jung

So once Lackey was pulled for today, I expected talk about him getting game 2 but it sounds more like they may be inclined to give him game 1. Surely Lackey could have pitched game 2 without being pulled from today's start but would need today off to go in game 1.

Man I wish Webster would just generally look less like he is going to have kittens right out there on the mound when he pitches. Kid just always looks so disappointed. Heck kid ya' just escaped three walks in one inning in a ML game. Be happy!

Well three shoulder I think...maybe more but I think three anyway.

Even though we are post season, I hate the last day of the season maybe more than I love the first day of the season.

Jeez Johny Ya gotta at least try to foul that off man. Can't just let it go by for strike 3.

We are still really struggling to get the ball to Koji. I know I said it a week or two ago but I think we are going to put a lotta' pressure on Demps in the post season.

I agree Bell. Plus anything that dents the 162 which was always supposed to be sacred in baseball just makes no sense. Baseball has tried too hard to preserve the sanctity of the 162 to turn it into a joke now. Becomes hard to take them seriously about anything once they start screwing with stuff that they have protected for so long. I think for sure, they have pushed interleague way too far...to the point where we have interleague going on all the way up to the end up the year. Just messes up the schedule too much. Honestly I just don't care about seeing the Sox play so many games cross league...I just don't. I would much prefer more games between the league contestants.

Absolutely Bell. That would have been hilarious. Another egg on their faces moment for the powers that be in baseball.

It does sort of seem that with the exception of this series here...where you could make the case that O's/Sox should have been a more meaningful series, the others are kinda' whacked. Guardians got the Twins...nothin' going on there and the Guardians have not played anybody in weeks. Rangers got Angels I think..Nothing there but it should have been a meaningful series. A's got the Mariners....nothing there. Rays got Jays...should have meant something. There again just bad luck I guess. Yankees/Astros...there is a joke for you. But I never thought the Skanks were going anywhere this year. Tigers got the Marlins??? Please!!!! Boy Uncle Bud's retirement was long overdue. There is really lots to fix and schedule issues being one. The tiebreaker which we avoided is whacked. What the hell does inter-division record have to do with trying to pick between two teams with the best overall records? That is just stupid! You could maybe make a case for intra-division. The way it is now is so irrelevant and senseless.

Looks like the A's tried to mount some sort of comeback at the end. Bell was right though. I had so many pages open trying to follow both games that I confused the Cleveland score with the A's score. Presuming it is Oakland/Detroit in one series that should be fun to watch along with our own series.

Seattle now up 5-1 in the 9th inning. Oh my God!!!!

So I decided to look at post season Game 1 wins as they relate to post season series wins just for the heck of it. Without looking, I did think that winning Game 1 would translate more often than not to a series win and thought that it would be more significant in a 5 game series than a 7 game series. The former is true but not really the latter. Easy to find the data for a seven game series. Harder for a five game series. Regardless of home field, in seven games league championship series, the Game 1 winner is the eventual series winner at a .611 clip. The Game 1 winner in the WS is the eventual series winner at a .635 clip. Yes the Game 1 winner with home field wins the WS at an even higher rate at .677. In the Division Series, the Game 1 winner is the eventual series winner at a .623 clip. Clearly winning Game 1 is a very big deal. The chances of winning either the next 4/6 (7g) or 3/4 (5g) don't look very good. Does sort of come back to the same thing. If winning Game 1 is important then the Game 1 pitching match ups are important. Just for purposes of some perspective, if you laid those percentages out on the 162 regular season, you end up with 100+ win seasons in all cases but .611 which produces a 99 win season.

Well as I said earlier, giving up on WMB at this point nor anywhere near this point could turn out to be a monstrous mistake by the Sox if they went down that road, on par with Bagwell. As for comparisons to Reynolds, the difference is in the walks and K's. Reynolds is a freer swinger than WMB but has a better idea of what is being thrown. So, he both strikes out more (freer swinger) and walks more (better pitch recognition). I would take WMB over Reynolds in a heartbeat and I would not give up on WMB whereas I could be convinced to give up on Reynolds. I don't think you easily stop a guy like Reynolds from swinging out of his shoelaces. However I am not at all convinced that WMB's pitch recognition will not improve. Once it does, it sends him on his way to anything from a very solid ML hitting career to an outstanding ML hitting career.....barring injury. Depends on what WMB decides to do once he has better pitch recognition.

