He'd had two previous starts and his ERA was in the 1's.

 

There's a reason they moved Javy to the bullpen. This kid has really nice stuff...it's not like the Orioles', Indians' (after Carmona) and Royals' (outside of Greinke and Hochevar) pitchers owning us.

So, the Sox are 28-32 against the Central. You don't win your division by having a LOSING RECORD in your division. Sox don't deserve to make the playoffs. Period.

So, the Sox are 28-32 against the Central. You don't win your division by having a LOSING RECORD in your division. Sox don't deserve to make the playoffs. Period.

 

After we sweep KC / MIN / DET it becomes 37-32, do we deserve it then?

Only if the Twins don't win another game against the Central all year. But, I don't think anyone here believes the Sox will sweep all three of those series to finish up the year. Typically, you have to BEAT your division, to win your divison. It seems like the Sox just don't understand that.

Edited September 9, 201015 yr by CQMVP

lawl, now that I look at the caption of the thread again, it makes it sound like Greg is telling "the sabes people" to do his bidding. xD

Not really. I thought he was asking a legitimate question and trying to stir conversation. I might be more upset about this than Greg. He probably doesn't remember me, I've had some really long absences here, but I remember Greg from the very early days of this site. It's just a s***ty surly way to treat a long time poster that had the temerity to ask a question. I asked one the other day on Slam, it got very little traffic so I didn't get the treatment. Message boards can be banal, stupid and hostile but at the same time I've learned a lot on a wide variety of subjects by lurking and posting. Dialogue shouldn't be cut off or discouraged just because someone fancies himself lord of the board.

 

Thanks SII.

 

I most agree with your first point:

 

You said: "Not really. I thought he was asking a legitimate question and trying to stir conversation."

 

Dat's what I was trying to do. To me it is the single puzzling thing about our team.

It shouldn't be that puzzling, we're just not that good....it's kind of funny, we might end up close to 90 wins (still) and yet the feel all season long with this team versus the 2006 team was a completely different one, wasn't it? Of course, that team was coming off the World Series title, a "mini-dynasty" seemed at least possible, and that offense just destroyed other teams in the first half.

 

We've been favored by an NL schedule this year (with the exception of the Braves, and that was at home...in ATL, the Braves are very tough) and the fact that we could beat up on the Mariners (8-2). And the Cubs have had much better teams over the last 10 years as well, obviously.

 

Other than that, we've been very average against the rest of baseball.

 

We've got some very good starters, some very TALENTED relievers and Konerko, with offensive outbursts from Rios and Quentin occasionally. That's an oversimplification, but not too far off. Which makes it all the scarier that we have at least a 50% chance of losing our best offensive player, after losing Dye and Thome and not replacing either very adequately.

Edited September 10, 201015 yr by caulfield12

I agree 100 percent caufield. Nice post.

So the question is ... did the Sox actually overachieve?

I think our starters were good, not great. Bullpen same as last year. OK at times, actually very good during the 25-5, but overall unreliable.

Hitters got off to that hellish start, totally unacceptable April and May.

Did the team overachieve?

I agree 100 percent caufield. Nice post.

So the question is ... did the Sox actually overachieve?

I think our starters were good, not great. Bullpen same as last year. OK at times, actually very good during the 25-5, but overall unreliable.

Hitters got off to that hellish start, totally unacceptable April and May.

Did the team overachieve?

 

One could say in April and May the team under achieved. All aspects of the game except for the pen were terrible.

Edited September 10, 201015 yr by kitekrazy

I agree 100 percent caufield. Nice post.

So the question is ... did the Sox actually overachieve?

I think our starters were good, not great. Bullpen same as last year. OK at times, actually very good during the 25-5, but overall unreliable.

Hitters got off to that hellish start, totally unacceptable April and May.

Did the team overachieve?

I thought this team coming in was a low-90's win team...if Carlos Quentin performed up to anything close to his 2008 standard. He hasn't.

 

If I can give the qualifier "except for Carlos Quentin" I'd say yes, this team overachieved, because if you told me Carlos would have an OPS around .815 in September, I'd have thought this was at best a .500 team.

 

Everything else i thought we could recover from. If Peavy got hurt, we had Hudson to step in. If Jenks stank, we had Putz and Thornton to step in. I thought just about everything on the offense hung on Quentin's bat, and we managed to win games around that.

The Sox are 11 1/2 games worse vs. the AL Central than Minnesota. Even with the 5-10 mark against Minnesota, that's still 6 1/2 games of difference. There's really no excuse to be right about .500 vs. KC, Cleveland and Detroit this year.

5-10 with 3 games to go.

8-10 would be bad

5-13 would be so bad it's unbelievable.

6-12 aint so good either.