Part of me hopes the White Sox win this one and then we get to see the graphic "Only one team in postseason history has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit."
If HOU can win here, Dookie gets the loss. Of course Petite did not get the loss yesterday, but it would Clemens the loser in game 1, Andy started game 2 and then Dookie the loss in game 3. HMMMM.
All these Prison Break promos remind me of the show Cop Rock for some reason.
Wow, another break for Chicago. So either:
ReplyDelete1) God wants the White Sox to win, or
2) This WS has been fixed also. Just in the other way.
I never realized how big a dude Dye is.
ReplyDeleteWell, I noticed that Barbara Bush was gone and then *boom* CHI takes a 2 run lead. The curse of Barbara Bush????
ReplyDeleteDunno if anyone else on the East Coast stayed up to watch the end of this one, but good lord, what a great game. Would have been a ton better if the Uribe error had led to another run (or two or three) but even so... this could be the most exciting sweep in baseball history.
ReplyDeleteI am going to add my two cents (and I haven't done that for quite some time)...
ReplyDeleteI was doubting the whole AL is better than the NL, but this is ridiculous. Two WS sweeps in a row? And I still don't think the White Sox are that great of a team.
Secondly, can we finally put to rest all this "Great pitching wins championships!" stuff? I agree that you need great pitching, but you need offense, as well. Just ask Houston. You need "A good all around team to win championships." While the White Sox are not a great team all around, it is difficult to find holes.
Do you really think the White sox don't have great pitching? Did you watch the ALCS?
ReplyDeleteIts one of those things that you look at and think, they aren't that good, but I think you'd be fooling yourself.
They are 10-1 in the postseason and have outscored their opponents 64-31. (Last year the Red sox outscored their playoff opponents 90-69). Throw in the last week of the season and they have won 15 out of 16. If they had another week, they would likely approach the Sox of last year winning 22 of 25. and what is even more impressive about this, with the exception of 2 games against DET, they have done this against teams that won an average of 93 games.
No, I think the White Sox have great pitching, but so does Houston. The difference is that the White Sox have an offense, as well. This is something that is deficient on the Houston side.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the Red Sox last year had a game in which they gave up 19, and that was a fluke as we saw by the rest of the games.
The Sox had great pitching and great hitting last year. There were not many holes on that team.
My overall point was that you need a complete team to win it all, not just pitching.
Yep, I agree that you need a complete team. Offense and defense. We haven't seen it in the postseason, but HOU's offense was about the same as CHI. CHI was 9th in AL, HOU was 11th (with 2 more teams). Both essentially led their league in pitching. and their run differential was pretty darn close. Hell the Sox scored 7 or more runs in half their post season games last year.
ReplyDeleteI would not be so quick to discount the 19-8 game (and even if you do, they still outscored their opponents 82-50), but they also gave up 10 runs in the first LCS game and 9 runs in Game 1 of the WS.
Though in fairness, 6 of runs in Game 1 of the ALCS were because the pitcher wasn't honest about his medical condition.
ReplyDelete(I was going to go on to say that many of the WS Game 1 runs were unearned, but only one was. Which is amazing -- 8 errors in 2 games, which led to only 2 unearned runs. Pretty lucky, when you think about it.)
Ah, but in determining how complete or even how dominant a team is, you need to consider defense. Run differential, which by most advanced standards, is the most objective measure of how good a team is, makes no distinction between ER and unearned runs.
ReplyDeleteAs for Schilling and his injury, I agree that it happened and it cost us a game, but I disagree whenever you start taking singular events out of an equation. Like, if you don't count the 19-8 loss in Game 3, or if you don't include the Yankees 22-0 drubbing last year against CLE. It really is silly. If you don't want to count the 19-8 game, then take away game 7 that they won 10-3.
Furthermore, you could have STL fans saying things like, you can't count Game 3 because Suppan had a brainfart on the bases.
Yeah, I was just refering to the idea that based on high scoring you can't say "the pitching was bad". Which I know isn't what you said.
ReplyDeleteSo, is the thought that the Sox didn't have great pitching when they won it all? I would think they did...I would also add that they (obviously) had an excellent offense.
ReplyDeleteThe White Sox were the most complete team this year. They won it all.
I think when the Sox won it all they had very good pitching. Not great. But solid. If my memory serves me, they were 3rd or 4th in ERA (I think it was 3rd in ERA but 4th in runs per game) and first in offense.
ReplyDelete