AL Central Division winners at this point in season (00-08)

[caulfield12]

On May 19th and at the 38 game mark...

 

2000 Chicago White Sox 23-17/22-16

 

2001 Cleveland Indians 28-12/26-12

 

2002 Minnesota Twins 25-20/22-16

 

2003 Minnesota Twins 25-18/21-17 (however, they were only 44-49 at the ASB, 1/2 game behind Sox and 7 1/2 behind KC)

 

2004 Minnesota Twins 24-15/23-15

 

2005 Chicago White Sox 29-12/27-11

 

2006 Minnesota Twins 18-24/17-21 they would finish 96-66, ending the year with an amazing 78-42 run behind Liriano and Santana

 

2007 Cleveland Indians 25-15/24-14

 

2008 Chicago White Sox 23-21/18-20

 

 

Would be very nice to go 5-1 this home series, 4-2 would be okay and 3-3 not so good.

 

It's still going to come down to pitching, biggest cliche in the book.

Edited May 20, 2009 by caulfield12

[witesoxfan]

the offense is slowly coming around. The biggest key for the season, as far as I'm concerned, is Floyd getting his s*** together. If Contreras and Colon fail, they'll be able to patch together a 4 and 5 down the line. If Floyd doesn't start pitching better, you are replacing a 3.84 ERA with a godknowswhat ERA this year.

[caulfield12]

The bullpen can compensate a little, and perhaps Richard can put together back-to-back-to-back quality starters, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

With the home-dominated June schedule and playing more within the division, we should be able to at least get back into the hunt...and I suppose there's always the overly optimistic idea someone like Viciedo could come up and really spark the team offensively.

 

Floyd is undoubtedly the key...don't think we can expect much more out of Colon unless he can miraculously get his FB back into the 93-95 MPH range on a consistent basis. And Danks needs to kick back into late 08 form.

 

Alexei Ramirez driving the ball with power into RCF on a consistent basis would be nice as well.

 

Just don't know what we have with Anderson, Fields, Nix or Getz, or how long Pods will stay healthy. For the time being, and with Getz struggling, it seems Ozzie is fated to plug Pods into the leadoff spot against all RHP for lack of any better options.

[chw42]

The difference between this year and last year is that the starting pitching sucks. I had hope last year because I knew this team had at least 4 quality starters in Floyd, Danks, Buehrle, and Vazquez at this point in the season last year. With Floyd forgetting how to pitch, this team has two reliable starters in Buehrle and Danks. Colon is decent, but it's almost a flip of the coin with him sometimes and he's going to run into health problems sooner or later. Richard's last start was promising, but he hasn't shown that he can sustain that type of performance before. If Floyd gets it back together and the offense starts hitting due to the warmer weather, this team still has a chance because this division is bad. I just want to see this team at least compete until August. It would be a really long summer if they play like they did in the past 10 games.

[thedoctor]

the good thing for the sox is that no one is going to run away with the division. there is a whole lot of meh in the central this year, and because of that i expect the sox to be within shooting distance of the division lead all year.

 

i think we can all agree this is a flawed team. we knew that going in. take that same flawed team and add a boatload of injuries to key players and yeah, you're going to see some bad baseball. and we have.

[The Ginger Kid]

win 6 in a row, get back to .500, then we look at the standings.

[OilCan]

the offense is slowly coming around. The biggest key for the season, as far as I'm concerned, is Floyd getting his s*** together. If Contreras and Colon fail, they'll be able to patch together a 4 and 5 down the line. If Floyd doesn't start pitching better, you are replacing a 3.84 ERA with a godknowswhat ERA this year.

 

Better include Danks in that too based on his last few performances.

 

If Clayton Richard keeps getting the outings like he had on Sunday, fine with me. But Danks and Floyd better get it together, and fast. Heck, the whole team.....