For Minnesota to catch us now...

[scenario]

A few factors that could help Richard tonight...

 

1. He's left-handed. The Yanks have struggled against lefty pitching this year.

 

2. They haven't seen him before. That usually gives a pitcher a slight edge.

 

3. He's pitched in Yankee stadium before. He was the starting pitcher in the Futures Game this year.

 

 

[JuiceCruz16]

You have to play each and every game out, take no Sox win or Twin lose for granted. There is no set amount to shoot for, just win tonight against the Yanks and see where we stand at the end of the day. History shows that some crazy s*** can go down in the last 10 games of a pennant race.

[caulfield12]

This is the first real "close" pennant race i can remember the White Sox being in, within 1-2 games for most of the last couple of months.

 

In 1983, 1993 and 2000, we were well ahead for much of those seasons...of course, 2005 was simply crazy and nerve-wracking at the end. In 2003, it was close in early September but didn't really come down to the wire. 2006, it felt like we were out of it the last 6 weeks, even though we weren't officially eliminated until much later. I was too young for the 1977 season. My favorite season, even though we came up short, was the last season in the old ballpark with Torborg as manager. That was a very exciting and interesting year. Unfortunately, there were some even better Oakland A's teams at that time, and the Twins were in the middle of their glory years, too (1987-91).

 

I guess the myth of the Twins "owning" the White Sox is due to 2003 and 2006 mostly (and our record against the Twins, specifically on the road), but those numbers were skewed by the 2001, 2002 and 2004 teams especially (W-L record head to head versus Minny).

[LVSoxFan]

Good point about don't worry about the Twins at this point; just win your games. Let the chips fall where they may.

 

I'm starting to get that warm feeling again (not since '05!), but honestly it's still just too damn far away to even start to make predictions.

 

The Cubs are in; we don't have that luxury of saying yet.

[elrockinMT]

Nice post. But I refuse to look past Wednesday's game. One game at a time is so much less stressful.

 

 

It ain't over till it's over

[BlackBetsy]

In 2003, it was close in early September but didn't really come down to the wire.

 

On the morning of September 17, 2003, five years ago today, the White Sox were exactly 1.5 games behind the Twins and playing the second game of a three game series in Minnesota that night. I guess that's kind of down to the wire - people forget exactly how close that race was until the final two weeks.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/2003_sched.shtml

 

The Sox went 6-6 the rest of the way, while the Twins went 8-3, although that is skewed by the fact that the Sox won the last two games of the season against KC after Minnesota had clinched and Minnesota dropped the last two of the season to Detroit.

 

Effectively, the season was over when the Twins swept the Sox to go up 3.5 games in the standings.

Edited September 17, 2008 by BlackBetsy

[Greg Hibbard]

I don't want to jinx anything, but these things bode really well for the White Sox:

 

as tough as minnesota has appeared to us at the dome, they just split 6 games against 70-80 detroit and 67-84 kansas city, two bottom 5 teams in the AL.

 

twins are 8-14 in their last 22 on the road, and this includes 1 series at third place oakland, 1 series at third place cleveland, 1 series at fourth place toronto, 1 series at last place baltimore, and 2 series at WORST place seattle.

 

overall, the twins are 8-15 in their last 23, a sub .400 overall winning percentage.

 

sure seems like a choke to me

[SoxFan562004]

I don't want to jinx anything, but these things bode really well for the White Sox:

 

as tough as minnesota has appeared to us at the dome, they just split 6 games against 70-80 detroit and 67-84 kansas city, two bottom 5 teams in the AL.

 

twins are 8-14 in their last 22 on the road, and this includes 1 series at third place oakland, 1 series at third place cleveland, 1 series at fourth place toronto, 1 series at last place baltimore, and 2 series at WORST place seattle.

 

overall, the twins are 8-15 in their last 23, a sub .400 overall winning percentage.

