Speedy recovery for Sox?

Easy, right?

But short of Red Sox pitchers throwing three perfect games against the Angels in the American League Division series, another solution will have to be found.

Red Sox bench coach Brad Mills is in charge of combating the Angels’ running game. The Sox do not want to change their approach to stop the Angels from running, but something needs to be done. The Angels stole 15 bases and were caught but twice in nine games against the Sox this season.

“That’s a big part of their arsenal, there’s no doubt about it,’’ Mills said. “We just can’t worry, in my opinion. We’re not going to blow it out of proportion. When you start combating that, worrying about that, we’re not worrying about getting hitters out or where we’re playing defensively and so forth. It’s an issue that we’re going to go over, but it’s not something that we’re going to spend so much time on that we neglect other areas of the ballgame.’’

The Angels ranked third in the American League in stolen bases (148), behind two clubs that ran wild on the Red Sox this season - Tampa Bay (194 total stolen bases) and Texas (149). The Sox stole 126, with a higher success rate than the Angels (76.4 percent to 70.1).

But there’s a difference. Jacoby Ellsbury (70 stolen bases) steals most of the bases for the Sox. The Angels had six players with double-digit steals, while the Sox have just three. And it’s not just stolen bases. The Angels pride themselves on aggressive base running, on taking the extra base, going first to third, staying out of double plays.

They run, and that certainly won’t stop against the Red Sox.

“We’re aware of that,’’ shortstop Jed Lowrie said. “They do it to try to force you to make mistakes. What we can’t do is get in a rush. Just continue to do what we do defensively. Make good throws. Be sure-handed. They’re sometimes almost over-aggressive, where they’ll run themselves out of innings. We just have to be prepared for it, and don’t let it startle us.’’

But the Sox haven’t exactly been successful in curtailing base stealers. Boston ranks last in the majors in stolen-base percentage, opponents stealing at a 90.4 percent clip. The next closest team is the Rockies, at 84.8 percent. The Sox (151 steals against) have had almost 20 more bases stolen on their watch than the next closest team, the White Sox (132). There have been nine games this season in which a team has stolen at least six bases. Four of those have come against the Red Sox, including two of the three times a team has had eight steals in a game.

“From a pitcher’s standpoint, we’ve got to be able to control that tempo and be unpredictable from an unloading or a holding of the ball standpoint,’’ pitching coach John Farrell said. “To not fall into any kind of predictable patterns in terms of the time elapsed from the time a pitcher comes set to when he first makes his move to deliver the ball to home plate.

“We’re well aware of their style of play. I wouldn’t solely put their style of play just in the running game. It’s a much deeper, more powerful lineup than maybe ones we’ve faced previously. We have the utmost respect for their capabilities and we’ll be prepared to deal with that.’’

So the Sox will spend time looking at base running. They will look at the pitchers’ times to the plate, though they don’t want to interfere with a pitch being executed. They will look at throwing additional pitchouts, though they don’t want to interfere with the calling of the game. They will do their best to stop the Angels from running wild, though they don’t want to change what they do and lessen their effectiveness.

“Calling the pitches and trying to get the hitter out is always going to take priority,’’ Mills said. “If we try to take anything away from that, then we’re damaging ourselves.’’

All the same, something has to be done. The question is whether they can change their ways against one of the most aggressive teams in baseball.

“If you don’t let anybody on, you don’t really have that issue,’’ catcher Jason Varitek said. “If we pitch the ball well, we’ll be OK. I think that that’s the most important thing, that we throw the ball well. We’ve played them. We understand that they take the extra base, that they have guys that’ll put pressure on both outfielders and try to take the extra bases and run, kind of like Tampa. Tampa has a few of their own gazelles. It’s something we should be prepared for.’’

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.