Key to the Red Sox's Post-Season: Daisuke Matsuzaka

Last week, Ian began our look at the key areas for each playoff team's success with a look at Yankees reliever Phil Hughes. With the Red Sox and Angels finishing off a series tonight, we decided to take a closer look at both of these teams. This series is almost certainly a preview of the first round of American League playoffs. The current standings are unlikely to change and would have these two teams playing each other in the first round.

Ian originally twittered that Josh Beckett and Clay Buchholz would be the keys to Red Sox's post-season success. After Tuesday's game, however, I would argue that Daisuke Matsuzaka has become just as important.

Before getting to Dice-K, it's important to mention that the Red Sox have had their share of concerns throughout the season, but Red Sox GM, Theo Epstein, has made some pretty good moves to tackle these trouble spots. Most notably, Victor Martinez has not only added a solid three-hitter to the lineup, but he gives Francona the defensive options to play Lowell at third less and DH more and gets Varitek out of the lineup more often. Alex Gonzalez shores up the main defensive problem at shortstop, and Billy Wagner adds a much needed lefty in the bullpen. That pretty much solved all the problems the Red Sox seemed to have, with the exception of their starting pitching.

Assuming Josh Beckett regains his form (he looked like midseason Beckett during the rain-shortened complete game in his last start) and Jon Lester simply continues being Jon Lester, what the Red Sox really need is a third starter for the playoffs. The starting rotation has been sort of a rollercoaster, with Tazawa, Smoltz, Penny, Byrd, and Buchholz all making starts in the 3-4-5 spots. After a shaky start, Buchholz has come on strong, winning his last six starts. Right now, he looks like an adequate option.

All of Buchholz's starts came in the absence of Matsuzaka, but on Tuesday, Dice-K made his first start since June 19. According to WEEI, he's been going through a sort of second spring training since that time. In his first start back, he threw 93 pitches in six scoreless innings, which is pretty close to his average pitch count for the season (86). In most of those games, he pitched between four and five innings (and one game he threw 43 pitches in one inning), but Tuesday marked the first time he lasted through the sixth, when the bullpen took over. Even though he's only made one start, there's no reason to believe a fresh Dice-K can't provide a dominant arm in the rotation. This is, after all, the same guy who won 18 games last year and 15 in 2007. As I said before, Buchholz looks like a good option for that third starter, but with in an effective Matsuzaka, the Red Sox can throw three ace-quality pitchers in any given series with Buchholz still available.

In my opinion, his return might just make the Red Sox the American League team to beat, though the Yankees still look good. For the record, I'm not taking the Tigers seriously, especially without Washburn, and I would have given the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of California Angels more credit if they were able to beat the Red Sox with Joe Saunders starting against throwback-windup-extraordinaire Paul Byrd and if closer Brian Fuentes could have done his job. Also, tonight they'll be trying to avoid a sweep at the hands of their first-round playoff opponent. That being said, Ian will take a closer look at the Angels later tonight and will probably tell me why I'm wrong.

*Photo courtesy of Jackson Latka via Creative Commons license