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Can the Sox beat the Yankees in four straight games?
No reason to give up, yet.
Their running game sucks, their secondary is awful, and they may or may not be able to stop the run. OK, so perhaps Brady's as good as ever (the jury's out on that one), they have a great WR combo, and are solid on special teams...that still doesn't scream "serious contender" to me.
If you make Mark Sanchez look like an all-time great, something is wrong with your defense.
There's a significant chance the Sox won't even hit 90 wins this season, which I never would have guessed might happen.
Of course, if the bastards sweep the Rays this week, the Sox will be that much closer to a post-season berth.
If the Yankees sweep TB while we sweep Baltimore, we'd be 3 back of the WC with 10 to play, but at that point TB has an easier-than-pie schedule while we'd have to take something like 8 or 9 of 10 against NY and Chicago (with 7 being road games) to even have a shot at a tie.
As I keep saying, us getting into a playoff game is very improbable, but not impossible. It would not at all surprise me to have a situation similar to 2000 going into the last 3-4 games of the season, and given the fact we've basically played kids the last 6 weeks, that would be a pretty nice moral victory to close out an otherwise disappointing season.
You also can't underestimate what a TB sweep of NY this week (accompanied by a Boston sweep) would do to the media sideshow either... The faintest of sniffs of a collapse would send them into a frenzy; that alone would make the last 6 games against NY highly entertaining.
Perhaps I'm crazy, but we've seen longer odds than this and come out the other side; why not again?
3 home against Seattle
3 home against Baltimore
4 away against KC
They could easily go at least 7-3 (losing 1 in each series). Even if the get swept by NY, that would mean the Red Sox would have to go 10-0 just to tie.
Now, all their starters could blow up & get hurt this week in the Bronx, the pen collapses, they panic, etc. and maybe they fall back and do worse than 7-3, but it's rather doubtful. Of the two improbable paths to a playoff game, TB sweeping NY this week is the easier one in that we'd control our destiny against the Yankees.
But starting Dice-K and Lackey 2 of the 3 games against the O's doesn't bode well. And it's hard to know at what point Tito pulls the plug on the season officially; my guess is even if they sweep the O's that if the TB/NY series winds up split at 2-2 that Tito would not manage all-out to win those last 10 games.
Don't care. I can't root for bastard victories if they only hold potential positive implications for the Sox. I suppose I could hold my nose and root for such an occurrence if it was the only thing that stood between in and out of the postseason for the Sox, but I prefer not to think about it due to the soul-sucking side effects of cheering on such an atrocity.
When??? And don't say 2004, cause that was about 20X more likely than the Sox getting in the playoffs right now.
But if you are at 0.5% to 1% with 2 weeks left, why not root hard for a few days?
It's kinda like deciding not to turn off the T.V. when your team needs an 80-yard bomb with 5 ticks on the clock. It won't take much of your life, so you may as well watch. More so than watching when you're down 31-0 at the half.
As I said, a 2-2 result this week in the TB/NY series basically makes it an impossible task, mainly because I think at that point Tito gives up and plays kids exclusively, etc., even if we sweep Baltimore.
But if on Friday morning we're 3.5 or 4.5 back of NY with 10 to play (including 6 against NY), we have a fighting chance. That's worth paying attention to this week, I think.
A sweep of Baltimore alone is probably only 11% likely. A TB sweep of NY is 6% likely.
I don't think people quite realize how small .5% is. A half court basketball heave would be about 60 times more likely. (150 times if Bird were shooting)
That pretty much happened a while back.
The straight-on halfcourt shot is amazingly easy (as long as you can reach from there) for a shot of that distance. If you get it on line, you've got some decent wiggle room in terms of length, as you can swish it or bank it in.
Yeah, I didn't have any figures on an 80 yard desperation football bomb since they are attempted so rarely.
When I played regularly I could hit that shot about 1 in 3. I used to tell people it was just like a free throw, just a bit longer.
Is it very very unlikely? Absolutely. But those 6 h-t-h games give you at least a fool's hope.
That's not why I'm here, though. I was watching Friday nite and they had the Red Sox HOF ceremony before the game. Don Zimmer got inducted. Now, I think he wasn't entirely to blame for the collapse in 1978, but WTF? Is Gragy Little next?
