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Wild Card?


harkness99
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Cleveland ends the year with a 9 game homestand and holds the tiebreaker.  Sox have to win and let the chips fall where they may. One reason for hope is that the teams in the East all have to play each other a lot.  Sox can gain ground if they go on a streak. Sadly, that seems unlikely.

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Does it really matter whether we win a wild card or win the division? Does anybody think we have any legitimate chance in the playoffs to go deep? Does anyone seriously think the Sox have the same talent level, quality manager and coaches, along with a winning attitude of the Dodgers, Mets, Astros, Yankees and Braves?

Of course this is all due to the worst owner in baseball Jerry Reinsdorf and an overrated and underachieving VP/GM Rick Hahn.

 

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14 hours ago, harkness99 said:

good luck with anything...

 

but Guardians schedule is so weak at the end we might have a better chance with AL east teams losing to each other.

If you are referring to the Guardians final 6 games against KC, then yes it's weak. However going into tonight's game against the Tigers, the Guardians have 46 games remaining. The Guardians have 29 of those 46 games against teams over .500, which is 63.0% of their remaining games. It's about the same for the Twins, as 30 of their last 48 games are against teams over 500 or 62.5%.

Again, I was not debating whether we will win the division or a wild card spot. I actually think we have a good chance to make it either way. My point of my post was, once we are in the playoffs, are we as good as the top elite teams to go deep and win a World Series championship? I think this is a fair question to ask. The elite teams and # games over 500: 

Dodgers  46 games over 
Mets -      34 games over
Astros      33 games over
Yankees  28 games over  
Braves    15 games over

It's great to make the playoffs, but the last two years we were one and done. I can't speak for anyone else here, but one and done for me was depressing and disappointing. I want a WS championship like we last won in 2005.

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It is interesting to see the Blue Jays fading a bit.  Tampa, Toronto and Baltimore all playing in the East could help.  And Seattle is often good for a late season meltdown.  Yep, the wild card is definitely a possibility if we cannot catch Cleveland.  It is still all in the Sox' own hands.  It looks like the pitching will be there....can we get enough offense?

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1 hour ago, wegner said:

It is interesting to see the Blue Jays fading a bit.  Tampa, Toronto and Baltimore all playing in the East could help.  And Seattle is often good for a late season meltdown.  Yep, the wild card is definitely a possibility if we cannot catch Cleveland.  It is still all in the Sox' own hands.  It looks like the pitching will be there....can we get enough offense?

Getting Robert back will help there, hopefully that happens soon.  The thing that a lot of posters are missing, though, is that it's not really about the Sox "turning it around" anymore.  They're already playing better and have been for some time.  If they keep playing like they have for the last 6 weeks they win the division. 

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26 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

Getting Robert back will help there, hopefully that happens soon.  The thing that a lot of posters are missing, though, is that it's not really about the Sox "turning it around" anymore.  They're already playing better and have been for some time.  If they keep playing like they have for the last 6 weeks they win the division. 

I'd like more runs scored to be honest, but the best thing about this team is that they are good at winning close games.  I don't want to get too excited but that is what you need to do in October.  We will see.

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17 hours ago, The Kids Can Play said:

Does it really matter whether we win a wild card or win the division? Does anybody think we have any legitimate chance in the playoffs to go deep? Does anyone seriously think the Sox have the same talent level, quality manager and coaches, along with a winning attitude of the Dodgers, Mets, Astros, Yankees and Braves?

Of course this is all due to the worst owner in baseball Jerry Reinsdorf and an overrated and underachieving VP/GM Rick Hahn.

 

Yeah, it does matter. Anything could happen in two months. Look at the Yankees and Red Sox on this list:

Top ten teams in the AL's records since July 1:

Seattle 26-13 (.666)

Baltimore 25-13 (.658)

Houston 27-15 (.642)

White Sox 25-17 (.595)

Guardians 24-20 (.545)

Rays 21-18 (.538)

Blue Jays 18-20 (.474)

Twins 16-19 (.457)

Yankees 16-23 (.410)

Red Sox 14-26 (.350)

It's a long season. 

Edited by Greg Hibbard
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53 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

Yeah, it does matter. Anything could happen in two months. Look at the Yankees and Red Sox on this list:

Top ten teams in the AL's records since July 1:

Seattle 26-13 (.666)

Baltimore 25-13 (.658)

Houston 27-15 (.642)

White Sox 25-17 (.595)

Guardians 24-20 (.545)

Rays 21-18 (.538)

Blue Jays 18-20 (.474)

Twins 16-19 (.457)

Yankees 16-23 (.410)

Red Sox 14-26 (.350)

It's a long season. 

That's great for the American league. However the goal is to win the World Series.

