The Red Sox September Review. Part One: Hitting.

As the season is closing, I thought it may be appropriate to give the offense a deeper look to see how things are shaping up as the Boston Red Sox are entering the playoffs.

The overall performance during the month of September has been very encouraging when you compare it to the other playoffs teams: LAA, DET and the MFY.

From those teams, the Red Sox are second to the Yanks in OPS (with a solid .803) and runs scored (142 to the MFY 147).

Who's hot:

• After a horrible start of the season, Big Papi is back with a line that matches his historical production.
• Drew and Bay are finally putting their horrible August behind them and performing at some elite level.
• Martinez has been arguably the 2nd best offensive catcher in the game and his 22.5% of line drives is extremely helping a high .385 BABIP. He seems to see the ball very well ( 1.29 BB/K): We could say that it's not out of question that he keeps producing those numbers comes October.
• Youkilis has been steady all season long with no big variations in his offensive production although he has shown some signs of decrease lately (.702 OPS in the last 10 games), his BABIP of .200 shows that he's been extremely unlucky and you could hope that the homers that he hit last night are signs of a return to the form that made one of the elite hitters in AL those past 2 seasons.

Who's not?

In Pedroia's case, the numbers have been plain awful if you consider the last 14 games (.705 OPS) you could attribute that to bad luck with an anemic .255 BABIP although he's having a healthy percentage of line drives and fly balls ( 18.5% and 40.2% respectively), to put in another words: He's hitting the ball hard...right at fielders! As he keeps seeing the ball well (2.20 BB/K), we could legitimately hope that the reigning MVP returns to form and be the spark to this offense through the playoffs (fingers crossed!)

As for Mike Lowell, a look at his batted balls distribution shows the following:

With his lack of mobility, the high GB% may explain his offensive slump ( No inf. singles, Forceouts turned into double plays...). The drop in his power numbers ( .094 ISO) is not helping neither. If he could duplicate his August numbers (which he could if you consider that his September numbers remain WAY under his season/historical line of .813 OPS and .347 wOBA) , this lineup could as scary as any other contender lineup.

Conclusion:

This offense remain one of the finest in baseball with its key contributors heating at the right time and if Pedroia decide to join them for the playoffs, I like our chances 'cause, as some of you tend to forget, we have a patient lineup capable of  drawing walks (10.3 in BB%) and take a high pitches per PA, wearing down opposing starters and getting early to the opponents Bullpens which in my book, remains the best formula in October baseball.

And for those of you who remain skeptical, I can tell them this: As Billy Beans said, playoffs remains a crapshoot!