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DAN SHAUGHNESSY

Likes and dislikes about the playoff-bound Red Sox

The victory dance: Appropriate or not for the regular season?barry chin/globe staff

OK, so the Red Sox are in the playoffs and they are on to Cincinnati. They have six more games against moribund teams (Reds, Blue Jays), then a final four at home against the Houston Astros, who are still most likely Boston’s first-round opponent in the Division Series.

So here are some personal likes and dislikes about your first-place Boston Red Sox:

Dislike: John Farrell sending Chris Sale back out to the mound in the eighth inning of an 8-0 game just so that Sale could pick up his 300th strikeout of 2017. Lunacy.

This was such a Red Sox move it’s hard to know where to start. It smacks of 2016, when the Sox cared more about celebrating the final days of David Ortiz than about the postseason. Boston’s final nine games (regular season and playoffs) of 2016 featured five Ortiz celebrations and eight losses. So let’s not do that again, OK?

It has been well-documented that Sale wears down as the year goes on. We know that Roger Clemens (one win in nine postseason starts with the Red Sox) traditionally used too many bullets during the regular season, then went downhill in October.

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Sale has never had a chance to pitch in the playoffs, but his seven starts leading into Wednesday demonstrated fatigue, so why send him back into an 8-0 game after a 21-minute pause while the Sox batted in top of the eighth?

Sale was only at 99 pitches, and it’s easy to say that another 12 tosses won’t hurt him. He told writers after the game that he had no idea he was at 299 strikeouts, then went out and threw a season-high 99 miles per hour in the eighth.

This was nuts. And not necessary. It was individual stuff over team stuff. Why not have Sale take a seat and do this at Fenway in front of Sox fans next week?

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Like: The Sox get major props for answering the Yankees’ late-season charge by going 11-4 at the same time the Yankees were going 12-4. The Sox had a 3½-game lead on Sept. 3 after their final game with the Yankees, then withstood New York’s best punch over the next three weeks.

Boston’s sweep in Baltimore was particularly impressive. On three consecutive nights, the Sox played late into games knowing the Yankees had already won. On Monday and Tuesday, the Yankee night games were already over while the Sox were battling into extra innings. On Wednesday, the Yankees won a day game several hours before the Red Sox went out and slaughtered Baltimore to keep the Pinstripes in their (second) place.

Dislike: Wednesday in Baltimore would have been a perfect night to get another two or three innings from David Price. Price has pitched only two innings since July and now will have at least four days off between relief appearances. With only 10 games left to play. It makes no sense.

Why are the Red Sox hiding this guy? They should have used him Wednesday to stretch him out and maybe see whether he could deliver a five- or six-inning start in October. Instead, they send an overburdened ace back to the mound to hit a milestone.

Like: The bullpen. Sox baseball boss Dave Dombrowski has won only one championship in 40 years in the game, in part, because he has failed to assemble killer bullpens for October.

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In 2013, Dombrowski’s Tigers were better than the Red Sox, but could not win because Joaquin Benoit was on the mound trying to hold a 5-1 lead in Game 2 at Fenway and coughed up a grand slam to Ortiz.

The 2017 Red Sox look strong in the pen. Craig Kimbrel has been almost unhittable at the back end. Now the late-season additions of Addison Reed and Carson Smith have taken Joe Kelly and Matt Barnes out of high-leverage situations and made everybody better and more comfortable in their new roles.

You need a great bullpen to win 15 of 18 extra-inning games. The 2017 Red Sox could have one of those stellar stables of arms that could deliver a championship (remember Kansas City 2015?).

Dislike: Strikeout inflation. Taking nothing away from Sale (who has had a spectacular season and could be a Bob Gibsonesque presence in the postseason rotation), strikeouts in 2017 are like slam dunks by NBA players and A’s on Harvard transcripts. The numbers don’t mean what they used to mean.

Sale’s 300 do not equate with Pedro Martinez’s 313 in 1999. And let’s not even talk about Bob Feller’s 348 in 1946. In 1946, there were 3.9 strikeouts per team per game. In 1999, it was 6.5. Today the average team strikes out 8.3 times per game.

Like: Mookie Betts is getting hot at the right time, and Andrew Benintendi looks more like Freddie Lynn every day. Betts is up to 23 homers and 96 RBIs. Benintendi is a .278 hitter with 19 homers and 87 RBIs. Try to remember that Yaz hit only .266 with 11 homers and 80 RBIs in his rookie season.

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Dislike: The notion that Price is some kind of leader in the Sox clubhouse. This is a red flag. It’s like finding out that the guys are listening to Adrian Gonzalez, Rajon Rondo, or Adalius Thomas. Or Alex Rodriguez.

I believe folks were too hard on Price after his first season in Boston (17-9, led the majors in innings), but his boorish behavior in 2017 is not the stuff of leadership. The notion that Sox players are following this $217 million baby (“some people don’t realize how hard it is to play this game”) is cause for alarm.

Like: Playing the Astros instead of the Indians in the first round. The Sox can beat anyone in the playoffs, and I like their chances against Houston. They beat the ’Stros two out of three in Houston this year. Clearly, Houston is a better draw than Tito’s Tribe at this hour.

Dislike: The choreographed postgame dance by Red Sox outfielders after wins.

There. I said it. I hate the thing.

Save it for the final win of the World Series. Otherwise, you’re just setting yourself up for mockery.

In 1969, future Hall of Fame Cubs third baseman Ron Santo started leaping in the air and clicking his heels after regular-season wins. The Cubs were in first place for 155 days that year. But they lost 17 of 23 in a September stretch and collapsed badly. Santo’s antics were ridiculed for the rest of his career.

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The stuff is great and fun when you are winning, but it tempts the baseball gods. Close your eyes and try to imagine Ken Harrelson, Reggie Smith, and Yaz doing this after regular-season wins in 1967. The ever-angry and competitive Gibson would have put them all on their backs (“Dance to this!”) while striking out 15 to beat them in the World Series.

Dan Shaughnessy is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at dshaughnessy@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Dan_Shaughnessy