most productive stretches of his career. August saw him post a .419 wOBA and seven home runs. Between August 4th and the end of the season, six of his 10 home runs came batting righty against right-handed pitching. He posted a .395 wOBA in 115 plate appearances against same-handed pitchers.

Victorino has always featured better power from the right side. His career numbers bear that out – a .204 ISO batting right-handed versus a .132 ISO batting left-handed. His power batting left-handed has been even worse over the past two seasons, although the sample size involved limits our ability to draw strong conclusions.

Given the numbers discussed thus far, it’s fair to wonder why Victorino bats left-handed at all. After all, he performed well in the regular season and provided postseason heroics without batting lefty. While it’s possible that Victorino may be better as a purely right-handed batter, it appears to be a trade off between power and plate discipline. He struck out over 21 percent of the time against same handed pitching compared with a rate around 12 percent against opposite handed pitching. His walk rate also halved against same handed pitching, falling from a little over five percent to 2.6 percent.

Over a small sample, that poor plate discipline didn’t adversely affect his numbers, but it’s quite possible that major league pitchers would find ways to further exploit Victorino by discovering where he’s weakest. Alternatively, it’s not hard to imagine that Victorino could improve those rates with practice, although it does seem a bit late in his career to work that out.

Had Victorino stuck with his plan from prior to Game 5, he would have come to the plate against Veras batting left-handed with the bases loaded. He probably would not have hit a grand slam. The Sox did have a 56 percent chance to win the game at that point and our hypothetical lefty batting Victorino may have added to those odds. But it probably would not have the 37 percent leap that his home run provided.

Once the second inning rolled around Wednesday, Game 4 of the ALCS felt like a blowout. The Tigers put together a five-run inning, then shortly thereafter they added two more, and though the Red Sox did what they could to chip away, the Tigers at no point felt threatened as they coasted to a series-evening victory. But there is one interesting quirk: while the Tigers wound up winning by four, between their hits and walks and hit batters they racked up 17 offensive bases. Between the Red Sox’s hits and walks they racked up 17 offensive bases, too. In a sense, Wednesday’s was a game about sequencing, with the Tigers putting more bases together.

Which isn’t to suggest it was all a matter of luck, because of course it wasn’t. It was the sequencing in the second inning that did the Red Sox in, as six Tigers reached base and five Tigers scored. Jake Peavy walked three of 17 batters in his start, but they all came in the span of four batters, following a single. The first run the Tigers scored was on a bases-loaded walk by Austin Jackson, and Jackson walked on four pitches. All of the rest of the damage followed. What happened between Peavy and Jackson got me wondering about some things.

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Speaking literally, Miguel Cabrera is still the same guy. He still responds to the same name, he still has the same identification. He still drives the same car, or cars. He’s still got the same family, he still eats the same breakfast, he still has the same genetic makeup, and while he might have an extra new scrape or three, scrapes are experience and experience is wisdom. Cabrera’s even basically himself in the ballpark. He’s got the same inside jokes, he’s got the same uniform and locker, he’s got the same glove and he’s got the same stance. If someone were to point at Miguel Cabrera, and ask you “is that Miguel Cabrera?” there would be only one reasonable answer, and that answer would be “yes, yes of course, this is a very dumb question.”

But it’s plain as day Miguel Cabrera is not still the same player. Which isn’t to suggest he’s in the throes of decline — he’s in the throes of short-term physical agony. Come next season, Cabrera should resemble himself, but right now, he’s playing hurt, meaning he’s playing less effectively, and people know. It’s kind of been talked about. Never was this more apparent than Tuesday, when, in a big spot in a one-run game, the best hitter in baseball was made to look helpless by a good Red Sox reliever Red Sox fans still don’t trust. With runners on the corners and one out, Junichi Tazawa blew Cabrera away with outside heat, and the Tigers felt just about finished. It was a dark moment for Cabrera, and it was a moment in which he also tried something different.

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The Cardinals felt like they were in a good position, handing the ball for Game 3 to Adam Wainwright. The Cardinals lost, not because of Wainwright, but because they couldn’t score. The Tigers felt like they were in a good position, handing the ball for Game 3 to Justin Verlander. The Tigers lost, not because of Verlander, but because they couldn’t score. Verlander, on Tuesday, turned in one of the better postseason starts all-time, I’d say. Over eight innings he struck out ten and was made to pay for one mistake. But John Lackey and the Red Sox bullpen kept the Tigers shut out, with Koji Uehara slamming the door. And Uehara’s outing was not without its moment of interest.

It was bad for the Tigers when Miguel Cabrera struck out with two on in the eighth. It was bad for the Tigers when Prince Fielder struck out right after. But according to the play log, the worst play all game for the Tigers was Jhonny Peralta‘s ninth-inning double play. After Victor Martinez‘s leadoff single, the Tigers’ win expectancy was an estimated 35%. After the double play, it dropped to 5%. Hope was torn down as quickly as it was built up, and Alex Avila’s closing at-bat felt like a formality. The game effectively ended on Peralta’s grounder, and that grounder came on a pitch that followed a 1-and-1 fastball.

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Nothing against Jarrod Saltalamacchia, but I just had to look it up to make sure that the game-winner was hit by Jarrod Saltalamacchia. It was an important hit to win Game 2, of course, and it was sharply struck, but that was a fairly obvious run-scoring situation, and more importantly, what people are really going to remember is David Ortiz. What was on people’s minds at the time was David Ortiz and his first-pitch game-tying grand slam. In the same way the US didn’t win gold by beating the Soviets in 1980, the Red Sox didn’t beat the Tigers on the strength of Ortiz’s slam, but it was the slam that provided the moment. What came after only make sure the slam didn’t go to waste.

Naturally, there’s the same issue as there was with Jose Lobaton: we don’t yet know how this will really be remembered, in the long run, because the series still has at least three more games to go, and an eventual Red Sox loss would color everything that came before the decision. The magnitude of Ortiz’s heroics will be determined over the course of the following week. But one does still get the sense this won’t be forgotten as quickly as Lobaton’s bomb, even if the Sox do lose, just considering the circumstances and the identities. The moment became an instant legend. So who do we blame? That’s how we’re supposed to do this, right? Who screwed up, to allow Ortiz to bring the Sox back? Or did no one screw up, and did Ortiz just pull some more magic out of his tuckus?

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