JUSTgottaBELIEVE

The “normal starters” of Harrison, Grandal, Vaughn, and Sheets combined for 0-14 in game 2. Can’t pin it just on the subs. They actually outproduced the starters today.

And this was from a bunch of guys that most don’t want on the roster too. They did their job. Offense, even with the second game AAA lineup, needs to do better than 2 runs in 18 innings..

Actually, the pitching outside of Keuchel was great today.

I mean, 4 high end starters is more than any other team in baseball. Hopefully Cueto provides some depth starting in a week. I’d like to see Lopez get a shot at starting over lambert.

Bullpen has been lights out today and they haven’t even used their top guys.

I’ll take the over on that!

I’m perfectly fine with someone else taking out the Astros.

Kopech about to join this list too. This rotation is scary good when healthy. Now let’s hope they don’t get the Astros in the playoffs again!

Slowly getting the band back together. And we’re 6-3 without em!

I’m confident the Sox finish top 2 in the AL this regular season. Doesn’t mean anything, though, if they do nothing in the playoffs again. The playoffs are everything at this point in the rebuild.

I’d really like the Sox chances if they played Houston without McCullers like the Braves did in the WS…

We split in Chicago 2-2 regular season, 1-1 postseason. Hard to win a series if you’re splitting your home games but can’t win any of the road games…

McCullers owned us all season, even in Chicago. I was there for his start in Chicago, first game after ASB. Sox offense looked sick against him. Not surprising he dominated in his two postseason starts as well.

Wow, that’s really impressive. Hopefully these things will even out over the course of the season.

16-13 in September/October. Not exactly setting the world on fire especially while playing against a lot of teams that dumped players at the trade deadline and/or were giving their minor leaguers a look at the big league level (only 3 of those last 29 games were against playoff teams).

The Sox were not playing well down the stretch last season. They were only a few games over .500 after the all star break. Then they played a team that owned them during the regular season too so the combination of not playing their best baseball late in the season combined with a team they did not match up well against was a death knell.

Which is why being healthy and playing well when the playoffs start is 1000x more important than home field advantage…

It matters but by the slimmest of margins. The more important thing is being healthy and playing well at the right time. Peaking in July doesn’t do much good come October. The Braves peaked at just the right time. Sox starting pitchers being so healthy last season was apparently a blessing and a curse because they looked like shit in the playoffs.

Yea, I addressed the top two seed thing in my next post. But if you’re being honest, do you really think the Sox beat the Astros last season even with home field advantage? Personally, I think we would have seen the exact same outcome of Astros in 4.

Under the new playoff format, I agree that gaining a top two seed is important now that the league introduced the bye. Prior to that, there was very little difference between any of the seeds as long as you stayed out of the wild card round (we even saw a number of recent WC teams win the WS tho). I still like the Sox chances of earning a top two seed and don’t see a big difference between a #1 and #2 seed. I don’t think we’re going to settle anything now, we’ll see how these guys look come October. If Rodon is still healthy and pitching effectively while the other three flame out then we’ll have our answer. But I’ve got a feeling it won’t be that clear cut.

Home field advantage matters so much in mlb that both the top seeds were bounced in the first round last year. Home field is overrated in MLB postseason play. This isn’t the NBA or NFL. https://www.actionnetwork.com/mlb/homefield-advantage2017mlbplayoffs Regarding Rodon, it’s one thing to be pitching in October. It’s another thing altogether to be pitching effectively come October. I don’t like his odds of both pitching and pitching effectively come October. That’s just me though.

Exactly why I posed that question and don’t think there’s a sure answer. But many here seem to think it’s already decided. We’ll find out in 5 months.

You hit the nail on the head right there about all that matters is postseason performance at this point in the rebuild. It’s a failure if they win 100+ games but exit in the first round. The question is who will be bigger contributors come October? Kelly, VV, and Harrison or Rodon? I don’t think that’s a slam dunk answer personally given Rodon’s injury history.

So the second highest ALC team after the Sox is Cleveland at #14 and they moved up from #20 the week prior lol

Wrong. The first season the Astros made the playoffs following their rebuild was 2015. They won 80 something games again in 2016 but failed to make the playoffs. So actually, the first two seasons of the Sox “contention window” is off to a better start than the Astros “contention window.” Let’s see how the next five seasons play out. Unlike the Astros, let’s see if the Sox can win the title without cheating..