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Cleveland is done


VAfan

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At 6 games under .500 and with no reliable pitching, Cleveland is done for the year. They might slug their way back to .500, but I don't expect any kind of a serious run out of them. They may even be sellers at the trade deadline.

 

But watch out for Minnesota. Santana and Liriano are probably the best 1-2 combo in baseball, and their bullpen appears to have it back together. Dumping Batista was a good move. And their young hitters are getting them enough runs to win. I expect them to be able to play very good baseball and make a run at 90+ wins. I'm not scared of them. If we take care of business, we shouldn't lose any ground to them, and in fact should add a few more games distance between us. But they could end up being the best team not to make the postseason, and with their two aces would give a lot of teams fits in a short series.

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Lets no take the indians too lightly, how many games were we up on the last year and they caught up and made it a close. I have no doubt that the indians are done, the twins pitching is getting better and with stewart coming back like stated earlier he gives them a leadoff guy to get on for mauer. First thing is first though we have Detroit to catch before we worry about holding our spot.

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QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 03:33 PM)
Wait until we see Andy Marte in the big leagues before proclaiming this a terrible offseason.

Unless he can pitch I don't see him helping. Offense isn't the issue for Cleveland.

 

Also, did anyone see the Cubs kick the crap out of Cleveland tonight? Getting pretty sad for the Tribe.

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Morneau's getting hot, Kubel is a hell of a good hitter, they got the bums Batista, Castro and White out of the lineup, Cuddyer's turning into a pretty good hitter all-around, Shannon Stewart's on the DL right now, oh and then there's Mauer too.

 

I don't think Minnesota wins the division, because they just straight up don't have nearly the amount of talent the White Sox do; however, they look very good right now, like we're back in 2003 again. As far back as they are right now, I could see them winning a lot of games and perhaps even making this a 3-team race.

 

(of course, the Tigers AND Sox have to get relatively cold for a lengthy period of time for Minnesota to get back into it, but it's possible)

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QUOTE(SoxFanForever @ Jun 20, 2006 -> 02:26 PM)
Unless he can pitch I don't see him helping. Offense isn't the issue for Cleveland.

 

Also, did anyone see the Cubs kick the crap out of Cleveland tonight? Getting pretty sad for the Tribe.

Replacing Millwood with Byrd and Johnson had trouble written all over it.

 

And so did losing 3 of their better relief pitchers in Howry, Rhodes and Riske as well.

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QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Jun 19, 2006 -> 06:32 PM)

 

My thread got moved. I didn't think it was posted at all due to some glitch (I don't check out the Diamond Club to be honest), which is why I rewrote it and re-posted it.

 

That being said, while I'll admit 90 wins for the Twins is probably the high end and would leave them 3rd in the division, I think it would be foolish to completely discount them. Radke's June ERA is under 2.00, Santana's is 1.29, and Liriano's is 2.25. It doesn't take much offense to win with that kind of pitching. Plus, their young hitters Mauer and Morneau and Cuddyer are finally producing. Plus the youth movement seems to have lifted the cloud that team has played under since the beginning of last year when we proved we could beat them at their own game.

 

I'll be happy if they stumble (as long as they beat the Tigers), but I think they'll be solid for the rest of the year. But Cleveland is dead. They can't even beat the Cubs.

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I'm going to go back to my original thought, which is that Minnesota is going to end up with 94-95 wins this year. Granted, they are almost done with beating up on the National League, and even Kansas City will give them more trouble than many of those teams. But with Santana/Liriano penciled in to win 4 out of every 10 games, they only have to split the other 6 games to keep on a .700 win pace. If that's too high (and it is), a .667 pace from here on out leaves them at 98 wins. A .600 pace leaves them at 92 wins. I think they'll end up somewhere in between, which will probably be better than the runner-up in the AL East and the winner of the AL West.

 

At the end of the day, the AL Central could have 3 of the 4 best teams in the American League (and baseball, since the National League is SO PATHETIC), with one of them sitting out the postseason. The Sox probably need to win 100+ games to win this division.

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QUOTE(VAfan @ Jun 28, 2006 -> 09:02 AM)
I'm going to go back to my original thought, which is that Minnesota is going to end up with 94-95 wins this year. Granted, they are almost done with beating up on the National League, and even Kansas City will give them more trouble than many of those teams. But with Santana/Liriano penciled in to win 4 out of every 10 games, they only have to split the other 6 games to keep on a .700 win pace. If that's too high (and it is), a .667 pace from here on out leaves them at 98 wins. A .600 pace leaves them at 92 wins. I think they'll end up somewhere in between, which will probably be better than the runner-up in the AL East and the winner of the AL West.

 

At the end of the day, the AL Central could have 3 of the 4 best teams in the American League (and baseball, since the National League is SO PATHETIC), with one of them sitting out the postseason. The Sox probably need to win 100+ games to win this division.

Minny is playing really well right now, but they ain't that good. They have nothing like the kind of talent that DET and us have, or even that CLE has, really. The twinkies will finish near .500. No way they are playing close to .600 ball the rest of the way

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Interleague has really messed up the perception of how good all of the AL teams are. We know they are good, but beating the NL 9 out of 10 times isn't anything special because the NL is so bad and that's what teams have been doing the last couple of weeks.

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QUOTE(jphat007 @ Jun 28, 2006 -> 07:46 AM)
Interleague has really messed up the perception of how good all of the AL teams are. We know they are good, but beating the NL 9 out of 10 times isn't anything special because the NL is so bad and that's what teams have been doing the last couple of weeks.

I agree. I knew the AL was better -- I just had no idea it was this much better.

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QUOTE(jphat007 @ Jun 28, 2006 -> 09:46 AM)
Interleague has really messed up the perception of how good all of the AL teams are. We know they are good, but beating the NL 9 out of 10 times isn't anything special because the NL is so bad and that's what teams have been doing the last couple of weeks.

 

 

before Interleague, the Twins swept the BoSox at home and took 2 of 3 from the Orioles (not that beating the Orioles is a sign of strenth these days)

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