(Editor note: Ha; I forgot to publish this prior to last night’s game. I would have been right 🙂
Well, I was 4-for-4 leading up to game 5 predictions … and was wrong. I thought St. Louis could break out against the weakened Clay Buchholz. But they couldn’t do anything against a clearly laboring Buchholz, doing nothing against mid 80s fastballs throughout the night. Wainwright made some mistakes that cost him (0-2 hanging curve in the 1st, then not pitching around David Ortiz being early, simple examples).
In the end, perhaps trying to predict either Game 6 or a possible Game 7 is fools-gold; I think we now see that Boston is the superior team and has worked around its own offensive deficiencies and a stitched-together rotation. They get Mike Napoli back in the middle of their lineup now that they’re back in the AL park using DH rules, and at some point this will make the difference.
Game 6: Michael Wacha versus John Lackey; Simply put, I think Wacha’s amazing run of unhittable-ness may end tonight. You have to think Boston’s going to go back to the film, look for a weakness, and try to exploit it. Lackey probably puts in his typical quality start; 6 innings, 2 or 3 runs. It just seems that fate is going to go Boston’s way after they clawed 2 of 3 in St. Louis.
I’m going with Boston closing out the series tonight in a memorable night for Boston fans, finally clinching a World Series on home soil. Oritz is your obvious World Series MVP and bolsters his eventuall Hall of Fame case.