Little was dumber than 10 Tommy Lasordas.
Scotty: Captain, you can't mix matter and antimatter cold.
We'd go up in the biggest explosion since--
Kirk: We can balance our engines into a controlled implosion.
Scotty: That's only a theory. It's never been done....
If you wanted to chance odds of 10,000 to one, maybe,
And I'm just about ready to toss in the towel. We needed a sweep and now we won't get one. Hard to see this team going 10-2 or 11-1 the rest of the way, and that's what would be required. Crazy shite's happened, I suppose.
When we're officially eliminated, can we throw up the Hot Stove thread to get an early start on things?
Obviously it's not so much that we need to go like 12-0, it's the fact that you require either NY or Tampa to go like 4-8, and I don't see it happening.
Maybe Lester can get to 20 wins...that'd be the kind of fun, not overly significant milestone that would make the season look a bit better.
Funnily enough, when everyone was healthy and the back end of the staff was consistent, the Sox were the best team in baseball.
BPro has Boston as a 0.5% chance to make the playoffs. So you're saying Boston, down 1 in the 9th inning, down 3 games to 0 in the ALCS, against Mariano Rivera, at that time had a 10% chance of winning the World Series? I don't think you really believe that.
I assume you're so eager to dismiss contrary evidence because you want to believe it's impossible so you can stop considering the possibility. If that's what you need, go ahead. Likewise, I'd advise that you avoid any discussion of the 2010 Red Sox until they are actually eliminated, lest it offend you.
In reality it is highly improbable. One of the reasons 2004 worked was that few, if any, teams in such a desperate situation were as talented as the 2004 Red Sox. It is rare for a team that talented to find themselves in that situation in the first place. The 2010 Red Sox, in their present condition, show no signs of being that talented. Although their chance of success depends on other teams to collapse, it also requires the Red Sox to take care of their own business. Generally, they haven't* been doing so.
So, no, it's not over. But at this point it's a technicality, much like the technicality that, on opening day, the Pirates still have a chance to win the World Series. So why watch? Why care? Because if they somehow beat the odds and win it all, it's a lot more fun to watch the whole thing happen. Games 4-7 of the 2004 ALCS were an immeasurably larger amount of fun than Game 7 on its own.
* They've been 14-16 at home since the All-Star break, and 18-14 on the road. Nearly every road trip I think, hey, they did pretty well on that trip. Nearly every homestand I think they should be doing better. Sweep by Chicago? Split with Cleveland? Lose 3 of 4 to Texas? I guess that's part of what bewilders. Is it that the replacement players feel more pressure at home? Is it that the team was built with Fenway in mind, but the backup plans weren't? Is it just random variation?
I happen to have decathected, as best as I can. It's because I don't really get a lot of enjoyment from rooting for an extremely low-probability event over a series of weeks, and because I'm super busy with job market stuff. I thought it'd be funny, after a couple different threads in which I made clear that I'd given up (for example, the "I Give Up" thread) to act all confused that other people still hadn't given up. That's all.
Off the top of my head I would say random variation. I would say the competition in the road series has been generally a bit lighter than the home series. Six of ten road series have been against teams at or below .500 (counting Oakland as "at .500") while four of ten home series have been against teams meeting that criteria (lumping Detroit in). Also, if I counted right Buchholz/Lester have 13 road starts against 10 home starts since the Break.
All this is eyeballed so I may not be right on. Flip a couple things around in there and maybe the results are a bit more in line with what we expect.
Also, and this obviously is random variation, the Sox are 2-8 in weekend series since the ASB.
(1) I was speaking of from game 4-7.
(2) That's probably where you should stop.
Let's say there's a 50 percent chance of winning a playoff series and the Red Sox have a 0.5 percent chance of making the playoffs. .005*0.5*0.5 are the chances that the Red Sox make the series right now. That's 800 to 1 odds. I think that would be more improbable than what happened in 2004.
I don't see why you don't take it from the 9th! Sox were one down with Ortiz and Manny up needing one to tie. It's not like (a) they'd never hit HR before or (b) Mariano had never blown a playoff save before.
