Greg Hibbard

They make poor decisions even when they are making outs lololol

DAT DEFENSE

The dreaded lead off walk!

The great thing about getting into their pen in game one is some of those guys may not be available/effective in game 2

5-2. I love it when Detroit plays defense and has their bullpen pitching

Welly, welly, welly.

There were many questions about many of the same players prior to the 2012 campaign, and many of them worked out just fine. Who plays third, who is beckham, is konerko done yet, what about rios and Dunn, etc.

The extra A is for BYOBB. Let's get em, boys.

QUOTE (kitekrazy @ Sep 22, 2012 -> 12:15 AM) Because most likely only one of them will be a playoff team. One of those teams is our direct competition for the division and if the other three collapse the WC may come out of the central.

These "contenders" have the following things that make them look "not like playoff teams": Angels- a 5-6 record over their past 11 games overall, including losing 3 in a row at home to Oakland in a potentially season killing series. Athletics - a 3-5 record over their past 8 games overall, including you guessed it - a 3 game losing streak themselves. Tigers - A 7-9 record over their past 16 games overall. They had two losing streaks of 3 games in there. Go figure. Rays - a 4-7 record over their past 11 games, including a 3 game losing streak. Let's get 'em tomorrow boys. 5-3 in our past 8. We hit a rough stretch of three bad games but I expect this team will snap out of it. Tomorrow. I believe.

Not pessimistic at all after this loss. If we get one win in Anaheim, I'm fine with that. If we get swept I'll start to get worried.

If we win one and the tigers win two I am completely fine with that. We would emerge from the weekend with a 1 game lead and 7 of 10 at home vs their 4 of 10 at home. Magic number would drop to 10 with 10 left. I like our chances of going at least 6-4.

Ultimate - the one thing I'd say in response is that if the sox lose another game or two this weekend, that these are the easiest games remaining for Detroit and the toughest by far for the sox

If the Sox win even one game at Anaheim its a crushing blow for detroits chances IMO Two or three wins in LA locks this thing up

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 02:24 PM) Is it unrealistic to think that against the competition both teams are playing over these last four series, that the Tigers could go 8-5 and the Sox could go 5-8, and the Tigers take it with 87 wins? Could happen. Might not. Nothing will surprise me these next two weeks, but by no means do I think the Sox have this even close to locked up. Do I think the sox are going to go just 3-3 against the Indians, get swept in Anaheim, AND merely split against the fading rays at the Cell, where they are much better and the Rays are much worse? No, no I don't.

Ultimate - I don't know at what point in this season you thought the sox were some sort of world beaters, but I never really drank that kool aid. They've been streaky all year - not as great as their 16-4 runs but obviously not as bad as their 3-11 runs either. I never thought this team had what it took to compete with New York and Texas, in particular, even though we've handled them head to head all year. However, I do feel a division title would be a nice thing and playoff revenue would be even better, would set up next year as an improvement to the attendance and further sell the sox as the legitimate baseball team in this city, which I feel is somewhat crucial. I feel as though the past 8 years or so the Sox have made great strides compared to the cubs in generating interest in young fans/kids, as the cubs just keep treading water when they're good and bumbling toward disaster when they're bad.

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 02:15 PM) A team that wins its division, unless they had a huge lead to work with, should be able to go 25-20 in its last 45 games, largely weighted by division games. And not just division games--games against teams from a weak division. Good teams win. Bad teams lose. Slightly better than mediocre teams like the White Sox should be able to 25-20 down the stretch. Hell, 24-21 should have been good enough, and they may not even do that. What are we arguing here again? How it's not the Sox fault if they don't win the division? I think my main point is that the Sox have been fairly consistent and so are the Tigers, and the teams are who they are. I don't really expect either team to do anything differently than they've done it for the first 149 games of the season I really dont get why anyone thinks the tigers are going to go on some unrealistic tear AND the sox are gonna swoon

Greg, my point was that Oakland and Texas cannot handle their own divisions either.

