July - Big Step Backward
G-Man was right; July was telling. Only thing is I don’t like what it told us. Sox played under .500, going 12-13 against mediocre opposition, while the Yankees and Rays both caught fire. Yankees played .730 ball, and the Rays did them better, going .740 for the month. All this while they played each other five games. So as July came to an end, Sox found themselves six games out of the wild card, perhaps not an insurmountable lead, if not for the fact that in order to make the wild card, they have to overtake one of the two hottest teams in baseball. And in truth, no one is overtaking either of them if they continue to play at a seven hundred clip.
Having said all that, I can remember August 2004, when the Sox caught fire, winning 21 of 22 at one point. And who wasn’t pleased to see Beckett return from the DL in good form; to see Lackey take a no hitter into the eighth inning; and to see Papi hitting well in the late innings?
Soon Pedroia, and maybe Ellsbury will return to the lineup, and maybe for just about the first time this year, the Sox can put their starting lineup on the filed. Of course, even in the most optimistic scenario, there is still one big problem: the bullpen. Aside from Bard and Papelbon (whose numbers have declined significantly this year, but never mind that for purposes of this little illustration), the bullpen is maintaining a robust 5.5 ERA. That would be OK if they were pitching for the home run derby, but in a pennant race it’s not so good.
The trade deadline has passed, and Theo didn’t make much in the way of changes, which makes sense if you figure that just by getting healthy, the Sox will have a new team for the remainder of the season. But the trade he really should have pulled off was to get us out of the AL East. If we were playing in either of the other divisions, we’d be in good position for the stretch run. Unfortunately, that seems to have been beyond Theo’s reach, and so we’re stuck with having to chase the Yankees and the Rays. Oh well. What do you expect from a year in which the Lakers and Duke have already won championships? At least Germany didn’t win the world cup. Hate. Hate. Hate.
posted by pops | 11:15 AM
3 Comments:
Berg,
Love it when you say I was right.
So let's look at August. For future reference click on the ESPN link below. It gives you a great window into the remainder of the season by league, division and team. It includes future competition strength and Home/Away breakdown.
http://espn.go.com/mlb/huntforoctober
I'll post first analysis. The Yankees and redsox play the toughest schedules. The redsox and TB have more Away games than the Yankees. Now we are taking 2/3 game differences in both categories but that will probably be what the division will come down to. Without getting into the gritty details the redsox have the most games (13 incl.10H) against teams contending (not including the Yankees/TB), TB has 10 incl. 7H and the Yankees have 8 incl.none H. I give the advantage to Yankees followed by TB and redsox. This all goes to the say the games are not played on paper but in between the lines.
Bottom line prediction:
August should be a tight but play out even. In other words I don't expect much change in the standings.
Sept will be an intense month (give credit to schedule makers). In Sept I give the redsox a 2 game advantage in the head to head match-ups with NYY/TB.
If the Yankees or TB stumble in August look out for the redsox.
Let the games continue.
G-man
The Sox catch the Rays in mid September and then it's onto the post-season, not a problem, save your rage. But on a toally different note did readers of Manny De Montaigne catch the terrific article in last week's Sports Illustrated on how Floyd Little finally made into the NFL Hall of fame - it's worth the read, he was always underrated: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1172329/index.htm
Chipper
With Youk's injury and the way we looked tonight I take it all back, we will need the ghost of Herb Brooks (1980 USA Olympic Hockey team) to get the Sox into post-season play.
Chipper
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