So let's look at NL records since Jul 1:

Dodgers - 33-6 (.846)

Mets - 28-12 (.700)

Braves - 27-13 (.675)

All 3 NL teams are better than any AL team right now since July 1. The Dodgers, Mets and Braves should be who the Sox are being compared to in terms of winning a WS title. These 3 teams also play in significantly tougher divisions than the Sox!

Btw, it was a long season back to day 1, but now for the Sox, they only have 46 games left.

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6 minutes ago, The Kids Can Play said:

That's great for the American league. However the goal is to win the World Series.

So let's look at NL records since Jul 1:

Dodgers - 33-6 (.846)

Mets - 28-12 (.700)

Braves - 27-13 (.675)

All 3 NL teams are better than any AL team right now since July 1. The Dodgers, Mets and Braves should be who the Sox are being compared to in terms of winning a WS title. These 3 teams also play in significantly tougher divisions than the Sox!

Btw, it was a long season back to day 1, but now for the Sox, they only have 46 games left.

Yes, the goal is to win the world series. Of course. But do you think that anything less than winning the world series is unacceptable for this team this season? Because I think if we were to win the American League and lose the World Series to the Dodgers that would still be a successful season. 

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8 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

Yes, the goal is to win the world series. Of course. But do you think that anything less than winning the world series is unacceptable for this team this season? Because I think if we were to win the American League and lose the World Series to the Dodgers that would still be a successful season. 

Winning the AL title would be a successful season. But losing to the Dodgers in the WS would be extremely disappointing.

Again, you're making a huge assumption that the Sox are even capable of getting to the WS and getting by the Astros, Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays, and Mariners, besides the Guardians.

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1 minute ago, The Kids Can Play said:

Winning the AL title would be a successful season. But losing to the Dodgers in the WS would be extremely disappointing.

Again, you're making a huge assumption that the Sox are even capable of getting to the WS and getting by the Astros, Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays, and Mariners, besides the Guardians.

I'm making an assumption that if they have a fully healthy lineup for three weeks and our oafish manager just fills out the lineup card right that we can win at a much better clip, especially with 5 starters now pitching well enough and the bullpen rounding into form. 

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11 minutes ago, Greg Hibbard said:

I'm making an assumption that if they have a fully healthy lineup for three weeks and our oafish manager just fills out the lineup card right that we can win at a much better clip, especially with 5 starters now pitching well enough and the bullpen rounding into form. 

You're right, a fully healthy Sox team gives us a solid chance. Unfortunately that hasn't happened all season or the last two seasons. Hopefully it will start going forward. 

However regardless of our solid starting pitching and bullpen improving, the same problem still exists...which is the team still struggles offensively and they don't hit enough home runs and extra base hits. We went 7 scoreless innings last night before scoring 4 runs in the 8th. We also struggled in the sweep of the Tigers each game. 

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Just now, The Kids Can Play said:

You're right, a fully healthy Sox team gives us a solid chance. Unfortunately that hasn't happened all season or the last two seasons. Hopefully it will start going forward. 

However regardless of our solid starting pitching and bullpen improving, the same problem still exists...which is the team still struggles offensively and they don't hit enough home runs and extra base hits. We went 7 scoreless innings last night before scoring 4 runs in the 8th. We also struggled in the sweep of the Tigers each game. 

When we have Anderson/Robert/Jimenez/Abreu/Vaughn all in the starting lineup, we do hit XBH. in the 9 games they've all started together, they've had 26 extra base hits and scored an average of nearly 5 runs a game.  

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I completely forgot that game 163 is no longer a thing.  So unless we go 5-1 or 6-0 against Cleveland in our last 6 against them, we will have to finish a game ahead of them to win the division.

Now, if we end up tied with Cleveland and it's not a situation where both teams faded in September, then there's also a chance we could be a Wild Card team.

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3 hours ago, Greg Hibbard said:

When we have Anderson/Robert/Jimenez/Abreu/Vaughn all in the starting lineup, we do hit XBH. in the 9 games they've all started together, they've had 26 extra base hits and scored an average of nearly 5 runs a game.  

Your claiming the extra base hits and home runs come when those 5 players start games together, but they rarely have started games together. We've played 116 games thus far and those 9 games you claim they have played together, represents 7.7% of this season being productive.

Anderson is out for another 5 weeks or so, Robert is day to day and who knows what his story is and Jimenez is injury prone and who knows when his next injury will occur. 

Your logic is correct but unrealistic based on how little they do play together.

That's why I said we have struggled with HR's and XBH's! The Sox are 25th in Home Runs, 23rd in XBH's and 19th in Runs per game...and that's because they can't stay healthy.

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