AM 670 says it's over

[laverty]

http://www.670thescore.com/
They are conceding the season.
Fine with me...

[shauntacular]

So? People that say a team is finished when it is playing .608 ball is ridiculous at the end of July.

[laverty]

Ridiculous is as ridiculous does
but yeah. Just the messenger...

[Yoda]

Chicago media and fans are so fickle.

[Greenwit]

In other words.........'They gone.'

[cruzer1]

I said that a few days ago.

[tigersfan25]

It isn't over for the White Sox.

[IdahoBert]

It isn't over for the White Sox.Agree. They could get hot and we could get flat. They are still in the Wild Card.

[cruzer1]

It isn't over for the White Sox.
I think they're mostly done for a few reasons. Number one, their pitching (except Garland and Garcia, which is surprising considering they've struggled all year) is struggling big time. Their schedule is the toughest in the AL, and their defense has been horrible of late. I'd be shocked if they won the wild card.

[tigersfan25]

I think they're mostly done for a few reasons. Number one, their pitching (except Garland and Garcia, which is surprising considering they've struggled all year) is struggling big time. Their schedule is the toughest in the AL, and their defense has been horrible of late. I'd be shocked if they won the wild card.
I disagree, but I also have the right to be wrong :nervous:

[eastside billee]

The way I see it - Leyland said a few days ago that the Tigers were still chasing the White Sox. Others were saying "Well, the White Sox are chasing the Tigers".

At this point I'm saying "the White Sox are looking over their shoulders merely trying to stay in front of the Twins and have basically forgotten about the Tigers".

Tigers just need to stay the course and they'll be just fine.

[Edman85]

I think they're mostly done for a few reasons. Number one, their pitching (except Garland and Garcia, which is surprising considering they've struggled all year) is struggling big time. Their schedule is the toughest in the AL, and their defense has been horrible of late. I'd be shocked if they won the wild card.

This is incorrect. They have to be considered at the very least Wild Card Favorites at this point.

[tiger337]

I think they're mostly done for a few reasons. Number one, their pitching (except Garland and Garcia, which is surprising considering they've struggled all year) is struggling big time. Their schedule is the toughest in the AL, and their defense has been horrible of late. I'd be shocked if they won the wild card.

The White Sox are 3rd in the league in team defense. I agree that pitching is a problem though. They are 11th in the league in pitching (FIP). It's not quite as bad as that as a lop of teams are bunched up but it's not good either. The Tigers are way out in front in team defense and 3rd in FIP so their defense is still helping their pitching a lot. Minnesota is 1st in FIP and last in defense.

[FloridaTigers]

Today is July 23rd. If I'm not mistaken, the season ends around October 2nd or 3rd. Around that general area. Nothing is over until 162 games are played.

[beek_27]

Nothing is over until 162 games are played.

Except if you're a Royal this year.

[Yoda]

Except if you're a Royal this year.

Careful. They could still end up better than the Tigers.

[dt35456884]

Careful. They could still end up better than the Tigers.

They are 32 games out with 64 games left. All they need to do now is to make up one game on the Tigers for every two games played. It could happen.

[DETROCKS]

Living in Chicago, I can tell you that most Sox fans still feel that their team is the one to beat. However, there is a lot of growing concern from people who think that their recent downturn is similar to the one they had last season that allowed Cleveland to close the gap on them. This one is more serious as they're not in first and the Twins and Yankees are right behind them. Pressure is on Kenny Williams to do something.

[estrepe1]

This is incorrect. They have to be considered at the very least Wild Card Favorites at this point.

Completely agree. The White Sox are not close to done,

[belcherboy]

The way I see it - Leyland said a few days ago that the Tigers were still chasing the White Sox. Others were saying "Well, the White Sox are chasing the Tigers".

At this point I'm saying "the White Sox are looking over their shoulders merely trying to stay in front of the Twins and have basically forgotten about the Tigers".

Tigers just need to stay the course and they'll be just fine.

I think they are looking more at the Yankees than the Twins. Although the Twins are playing better baseball than the Yankees!

Isn't it funny how everyone in the AL would complain that they have no chance at the Wild Card due to the Red Sox and Yankees, especially those in the AL East. Now the White Sox are winning over .600 of their games and they are worried about the Twins. The AL Central seems to be easily the most difficult division in baseball. The Mets aren't even close to us in terms of records, but they hold a 13 game lead?

It is quite possible that the Twins could still win our division. I'm banking that it won't happen, but they have almost caught the White Sox and if they keep playing the way they have played the last 40 games (31-9 record), the Tigers could be seeing the Twins in their rear mirror.

This is what we have missed out on the past decade + in Detroit. Baseball really is a wonderful sport!

