Courtesy of Boston.com

By: Peter Karl, YawkeyTalkies Correspondent

These Angels may have different halos on this year. Sure, the Sox have dominated Anaheim in their last two divisional series, and are 9-1 agaisnt them in postseason play since 2004, but this Angels team has a different makeup with the same manager.

Unlike last year, the Angels are healthy this year. They return with a strong and fit starting pitching rotation that dwarfs the Red Sox in size but not talent. John Lackey is their ace. He has plenty of post-season experience and we will see that in form this evening. He sports a 3.83 regular season ERA but is 2-3 against Boston in his last 5 starts. Behind him are Jered Weaver, Joe Saunders, Jason Bulger, Darren Oliver and Ervin Santana, who they will use out of the bullpen. Weaver is the next strongest arm with a 3.75 season ERA and 1-0 against Boston, but you see a large drop off after him (For instance, Saunders 4.60, Santana 5.03).

Offensively, the Angels are stronger than they have been in the past. They added Bobby Abreu from the Yankees and enjoy the improved offense of Kendry Morales, one of the games most underrated players. Abreu is hitting .293 with 103 RBI’s, second on his team only to Morales’s 108. However, in 80 career games against the Sox, Abreu has just 6 home runs. Not a threatening number for a familiar face. Morales, the switch hitting first basemen is hitting .306, with a team leading 34 home runs, AND a team high 117 strikeouts. Morales has been less effective against the Red Sox this year though. In 9 games, he is homerless with just 2 RBI’s and a measly .200 batting average. So if these are two impact players for the Angels, they are going to need to prove their season value against Boston this series.

This will be an intriguing matchup to say the least. The Sox are 4 -5 in 9 games against the Angels and have been outscored just 44 to 40. But as most statistics show a pretty even matchup, there is one big, scary discretion, thanks to manager Mike Scoscia’s small ball tendencies. The Angels, ranked 3^rd in stolen bases in the American league with 147, have run wild on the Red Sox this season, swiping 15 bags in 17 attempts. I’m thinking these numbers and the speed of Torii Hunter, Eric Aybar, and Chone Figgins have haunted the dreams of Varitek and Martinez over the past week. Their best means of combating the speedy Angels? Well, pitching of course. The Sox are second only to the Yankees in strikeouts in the American League and if Beckett, Lester, and Buchholz can dial it up when they need to and keep the Angels off the bases, then that may be the key to offsetting the base running discrepancy.

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