Red Sox postseason must watches

Red Sox to watch this postseason?

Eric D. Schabell
Contributing Writer

The Boston Red Sox completed the regular season with 71 wins, just two games better than the epic 2012 Red Sox train wreck.

What to do with your time now that they have missed the postseason you ask?

Let's think back to the mid-season trades where we saw some key players depart for teams looking to make postseason runs in 2014.

Well, what do you know, we have a bunch of excitement around possible free agent Red Sox players that could very easily be back in 2015.

Postseason Red Sox watch starts tonight!

Not only that, they are slated to start playing tonight.

AL Wild Card (30 Sep)

This is the first game on tap starting tonight at 8:00PM EST in Kansas City. It puts Jon Lester front and center to do exactly what the Athletics traded Yoenis Cespedes for on July 31.

He has to pitch them into a division series by winning the Wild Card game.

The Kansas City Royals are worried too.

Lester will be a free agent and the initial thoughts might be that he is coming back to Boston, it is looking less and less likely to happen. He has put his home in Newton up for sale as reported by boston.com, signaling he has decided he won't be back.

Jonny Gomes is not in the starting lineup tonight, but is part of the Athletics postseason run and another Red Sox favorite to watch.


This past July 31, the A's acquired Lester from the Red Sox along with Jonny Gomes for outfielder Yoenis Cespedes.

A little trivia for you in this series, did you know that no less than seven (7) previous Red Sox players are on the Athletics 25-man Wild Card roster, can you pick the ones besides Lester and Gomes?

AL Divisional Series (Oct 2)

Though the Red Sox are not going to figure in this series in any form, the Orioles who ran away with the AL East will be front and center starting on Thursday, 2 October (time yet TBD) in Baltimore.

Another very interesting piece of the Red Sox bullpen was traded in July, Andrew Miller. The lefty has been phenomenal for the Orioles posting a 1.35 ERA over 20 innings against 72 hitters in which he struck out 34 and only walked 4.

Rest assured the Red Sox want this piece back after he is done making his run at his second World Series ring in two years. He will be facing the Tigers with one of the most impressive starting rotations in baseball since adding David Price to the already formidable Matt Scherzer and Justin Verlander.

One to watch for sure, mark your calendar.

NL Divisional Series (Oct 3)

This is one to watch for the John Lackey fans, kicking off on Friday, 3 October at 6:30PM EST at Dodger Stadium.

Traded in July he has been a staple in the rotation that helped carry them to the playoffs by winning their division. He posted a 4.30 ERA over while striking out 43 of the 261 hitters he faced over 60.2 innings in St. Louis.

The scheduled pitchers are not posted yet, but expect to see him in game 3 or 4 of that series.

The Red Sox will not be pursuing him to return in 2015, but always a great pitcher and competitor in the postseason to watch.

With these three options to watch starting tonight, the Red Sox fan has enough reason to watch postseason baseball even though our Red Sox are not featured this time around.

Who are you rooting for in the 2014 postseason?

Post a comment or via twitter @erics_redsox with your thoughts.

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