SI.coms experts pick World Series winner MVP and more

Fenway Park Elise Amendola/APVerducciFenway Park. Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said the Rays got Fenway ed in the ALDS when fly balls become doubles. Home crowd is a factor and Boston's fans are famously rowdy. More tangibly the Red Sox led all of baseball in batting average on balls in play at home.

ChenRandy Choate Cardinals. He's thrown a grand total of 20 pitches over five scoreless appearances this postseason. In perhaps every tight game this series though the lefty specialist will play a pivotal role to shutdown David Ortiz.

ReiterNL Rules. It is usually the American League team that has the lineup advantage in the World Series as the National League club has to scramble to find someone to serve as designated hitter in games played in AL parks. But as I noted above the Cardinals have a built in DH in Allen Craig for the games in Boston. The disadvantage will come during Games 3 4 and 5 which will be played in St. Louis and it will be felt by the Red Sox. The lack of a DH there means that the Sox will likely start every game at Busch Stadium bereft of one of their two leading OPS men and run producers either Mike Napoli or David Ortiz as only one can play first base and there's no chance that Napoli will return to his former position of catcher after logging zero innings behind the plate this season. A Red Sox lineup without both Napoli and Ortiz is nowhere near as fearsome.

LemireAllen Craig Cardinals. After missing the past six weeks with a Lisfranc injury in his left foot Craig seems ready to rejoin the active roster for the World Series albeit probably only as a hitter not a fielder. Craig had a robust .315/.373/.457 batting line this season and led the majors with a .454 average with runners in scoring position (59 for 130). As a designated hitter in Boston and a pinch hitter in St. Louis Craig should have plenty of cracks at driving in a few runners. Just his presence on the bench could affect how Boston manager John Farrell deploys his bullpen.

JaffeClay Buchholz Red Sox. In line to start either Game 3 on Saturday or Game 4 on Sunday Buchholz who missed three months of the season due to shoulder and neck issues is dealing with some physical issues according to a report by WEEI's Rob Bradford. Though he put up a 1.74 ERA in 16 regular season starts this year the 29 year old righty has been touched up for 10 runs in 16 2/3 innings over three postseason starts. In his seven starts overall since returning from the disabled list has posted a 3.32 ERA and 4.21 FIP while allowing 1.1 homers per nine.

During that span his velocity has notably been down via the data at BrooksBaseball.net his four seam fastball averaged 93.2 mph prior to his absence and just 91.7 since in his five inning 85 pitch ALCS Game 6 start he was at 91.3 mph. If for some reason the Sox conclude that he can't go 25 year old lefty Felix Doubront is the likely candidate to start he threw a simulated game and a side session on Tuesday. Doubront had a decent year pitching to a 4.32 ERA and making 27 starts for Boston but he is simply not as good as Buchholz.

CorcoranJake Peavy Red Sox. A three time All Star and former National League Cy Young award winner Peavy is a good pitcher one the Red Sox were willing to trade Rookie of the Year contender Jose Iglesias for at this year's deadline. However including the wild card tiebreaker in his Cy Young season of 2007 Peavy has gone 0 3 with a 9.84 ERA in five career playoff starts none of which were quality and four of which were disasters in which he allowed as many or more runs than his total innings pitched.

That's still within the realm of being a fluke and Peavy fell just one out shy of a quality start against the Rays in the Division Series. He'll start Game 4 of this series on Sunday and could tip the balance of what should be a very close Series if he can deliver a win.

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