[DTroppens]

The Twins will be proving if they are major players this week with three against Chicago and then three more against Detroit. My guess is they will put themselves right back in the thick of the WC race by week's end.

Their turnaround since the start of the season has been truly amazing. And to see that pitching staff go from seemingly not being able to get anyone out to being pretty darn good (as was more expected at the season's start) has been pretty impressive.
Just did a quick check
Avg runs alowed up to May 1: 6.07
Avg runs allowed from May 2 to now: 3.96.

I actually have three of their pitchers on a fantasy baseball team that's running away with first place (well by about seven games right now) with these guys making a huge difference.

[munchman33]

I think they're mostly done for a few reasons. Number one, their pitching (except Garland and Garcia, which is surprising considering they've struggled all year) is struggling big time. Their schedule is the toughest in the AL, and their defense has been horrible of late. I'd be shocked if they won the wild card.

Buehrle and Vasquez are struggling. No one else. Contreras is 0-2 in his last two starts, but has been pretty lights out over the last month, including those starts.

[RobSk]

I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone is counting the WSox out at this point. They still have a very solid group of starting pitchers, with Garland and Contreras pitching very well, and a superb offense.

The Twins pitching is at least as good as the Sox, but I don't think that Mauer/Morneau/Cuddyer/White/Hunter matches up over the second half with Thome/Konerko/Dye/Crede/Iguchi.

Rondell has been helping them a huge amount over the last couple of weeks, and while I know he's not headed back to .400 OPS land, he can't keep doing 1.0+ OPS for the rest of the year, whereas I believe that it's possible that Thome/Dye/Konerko can hit at a 1.0+ OPS pace for the remainder of the year.

Both are tough teams, no doubt.

Rob

[DTroppens]

Robsk,
I agree. When it is said and done the Sox will likely be in the playoffs. Heck, they are right now. Teams have slides. I was going to post that we've been lucky not to have huge streaks but I just checked it and saw we lost 7 of 9 and 8 of 10 at two different periods. They'll get it going again.

But I do think the Twins have put themselves in an interesting mix right now.

[ballmich]

The sox probably have the most potent 3-4-5 hitters in baseball. if Thome gets hot, he can carry a team on his back. not to mention that the trade deadline hasn't passed and you never know what type of move(s) they'll be making. i'm not counting the Chisox out of anything yet.

[RobSk]

D,

Sure. The fact that the Twins are mentioned at all at this point is a testament to the willingness of Twins management to quickly cut their losses with the offseason mistakes and move immediately to their talented youth (Kubel, Liriano, Bartlett, Neshek).

Of course, if I were a Twins fan, I'd be seriously wondering why on earth they were ever playing stiffs like Juan Castro and Tony Batista.

The bummer also for the Twins is that their two good (IMO) moves in the offseason also didn't really work well: Castillo and White. Both good ballplayers that have had extremely mediocre/cataclysmically awful years. White will have to hit really, really well for the Twins to be in it, especially if they have to play Jason Tyner in CF for 1/2 the rest of the season.

So after thinking about it, I think it comes down to this: I think the Sox are better the rest of the year for all the reasons I've mentioned, plus this:

The main thing the Twins have at this moment is good SP, and I suspect it's going to be tough for that to continue. Why? Because Liriano is great, but will not have a 1.93 ERA at the end of the year. So I suspect he'll ahve some rough starts down the stretch. Santana will be Santana (excellent) and Radke will be Radke (average), but at this point, Silva and Baker have been bad and continue to be bad. So they can count on a couple of bad starts per rotation, at least, and I think that's going to be hard to support with their offense.

The White Sox and the Tigers have had similar stretches, (though the Tigers to a lesser degree), but both teams are quite a bit better offensively, IMO.

Rob

[DrWho17]

Buehrle and Vasquez are struggling. No one else. Contreras is 0-2 in his last two starts, but has been pretty lights out over the last month, including those starts.
Rogers/Robertson/Miner have struggled about as badly, in the past month.

[caseyo4]

I really think the Twins will end up ahead of the White Sox, for the same reason we are: Pitching.

[irishmick79]

Listening to the Score guys just blast the White Sox is really entertaining - I guess since the Cubs are officially Dead on Arrival and have been since May, they have nobody to really take their animosity out on. You can only make so many Dusty Baker jokes before it starts to get old.

[DTroppens]

I too am a bit concerned about our pitching actually.
What looks to be a strength right now has a few crinks in it right now. I have to be honest. Right now (the last week or since the All-Star break) our pitching staff is looking more like I expected at the season's start.

I have this...

Expect to continue: Bonderman, Walker and Grilli (the last two because they aren't taxed at all).

