Balta1701

All right, so here's my version of pluses and minuses. 1. A couple weeks ago, we played a game of "name a young team that went on a run in the playoffs" - people named 4 or 5 teams to me, and every single one of them had a strong September record. 5, 6, 7 games over .500 or whatever. So, it's obviously never going to be certain, but there is absolutely some advantage to playing good ball in September, especially with a team that doesn't have a lot of experience. 2. This team currently has the best home record in baseball and a below .500 record on the road. So there's a reason to keep a focus on home field advantage, even if it's just the first series. It's also not just who gets home field advantage for game 5 - Lance Lynn, for example, is 3-6 with a 4.92 ERA in Houston, and is 2-1 with a 3.24 ERA in his home parks against those same Astros. We saw this earlier this year, where Lynn got beaten up in Houston. Start on the road and there's a real risk of coming back home 0-2, and having to win 3 straight against any team is not a situation you want to be in, let alone in the playoffs. So yeah, there's definitely some motivation to get this team on the right path before the playoffs start. Now on the other side: 1. A lot of guys are coming back from the IL or from skipped starts this week. There's a 6 game homestand right now. Beat up on the Red Sox this weekend, and that would be flipping the switch to me. There are also several series coming against the Tigers, Rangers, and Clevelands. There's no good reason why this team shouldn't be able to finish September with enough wins to at least feel good. 2. Win some of these games and this team still can pass the Astros. They have some of the same teams as us, including LAA and Texas, but they also have 2 series against the A's and a series against the Rays down the stretch.

The players don't have to be at the same quality level for the comparison to be relevant and apt.

Just another example of you talking about things you haven't bothered to learn about. Do you know how much is involved to run an ICU bed? Or a ventilator? It's not simply adding a bed, you need to add facilities, equipment, and well trained staff. Where exactly do you get these well trained and experienced staff? There are some healthcare workers who travel from state to state during emergencies for high pay, but as we've seen again and again over the last 18 months - that only works if there's one hotspot, like NYC - not if your entire country is filled with hotspots. You can't just convert regular doctors to trained ICU workers, it doesn't work like that. And there's no smear campaign against any possible treatment that actually has evidence that it works. If people can get access to the $1500 a dose antibody treatment - great, but there's not enough doses for all the cases, and in a lot of cases it doesn't work well since it's most effective if delivered early, before the virus is out of control and causing severe symptoms. Hydroxychloroquine - there was one paper with a lot of question marks, but because of that we dumped it on literally millions of people because we were so desperate for something to use, and frankly there are probably people who were injured by taking that drug. It was absolute lunacy that so many people decided to push it with very little evidence, including people all the way up to the President. The first study with Ivermectin - the supposed hospital where it was done has no evidence that it was ever actually done. It's been studied and shown essentially no evidence that it works. People will continue to study it, but to promote it, to the point that people are taking dangerous doses and forms made for horses, with no evidence? That should not be ok.

Not going to bother with the rest of this, but you went on this rant here and didn't realize how obvious of a contradiction you just wrote - you are complaining about the vaccine not being foolproof, and yet these rapid tests are also "not foolproof". Everyone at Donald Trump's celebration of his last supreme court justice passed a rapid test, and he turned that into a Presidential super-spreader event, because they're not foolproof. Just like the vaccine, they are a strong assistance in keeping a crowd safe, not a guarantee. So please, don't rant about how everyone else is ignoring real science and it's their fault that there is an "us v them" model when you're literally doing the exact same thing.

While last night's game stunk, seeing them take 2/3 from Oakland, including winning games started by Lambert and Lopez, would be quite positive.

See, I disagree. In 2019 that’s fine thinking. In 2021, the biggest thing they have to worry about is him coming up in a key situation in the playoffs where the opponent can go to a righty reliever, without him snapping out of this funk beforehand. I do not know whether the answer is to rest him, bench him, or have him play through it.

Yeah, but at the same time, if he’s at the limit of what he can physically contribute this year, the team has priorities other than just developing him.

I do wonder if we are seeing him having hit a physical wall.

In terms of vaccinated people who have severe enough illness to require hospitalization, there is also a huge HUGE bias in this group. People with moderately to severely compromised immune systems represent less than 3% of the population (cancer patients on treatment, a number of autoimmune diseases, transplant patients). But, according to a Johns Hopkins study, they represent a whopping half of the vaccinated people who wind up in the hospital. It only took days after that study came out for the government to authorize 3rd booster shots for that group, because the bias is staggering. While the booster shots are nice, that also means this group would hugely appreciate help from population immunity so that their exposure risk could drop.

While it’s not a good gamble for us, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad gamble for every team.

He has a 4.67 ERA since the start of August and has lasted 5 or fewer innings in 4 of his last 6 starts. So while he might be able to pitch through this, if there is something still nagging him when he gets back, you can see he’s been less effective.

FWIW, Lynn is 3-6 with a 4.92 career ERA at Minute Maid park. He’s 2-1 against the Astros in his home parks, with an ERA that looks to be around 1.75

And saying that there’s no reason to worry because the division lead is huge and you have absolute confidence that they will flip the switch on once it gets to October after 3 months of treading water and winding up with the #3 seed seems equally silly.

You’ve got Boston over the Rays? Why?

Yes, same format as 2019. If the season ended today it is a 1 game playoff between the Red Sox and Yankees for the 4th seed and a trip to Tampa, while the White Sox would be heading to Houston to start a 5 game series.

Man that’s just a terrible summary of how those 2 Months went. You even left out the two early October games. August: 12-16. September/October: 19-12. Started September with a 7 game winning streak. That team played 7 games above .500 the last month and went into the playoffs on a winning streak. As long as you’re sure there’s a stretch of 16-1 ball coming, you’re right on.

The White Sox are back to 22 games over, again tied with their high water mark this year. Winning today would push to a new height at 23.

My wife said that Hendriks could probably kick the ass of the band they just played.

That was the pitch to drive on 2-1.

Yeah they wanted nothing to do with Grandal.

They’re effective when used correctly, they’re fine, people who are getting tested a lot and catch it early should take it every time. But damnit, you can have your body make the same stuff early, and get the benefit of training T Cells with a vaccine!