Ortiz and Manny were not scheduled in the ninth. Millar-Mueller-Bellhorn were the scheduled hitters against Rivera for the ninth with Damon/Cabrera to follow. The inning played out to eventually get around to Ramirez (BB) and Ortiz (F4).
Dirty dirty odds of winning the World Series at that point would be IMO (whatever against Rivera) * 10 * 70
So maybe the odds of the Sox winning the WS (at the 9th against Rivera) comparisons are a lot closer to the Sox making the playoffs in 2010. But it seems kinda spurious to start the comparison then. To GREATLY increase their chances from 200 to 1 to 50 to 1 Sox had to just get a guy to second base. Sox win tonight and tomorrow and their odds aren't going to appreciably change and could actually go down if the Yanks win.
Okay, so Boston now only has maybe the sixth-best baseball team, sixth-best hockey team, third-best NBA team and tenth-best NFL team. You still don't get to complain dammit.
But isn't......nah, not going there.
(Hint: If its lower than 24%, I Give Up!)
Padres (should they get there; they've suffered long enough and it would be a *great* story for them to win it all, given the payroll)
Phillies (the local 9 around here; have a chance to be called the best team in Phillies history, which would be fun and it would be nice for Halladay/Oswalt to get a ring)
Twins (because late-October baseball outdoors in Minneapolis could be hysterical)
Reds (Dusty gets redemption; Arroyo gets another ring!; could be fun story)
Rangers (again, a fun story, though the Hicks connection makes me want to puke)
Braves (though the thought of the Chop makes me want to puke)
I cannot root for TB; I just can't. And NY, of course, I hope gets swept in every round.
That would be interesting.
I'll play;
Phillies/Twins - Two franchises I've always liked for some reason. I remember the evolution of that '87 team from "disaster in '82" to "World Champs" fondly and I can't think of the Phillies without Tug McGraw. If they play in the World Series I want seven extra inning games.
Padres - My first little league team
Rays - I have no problem with them. They've built a hell of a team, I like Maddon a lot and it would be nice to walk through Tampa airport for my Spring Training trip and see more "Rays" than "Yankees" in the gift shops.
Rockies (if) - I thought their fans were outstanding in '07 and I love their ballpark. One of my favorites that I've visited.
Giants (if) - Would Tim Lincecum celebrating be absolutely wild or would it be um....oddly mellow?
Rangers - Something about these guys has always annoyed me.
Reds - I'm not old enough to remember '75, but I remember the late 70s so for some reason I just adopted the Reds as my "NL team to hate" as a kid.
Braves - I liked them as a kid, then '91 rolled around and sweet Jesus did the media overkill get to me. I was rooting HARD for the Twins that year. As nice as it would be to see Cox go out on top I suspect if we got close the media hype would annoy me again.
Yankees - Screw 'em.
For the other teams, I'm a fan of a lot of the Tampa players - Crawford, Longoria, and Pena are all really fun to root for. I never collected any of the dislike of Tampa that a bunch of my fellow Sox fans have, so that's not an issue for me. I'm reasonably happy for the city of Cincinnati to have a good team again, and I like the story of the Braves playing well in Cox's final season. So it's something like:
Twins
Phillies
Rays
Reds
(Braves)
(Padres)
(Giants)
Rangers
(Rockies)
Yankees
Rockies (my sister lives there; liked the ballpark)
Giants (SF fans have waited a long time)
Padres (it's safe to say I'm hoping the champ comes out of the NL West).
Reds (lived near Cincy for a while; be interesting to see Cubs fans reaction to Dusty winning a ring)
Rangers
Twins
Rays
Phils
Braves
Catastrophic event that causes cancellation of World Series
Yankees
My primary rooting interest is a multiple-team tie for a division title or wild card that results in several-day playoff to determine final qualifier(s). And once the playoff starts, my actual answer to the first question is simply a 7-way tie for first.
I'd root for the Rays over the Yanks.
Depends. Is your team playing Minnesota?
Phillies - lived in Philadelphia for two years, had season tickets in '05. My NL team of choice.