The elements of victory mentioned are as described by 700 and jacko. Although Buch went down for an extended period, Lackey the ultimate wild card really balanced out the scales of justice with an unexpectedly solid season long performance considering his TJ. Combine that with Felix and his 15 straight starts giving up fewer than 3 runs, the addition of Peavey and even to some extent, Demps and the starting pitching was a huge plus even with Buch sitting out 3 months. Biggest element....Lackey's performance which nobody would have projected giving the 1st year back from TJ track record for ML pitchers, followed by Peavey's impact both real on the mound and apparently perceived by his rotation mates. The other two major elements: The Sox process for generating offense.....really could not have foreseen this Sox team fielding the most disciplined offense in baseball, not only 1-9 but 1-12 when you consider the bench players also falling right in step. 1,000 more pitches seen than the next best team mark in baseball???? You have got to be kidding me! Not convinced that even the Sox themselves could ever be that disciplined again as a team over the 162...an amazing performance by this group of players and in fact the only path they had to producing this much offense. You can only hope that your whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. You can't predict it. and, Ueh..... had both Hanrahan and Bailey not gone down, this year's best closer in baseball would not have closed a single game for the Sox. I don't believe that even Hanrahan/Bailey together would have produced what Ueh has produced closing games. However I do think they would have done just good enough to have kept Ueh from floating to the top. I don't at all believe that this season was a matter of luck as one of the thread starters here (troll) claims and posted. You make your own luck anyway. However the things that made this season for the Sox were truly unpredictable. To me, the players themselves both individually and as a group deserve the lions share of the credit for this regular season performance, followed by the FO and even upper management and then the coaching staff.

Well, we have to either win 1 of 2 or Oakland has to lose 1 of 2. The way Feldman pitched tonight might be indicative of the Orioles really sort of already polishing up the golf clubs. That was the worst starting pitching performance for or against the Sox I have seen this season. With any luck, maybe that is what we will see for starting pitching from the Orioles in the next two games. Then again, maybe the A's are benefiting from the same thing out west. A Sox win tomorrow would be ideal.

Being that Interdivision record is the next tie breaker, the A's get a bit of break in that all of their last games are interdivision games. So they have more of a chance to improve their interdivision than we do. Long story short, going 1-1 in Colorado is not as helpful to us as we would have liked. At the end of the day, I think it is total best record for us or the A's get the upper hand.

Yup...I have thought for weeks that they just will run out of season and I still think they will run out of season.

This is working out pretty good for Koji. Two days off, and an inning of work. He has gotten just about the right amount of work here at the back end of the year. Probably will pitch once more, hopefully the last regular season game depending on what happens in the next to last game. Hopefully the A's will lose tonight.

I think the A's should just be getting underway tonight in Seattle.

I don't think this was a bad showing by Buch at all. The longer Buch stayed out the less likely he would come back as dominant as he was. I think it is pretty remarkable that he is doing as well so far as he has been doing....which is part of the problem with landing on the shelf for such a long period of time. Still think the whole thing could have been managed better by all parties involved. But, it is what it is.

Timlin is starting to wear me out a bit here. Wish we could have ended the season with Eck.

Funny how they are talking about umps not calling the high strike cause this ump cannot see the low strike to save his skin. Good thing its not Lester out there tonight. Steam would be venting out his ears by now.

Oh come on Buck..Leave him out there. You not having any fun??? No sense of humor.

Keep him out there Buck. We like batting practice pitchers.

After the first pitch of the second inning I really thought Feldman was going to get crushed again. He threw what was the only good curve ball he had thrown to that point...really was a good pitch well within the strike zone and the ump called it a ball. If Feldman can't get that pitch called a strike he would do well to just surrender now.