 

sure seems like a choke to me

Yeah, but I'll play devils advocate since I'm a Sox fan and supposed to be negative. From what I've seen the Sox are going to ask their starters to go on short rest in the KC series, that may neutralize some of the advantage the Sox have. Then you have to play the series in Minny, which we all know how horribly wrong that could go. Finally, the Indians are not an easy beat at this point, they have been playing well and Lee will pitch in that series.

 

We'll see, it will be exciting

[Greg Hibbard]

Yeah, but I'll play devils advocate since I'm a Sox fan and supposed to be negative. From what I've seen the Sox are going to ask their starters to go on short rest in the KC series, that may neutralize some of the advantage the Sox have. Then you have to play the series in Minny, which we all know how horribly wrong that could go. Finally, the Indians are not an easy beat at this point, they have been playing well and Lee will pitch in that series.

 

We'll see, it will be exciting

 

My main point is that Minnesota is probably going to lose 5 or 6 of their remaining 11 games, not that the Sox are going to go on some tear or something

 

assuming that's true, the white sox have to go just 5-7 or 6-6 to win outright.

Edited September 17, 2008 by Greg Hibbard

[scenario]

I don't think the Twins are choking.

 

When you have 5 starting pitchers who don't have even 1 full season season of MLB under their belts... and you compete this deep into a season... that's pretty amazing.

 

They've been overachieving all year. I think what we're seeing is the long season finally catching up to those guys.

[SoxFan562004]

My main point is that Minnesota is probably going to lose 5 or 6 of their remaining 11 games, not that the Sox are going to go on some tear or something

Good point. I think if my math is right the Sox can go 6-5 and if the Twins lose 4 games it's over and the Detroit game isn't necessary (I believe the magic number is 10)

[YASNY]

Good point. I think if my math is right the Sox can go 6-5 and if the Twins lose 4 games it's over and the Detroit game isn't necessary (I believe the magic number is 10)

 

Let's see. 6 Sox wins + 4 Twins losses = 10. Yes, your math is right.

 

Sorry. I just couldn't resist.

[SoxFan562004]

Let's see. 6 Sox wins + 4 Twins losses = 10. Yes, your math is right.

 

Sorry. I just couldn't resist.

lol, yes I was confident in the math, just wasn't 100% sure if the magic number was 10 or not.

[daa84]

BP has us at 87% chance of winning the division

[Texsox]

Quit worrying about the Twins and enjoy the stretch run. There is nothing like a pennant race boys, they don't come along too often. Even when we have won, it usually hasn't been this close for this long.

 

[oralsoxpodcast]

Personally I'm still worried. We're 4 and 5 at Kansas City this year, 1 and 5 at Minnesotta and yes while 5 and 0 against Cleveland at home this year, they're playing a lot better now.

The KC series has the potential to eff everything up. Thankfully Minny is actually playing worse than us, so there's still hope.

[joejoesox]

since there isn't a catch-all anymore, i figured i'd throw this in here

 

our defense has been pretty sub-par this year. i went through all of the contending AL teams, and looked at their earned runs allowed and compared it to total runs allowed, then looking at what the percentage of each of these teams runs allowed were unearned runs

 

we're by far the worst. 10.4% of the runs this team has given up in 2008, were unearned runs

second is the twins at 9.1%

third is toronto at 8.1% (they've given up the fewest total of runs, but have allowed as many unearned as teams that have allowed more runs on the year. for their percentage to drop into the 7% range, they would've had to allow about 10 fewer unearned runs or so)

fourth is the angels at 7.7%

fifth is tampa bay at 7.6%

and the best is the red sox at 7.2%

 

again, these are the percentage of unearned runs from total runs allowed

Edited September 17, 2008 by joesaiditstrue

[Texsox]

It's now September and the division is the Sox to lose.

 

Damn, that hit me between the eyes. Hell yes. It is the Sox to lose.

