Monday Pythagorean - 9/18/2006
So it's come to this - Boston goes into Yankee Stadium in mid-September, splits one double-header, sweeps another, and no one cares. It doesn't matter - it's irrelevant. Why? Because the Red Sox "played" themselves entirely out of contention - and relevance - in August.
They did that by having some of their pitchers and several position players hurt. Now, some are back, but the starting pitching is still a mess. With a capital 'M'. The Red Sox starters for this should-have-been-vital-but-wasn't four games series were Josh Beckett (which one could have hoped for at the start of the season) and then Julian Tavarez, Kyle Snyder and Kevin Jarvis (which one would never in his worst nightmares have imagined at the start of the season.)
The only items of interest right now relate to 2007. Are Dustin Pedroia and David Murphy ready? It's impossible to say, but they each had a nice weekend in New York. Is Papelbon going back to the starting rotation? Indications are that he is. How well will that work? Who will close? Can they finally get a bullpen right next year? Will Coco Crisp be back? Mark Loretta? Alex Gonzalez? One of those last two, I'd guess, but not both. Is Mike Timlin done? Will Trot Nixon come back? Will they try to move Manny again? Can they find a back-up catcher? One who can play when Varitek goes down, as becomes increasingly likely at his age? Is this another lost year in the development of Wily Mo Pena, or can he continue to progress?
There are a lot of questions facing this team. There were things they did last off-season that I didn't like, and they didn't work out. There were things they did last off-season that I did like, and most of them didn't work out, either. This team had some design problems, but an enormous amount of really bad luck to go with it.
| R/G | (rank) | RA/G | (rank) | Pythagorean | (rank) | W | L | W | L | Luck | Detroit | 4.95 | (8) | 4.05 | (1) | 0.591 | (1) | 88 | 61 | 89 | 60 | 1 | New York | 5.72 | (1) | 4.72 | (6) | 0.587 | (2) | 87 | 62 | 90 | 59 | 3 | Minnesota | 4.97 | (6) | 4.27 | (2) | 0.569 | (3) | 85 | 64 | 88 | 61 | 3 | Chicago | 5.46 | (2) | 4.79 | (8) | 0.56 | (4) | 83 | 66 | 84 | 65 | 1 | Cleveland | 5.35 | (3) | 4.93 | (10) | 0.538 | (5) | 80 | 68 | 69 | 79 | -11 | Oakland | 4.72 | (10) | 4.39 | (3) | 0.533 | (6) | 79 | 69 | 86 | 62 | 7 | Texas | 5.16 | (4) | 4.8 | (9) | 0.533 | (7) | 80 | 70 | 76 | 74 | -4 | Toronto | 4.97 | (7) | 4.66 | (5) | 0.529 | (8) | 79 | 70 | 79 | 70 | 0 | Los Angeles | 4.67 | (12) | 4.61 | (4) | 0.505 | (9) | 76 | 74 | 80 | 70 | 4 | Boston | 5.15 | (5) | 5.11 | (11) | 0.504 | (10) | 76 | 74 | 81 | 69 | 5 | Seattle | 4.54 | (13) | 4.75 | (7) | 0.479 | (11) | 71 | 78 | 71 | 78 | 0 | Baltimore | 4.79 | (9) | 5.58 | (13) | 0.431 | (12) | 64 | 85 | 64 | 85 | 0 | Tampa Bay | 4.28 | (14) | 5.35 | (12) | 0.4 | (13) | 60 | 89 | 57 | 92 | -3 | Kansas City | 4.71 | (11) | 5.95 | (14) | 0.395 | (14) | 59 | 91 | 58 | 92 | -1 | |
|---|
| New York | 98 | 64 |
| Detroit | 97 | 65 |
| Minnesota | 96 | 66 |
| Oakland | 94 | 68 |
| Chicago | 91 | 71 |
| New York | 98 | 64 |
| Detroit | 97 | 65 |
| Minnesota | 95 | 67 |
| Oakland | 93 | 69 |
| Chicago | 91 | 71 |
| R/G | (rank) | RA/G | (rank) | Pythagorean | (rank) | W | L | W | L | Luck | Minnesota | 6.38 | (2) | 2.75 | (3) | 0.823 | (1) | 7 | 1 | 6 | 2 | -1 | Toronto | 5.29 | (6) | 2.57 | (1) | 0.789 | (2) | 6 | 1 | 5 | 2 | -1 | Texas | 5.57 | (5) | 2.71 | (2) | 0.789 | (3) | 6 | 1 | 4 | 3 | -2 | New York | 6.78 | (1) | 4.78 | (7) | 0.655 | (4) | 6 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 0 | Boston | 5.25 | (7) | 4.13 | (5) | 0.609 | (5) | 5 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 1 | Oakland | 5 | (9) | 4.71 | (6) | 0.527 | (6) | 4 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Chicago | 3.86 | (11) | 3.86 | (4) | 0.5 | (7) | 4 | 3 | 2 | 5 | -2 | Kansas City | 6.29 | (3) | 6.71 | (12) | 0.47 | (8) | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | Detroit | 5.67 | (4) | 6.5 | (10) | 0.438 | (9) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 | Seattle | 5.13 | (8) | 6.5 | (10) | 0.393 | (10) | 3 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 0 | Baltimore | 4.75 | (10) | 7.13 | (13) | 0.323 | (11) | 3 | 5 | 2 | 6 | -1 | Cleveland | 3 | (13) | 5.14 | (9) | 0.272 | (12) | 2 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 0 | Los Angeles | 2.63 | (14) | 5 | (8) | 0.235 | (13) | 2 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | Tampa Bay | 3.86 | (11) | 7.43 | (14) | 0.232 | (14) | 2 | 5 | 0 | 7 | -2 | |
|---|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Comment?
<< Home