You know what guys Sox are gonna win 87, 88 or 89 games. I'm confident Detroit will win either 1 or 2 games less. If you don't believe it, don't worry, I got this one.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 01:47 PM) There's one problem with your theory. With your theory a team can never have a great year, that it all balances out and the team finishes 8-10 games over .500. No, to have a playoff caliber team you have to do better than 5-13 against one of the worst franchises in baseball the last 20 years. You don't win every series, but you have to do better than that against division rivals to have a team worthy of the playoffs. Just like Texas and Oakland, right?

QUOTE (flavum @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 01:26 PM) If the Sox come up short, I'm going to look at the collective choke of not being able to go 25-20 the final 45 games for 90 wins. So, go 9-4 and we're all good. Because the preceding 16-7 stretch before the final 45 didn't overvalue this team at all, right? The final 45 games of the Sox' schedule also features 21 games against teams that are as of today 10 or more games over .500. Of the other 24 games, 12 of them are on the road. Of the 12 home games against teams that are not 10 or more games over .500, 9 of them are against divisional opponents. They also have 3 days off in the last 48 days of the season - one of which was a rainout where they were at the ballpark waiting all night. How many easy games do you think this team has really had, recently? Are we also gonna blame De Aza, Dunn and Konerko for being injured while we're at it

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 01:24 PM) 16-12 in August 9-9 in September That's 4 over .500 since July, which IMO says more bad about the Tigers than good about us Since our last 6 game win streak Aug 20-26 we lost 3 of 4 to Baltimore, went 2-5 against the Tigers and 2-4 against the Royals. The only thing we've done right is go 5-1 vs. the Twins over that span. But yeah, great team here. I guess I'm just a pessimist. prior to August 56-47 = .543 winning percentage August 1st on 25-21 = .543 winning percentage .543 winning percentage = 88 win season. Exactly what drop off is there from whatever you expected I also like the way you conveniently disregard some sort of dropoff/statistical correction to variance after a 6 game winning streak

I'm sorry, I'm just not going to feel badly about a week with zero days off where we went 5-2 with 6 road games, and the only home game being a crucial win against detroit. That's just flat out insane. I chalked up two road losses to the royals before the series. I think we win the series 2-1 in anaheim, go 4-3 at home and 2-1 in cleveland. 8-5, baby. Just do it.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 01:12 PM) Cleveland played out of their minds, the Sox never faded. We won 99 games that year. This year we'll be lucky to win 88. Um, that's delusional. The Sox nearly choked the division away. We were on pace to win a lot more than 99. I remember the atmosphere on this board quite well.

QUOTE (The Ultimate Champion @ Sep 21, 2012 -> 01:09 PM) The Sox are great at playing on a high. All good teams are supposed to be that way & even a lot of bad teams are like that. The problem is we have trouble coming back from the lows, and when the pressure is on it it's even worse. You always hear Hawk talk about how important it is for baseball players to have a short memory & not to take their gloves to the plate or bats to the field; we seem to take the events of a past series with us, and when we get in a tough spot, we can't relax and so we try to do too much. Perfect example was last night. We won 5 in a row and then drop a game to KC. Last night we had the chance to take the series & start a new streak while picking back up that game the Tigers took. KC only scored 4 runs all game & they gave us 3. That's only 2 runs we need to score on our own to win, and we can't do it. Now, instead of heading into Anaheim to play a tough, extremely talented team on the road on a high, we have to right the ship there. That's the sign of a fading team, it's just that Detroit is also fading, and if you're an honest outside observer, neither team should be good enough to force either the Yankees or Baltimore to play a WC game. Let me get this straight. This team just had a 5 game winning streak against three different divisional opponents, featuring 4 road games and zero days off... and losing two road games in a row to a divisional team directly after that is a sign of a "fading team"? Whatever, man. I guess nothing can convince you otherwise.