Braves - Jose, I am the opposite of you - I got into them in the Red Sox "dark years" ('91 to '94) because of the hype. Also, my best baseball fan friend is a Braves fan.
Those are my clear top two. The others, in order:
Padres - I have a soft spot for them - and the bartender at my weekly stop off for lunch is a huge Padres fan.
Giants (if) - Good fanbase that's had a long wait, and an interesting, if flawed team.
Rangers - Similar long wait for a winner.
Reds - Their run this year screams fluke to me - could root for them in a "this might be their only chance for a while" sort of way.
Rays, Rockies, Twins - Whatever.
Yankees - I would honestly prefer a repeat of 1994.
Talked to a huge Twins fan at TE, Jr.'s soccer practice tonight--favorite player was Roy Smalley, Jr. growing up and actually saw games at old Metropolitan Stadium when he was a kid (which I was fascinated by). His enthusiasm for the Twins this year was infectious; I may have to move them up on my list.
That said, when I asked him how he felt about Pavano starting a Game 2, he said very matter-of-factly that he thought Pavano would make a better Game 1 starter because he was more a veteran than Liriano. Needless to say, it wasn't the answer I was thinking I'd get...
Shields has been pretty lousy all year. Except against the Yankees (before today).
Two years living in Philadelphia made me dislike the Eagles, if it makes you feel any better.
But the real Chad Qualls came on in relief to spike the comeback. That dude is awful this year.
I'd throw a chair, but what's the use?
Sounds like more than enough time. I'm a Giants fan who sports-hates the Eagles way way more than the Redskins or even the Cowboys, mostly due to spending four years in Philly during the Buddy Ryan era. Don't like or dislike the Phillies though.
I realize I'm irrational, but Papelbon is #3 on my most-hated Red Sox pitcher list, behind Lackey and Dice-K... and to be honest, Dice-K is amusing, and cheaper, so he might just be #2 on the list. I'm ready to move on and damn the consequences.
Exactly. He is what he is + he was there in 2007. Lackey is a mouth-breather with no cred, and Paps gets credit for 2007, but has pretty much shot all that away. You have my permission to replace Dice-K with Commander Meltdown/ Captain shake-off/ Colonel Plunk.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to the Sox offseason/hot stove thread because they have some interesting decisions to make.
As I said in another thread, Theo's off-season list (to me) starts with somehow arranging for Lackey to do something that would void the rest of his contract.
I really dislike the Angels, and John Lackey was the guy I hated most on their team. When the Red Sox signed him, I figured I could at least grin and bear it if he kept putting up his career numbers. Instead, he completely #### the bed and gave me even more reason to hate him. What an atrocious signing.
In 2004 Torre was at his "best" in bullpen management. He overworked his 3 best relievers, including the guy who publicly stated that he was injured at the beginning of the season. Mel couldn't do anything with Vazquez, who was really good in the first half. Two of their best players were sick with... something... that wasn't properly diagnosed until they had to stop playing. And in September Brown broke his hand. That Yankees won first three games is greater surprise than them losing that lead.
This is completely irrational. Papelbon should be FIRMLY your #1 most hated Red Sox.
Papelbon only pitches one inning at a time when he pitches, and about half the time it goes smoothly. And we'll always have 2007.
Watching Dice-K pitch is far more painful. Even when he's doing relatively well, he refuses to throw strikes even to the weakest hitter in the lineup.
Being essentially committed to him, Lackey, and Beckett as 3/5 of the rotation for the next two years (and the latter two for beyond that, unless they become bad enough that the team considers eating their respective contracts) makes me want to stop watching baseball.
Matsuzaka can be a lot of fun to watch. When he's on his game he has good stuff and I have a soft spot for good fielding pitchers. No histrionics, no silliness, just go and pitch. His mound presence is fairly similar to Lester actually, he just isn't as good.
Isn't it true that, even when pitching well, he's throwing 18-22 pitches an inning and taking up a lot of time?
Maybe the best move that the Red Sox could make would be to make Rick Anderson an offer he couldn't refuse. I can't believe that his pitching philosophy ("Throw the fucking ball over the fucking plate, you goddam prima donna") hasn't been picked up by a lot more teams. Ray Miller used the same philosophy** 30 years ago and every Orioles pitcher credits him with much of their success.