[SoxFan562004]

since there isn't a catch-all anymore, i figured i'd throw this in here

 

our defense has been pretty sub-par this year. i went through all of the contending AL teams, and looked at their earned runs allowed and compared it to total runs allowed, then looking at what the percentage of each of these teams runs allowed were unearned runs

 

we're by far the worst. 10.4% of the runs this team has given up in 2008, were unearned runs

second is the twins at 9.1%

third is toronto at 8.1% (they've given up the fewest total of runs, but have allowed as many unearned as teams that have allowed more runs on the year. for their percentage to drop into the 7% range, they would've had to allow about 10 fewer unearned runs or so)

fourth is the angels at 7.7%

fifth is tampa bay at 7.6%

and the best is the red sox at 7.2%

 

again, these are the percentage of total runs allowed, that are unearned

interesting stat, it's weird that the top 5 consist of the three first place teams and the WC leader.

 

Some of it is our pitchers inability to pitch over mistakes on a regular basis

[Balta1701]

interesting stat, it's weird that the top 5 consist of the three first place teams and the WC leader

You did note that he only included the contending teams right?

[caulfield12]

On the morning of September 17, 2003, five years ago today, the White Sox were exactly 1.5 games behind the Twins and playing the second game of a three game series in Minnesota that night. I guess that's kind of down to the wire - people forget exactly how close that race was until the final two weeks.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/2003_sched.shtml

 

The Sox went 6-6 the rest of the way, while the Twins went 8-3, although that is skewed by the fact that the Sox won the last two games of the season against KC after Minnesota had clinched and Minnesota dropped the last two of the season to Detroit.

 

Effectively, the season was over when the Twins swept the Sox to go up 3.5 games in the standings.

 

 

Maybe I'm off, but I think we won the first two games of a home series that month, then lost the second two games and were swept at Minnesota.

 

The turning point was that second home game, where we had a huge lead and gradually frittered away the lead as Jose Paniagua (bread and water) ALMOST blew it and the Twins effectively took all the momentum and ran with it. For some reason, that game and losing the third game with Cotts starting instead of Buerhle in the Stadium are the two games that stand out to me.

 

I also remember that Loaiza was really gassed that final month and just wasn't the same pitcher he was in the first half. While it went down, technically, to the final week or so, it was over psychologically after the Twins beat the Sox five times in a row.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2008 by caulfield12

[greg775]

Quit worrying about the Twins and enjoy the stretch run. There is nothing like a pennant race boys, they don't come along too often. Even when we have won, it usually hasn't been this close for this long.

 

I'm trying to enjoy it, but something in the back of my mind is telling me we are going to regret not playing a bit better baseball and taking advantage of the Twins' current stretch of s***tiness. Head to head for 3 games in Minnie. I hope we bring our A games. Can Vazzy beat Musina?

[Princess Dye]

Can Vazzy beat Musina?

 

Vazquez has seven strong starts coming in. In general though I'm really happy w/ our starting pitching right now. I like the thought of that staff turning things over to Thornton/Jenks in the playoffs, but we have to get there first.

[caulfield12]

Vazquez has seven strong starts coming in. In general though I'm really happy w/ our starting pitching right now. I like the thought of that staff turning things over to Thornton/Jenks in the playoffs, but we have to get there first.

 

 

The problem is that the stress of the post-season is so much higher on the pitchers...and the managers tend to over/micromanage for individual match-ups starting in the 6th or 7th innings.

 

The only hope or prayer we have is that our starters can go at least 7 and that Thornton and Linebrink are lights out.

 

However, there are some questions lingering over Linebrink and even Bobby (although most of his troubles have been caused by 4 run leads or not pitching under intense pressure to begin an inning). Thornton always scares you if he doesn't come in to begin the inning with a clean slate.

 

Dotel and Carrasco haven't been reliable...in fact, you've seen Guillen tempted to use MacDougal more and more often.

 

The way things stand right now, the odds against either the Twins or the White Sox advancing past the first round are not good.

 

 

[greg775]

The problem is that the stress of the post-season is so much higher on the pitchers...and the managers tend to over/micromanage for individual match-ups starting in the 6th or 7th innings.

 

That is darn true. It's why what our starters did in 05 postseason is so amazing.