Better than anticipated and probably will regress a bit: Ledezma, Miner, Maroth (when he comes back), Rogers, Robertson (you can get me to agree with expect to continue with this one as well depending how you approach the argument).

Wild cards (go either way): Jones, Ledezma

No reason to expect decline except of their youth (which can be an indicator): Verlander, Zumaya.

No faith at all and that hasn't changed: Colon.

I really don't expect our pitching to "get better" and probably expect it to "come back to Earth" a bit. That's why I really like our big edge in both the division and wild card race. I think we still may need one or the other to make the push. If we can go a few more weeks and keep this lead on both the WC and division I'll breath much easier. I clearly don't look at our pitching as positive as I did a month ago. What they have done has been amazing, but I think what they've done isn't their "average showings" but clearly (as a collective unit) way above average. Looking like we may possibly be headed for a tiny lull with our staff. There is a part of me that thinks we clearly won't see what we did in the first half again this year.

[IdahoBert]

Maybe our hitting will heat up and offset our less than stellar pitching for the remainder of the season. Inge and Monroe seem to be hitting better and if Young contributes and others stay stable we should be OK.

Shelton is still the big worry. If he were hitting I would be confident that we were not set up for a fall. Right now he seems to be a rally killer.

[Buddha]

The Score said it was over in June. Of course, back then it was over for the Tigers because the Sox took 2 of 3 from the Tigers at the Cell.

It wasn't over then and it isn't over now and it won't be over in August.

Last year the Sox had a 15 game lead go down to one and a half in the final weekend. The same thing can happen to Detroit.

[irishmick79]

Maybe our hitting will heat up and offset our less than stellar pitching for the remainder of the season. Inge and Monroe seem to be hitting better and if Young contributes and others stay stable we should be OK.

Shelton is still the big worry. If he were hitting I would be confident that we were not set up for a fall. Right now he seems to be a rally killer.

Totally agree on Shelton. With the rest of the bottom of the order starting to swing the bat a bit better, maybe he'll get some better pitches to swing at and get into a grove. That being said, I have very little confidence in Shelton's ability to get the timely hit.

[DTroppens]

The Tigers are an amazing group for the fact that you look at the parts and wonder how the sum of those parts become a team that's the best team in baseball. Even with their great seasons by so many people it's hard for me to look at this team and say "we're a 30+ wins over .500 team." I'm not complaining - in fact I find it amazingly overwhelming. But because I think that it also keeps me from thinking we have anything locked up yet which is probably a good thing.

66-32 Geez! That's simply amazing.

[pfife]

wxyt is talking about Guillen totally blasting garland. Speaking about Guillen imploding.

[DTroppens]

But then you play the numbers game...

if we play .520 ball the rest of the way 99 wins.
if we play .550 ball the rest of the way 101 wins.

And that's considerably below what we are doing now obviously. So we actually could decline considerably and it would still be very very tough for enough teams to catch us to knock us out of the playoffs. If we play .550 ball someone (Yankees, Jays or Twins) are going to have to play near .700 ball the rest of the way just to catch us. And that's if we ONLY play .550 ball.

[munchman33]

wxyt is talking about Guillen totally blasting garland. Speaking about Guillen imploding.

If you only knew Jon Garland....he constantly needs to be ripped into. His stuff is great, but he really loses concentration easily.

[munchman33]

Rogers/Robertson/Miner have struggled about as badly, in the past month.

Rogers sure did look fine against the White Sox....

[Buddha]

wxyt is talking about Guillen totally blasting garland. Speaking about Guillen imploding.

That's not imploding. That's Ozzie.

Wishful thinking by wxyt.

[RobSk]

Rogers/Robertson/Miner have struggled about as badly, in the past month.

You're forgetting about the great deoderant. In that period, we are 10-5 in games started by those three guys. Some of the starts have been good, some bad. We've won 2/3.

If you do that in games where you have 'struggling' starters, you're a darn good baseball team.

FWIW, in the last month, in games started by Buerhle/Vasquez, the Sox are 2-7.

*That* is struggling, and with no deoderant.

I'm obviously not saying that winning the game means the guy pitched well. That's absurd. But it sure makes it easier to forget whatever struggles he had.

FWIW, in July (not the last month, cause that's harder to get), here are the stats:

Buehrle: 21 IP 11.39 ERA (!!!)
Vasquez: 19 IP 6.16 ERA

Rogers: 15 IP 5.74 ERA
Robertson: 28 IP 5.65 ERA
Miner: 17 IP 6.75 ERA

Both groups are struggling, no doubt. I think Buerhle and Vasquez have been worse.

Rob