**"Pitch fast. Change speeds. Throw strikes." He even passed out T-shirts with that slogan to every Orioles' pitcher, just so they wouldn't forget.
But, my experience was that I thought both matchups were basically even. I expected both series to go long, I expected lots of close games. My expectations matched up exactly with what happened. My experience also matched up exactly with the numbers - by every possible measure, those were two very evenly matched teams. The Yankees won 216 games between 2003 and 2004, the Red Sox won 210 (including postseason). They split their two playoff series.
I dunno. I shouldn't push this too hard, but you really sound like you're trying to weasel your way out of the obvious - that the 2004 ALCS was both the greatest comeback and the greatest choke in sports history. But I'm probably pushing that too hard. It's been an annoying season round these parts.
The BJ's improvement and Rays post-Crawford will be a wash, but god knows what the Orioles will do to the AL East next year. Yes, Sox 'might be in trouble'.
Right, and late-October evenings in Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit and New York are always warm and pleasant.
He stands up there with the same, nonplussed look no matter what is going on.
Inscrutable, you might say.
Malaria outbreak.
I always think of this as the "Babe Ruth is dead, throw strikes" school of pitching.
Whatever you want to call it, it sure as hell has worked for the Twins, just as it worked for the Orioles when Ray Miller was their pitching coach. I only wish that The Three Nibblers (Phil Hughes, A. J. Burnett and Joba Chamberlain) would try out this esoteric philosophy, just for comic relief if nothing else. It's not just that it results in fewer walks, but it also results in slower pitch count accumulations and a greater alertness on the part of the defense.
I cut Hughes and Joba some slack as they're young and still learning.
With Burnett, it's really maddening. He's got great stuff, just trust it.
Yeah, I tend to think that Burnett is frequently aiming for the middle of the plate, but just missing by two feet.
Beckett... I'm marginally hopeful he can at least be a great #3/4 starter-type. He'll be overpaid, of course, but he's a hell of a lot better than our current 5th starter...
Lackey. Oy, what a waste of space. He's un-tradeable, so the Red Sox will just have to accept he's a Joe Blanton, 5th-starter type and run him out there for his 10-12, 5 ERA season next year, and grin and bear his little temper-tantrums on the mound, while hoping he runs into a decent season that makes him more tradeable after 2011.
But, yes, the rotation has me very, very concerned going forward. I'm 99% sure the Yankees are going to sign Cliff Lee, which further puts us in a hole. It's just not going to be easy to win 95 games with the rotation they have set right now for 2011, and while I know the VMart/Beltre/Papi signing issues are dominating the Hot Stove discussions right now, to me the biggest need is a decent starter to slot in after Lester, Buchholz, and Beckett.
Lackey is more troubling. There is obviously some BABIP-driven improvement just waiting to happen but the K/BB rates are disturbing. I'd bet on him being marginally better next year, figure a 100-105 ERA+ and if he's as durable as he is been this year, that has benefit.
Still, Lester-Buchholz-Beckett-Lackey-Matsuzaka is pretty strong relative to the rest of the league.
The bullpen is the area I'm more bothered by. Other than Daniel Bard, who comes back that makes you say "whew, glad he's not going anywhere"? Papelbon is back and while he has not been great, he has been generally OK. I'm a huge Doubront fan but it would be his first full season so expectations should be tempered. Atchison will be back but at best he's Delcarmen, 6th/7th inning, preferably when the game isn't too close.
$102.2 million as a posting fee for Yu Darvish?
I used BBRef to remove the top two starters for all AL teams in ERA then figure out how the teams rank without those pitchers;
OAK 3.61
MIN 3.87
TBR 4.09
TEX 4.09
CHI 4.24
NYY* 4.34
CLE 4.37
TOR 4.53
LAA 4.55
SEA 4.59
DET 4.67
BOS 4.69
BAL 4.83
KCR 5.18
I used qualifiers except in the case of the Yankees. For them I used Pettitte because they were the one team that clearly had a better ERA from a non-qualifer (2.97 AP+CC, 3.59 CC+PH). These are overall team ERAs, not just starters.
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