Wednesday, September 19, 2007

September Swoon? Who Cares

Although the Sox don't WANT to lose the American League East to the Yanquis, it may not matter. There's a recent track record of teams (check out who wont the World Series last year) of teams that don't do well in September yet succeed in October. See what Tom Caron of NESN has to say about this matter...

3 comments:

JS said...

The thing is, the Sox just don't seem that good. Something I've been saying all year. Even when they were way up in the standings. It was just that the Yankees sucked so bad for the first half of the season, that we seemed good. Pitching carried us. We haven't been able to score runs all year. Now the pitching is faltering too.

The thing I don't get about this attitude of backing into the playoffs, is the lack of emphasis being placed on home-field advantage. Since when is this, not important?

I think we're going to need every advantage we can get, as I agree with Bob Ryan's seeding of the AL contenders. If we aren't the best team and are giving up home field advantage, I don't see us going anywhere in the playoffs. So this strategy of experimenting with shaky pitchers and resting guys until October with the attitude that we're still going to make it into the playoffs isn't going to payoff. Instead we'll both lose the division and suffer an inglorious early exit in the first round. If that's going to happen either way, wouldn't it be nice to at least get the division? And doesn't it seem more likely that a team going into the playoffs hot, is more likely to win. I know there's evidence to the contrary, but really aren't these exceptions to the rule. You can catch lightning in a bottle, but it's rare, and it's even more rare that you can plan to do that and succeed.

Aaron_Strout said...

Thanks man. A little more doomy and gloomy than I’m feeling right now but all valid points! ;)

JS said...

Yeah. Well, I'm hoping that since I haven't been able to make a good call all season (reference my call about the sox sweeping the yanks in the bronx), that my costanza streak will continue. ;-)

This article from Rob Bradford actually makes me feel a little more hopeful.

I'm just astounded that on 'eei and the like, that the hosts are saying this a "good strategy". Obviously you need to rest people if they're hurt.

What I can't get behind is leaving your tired aging starter (see Schilling last week), your shaky free agent reliever (see Gagne), and your up and down set up guy (Timlin) in too long, just to pressure test them. Thereby giving up at least 2 games and maybe 3 games on the division lead.

If it were 3 1/2 right now. We'd be sitting pretty and no one would care who's resting, who's pitching etc. And it woudn't feel like a must win tonight.

They're killing me. Anyway, Coco's back tonight and Manny should be back in the next couple of days...