PLAIN and SIMPLE:, Are we winning this division or not?

Putting the power myth to rest once and for all. The Red Sox in 2007 are 2nd in the AL in OPS, behind only NY, 3rd in the AL in SLG, behind NY and Detroit, 3rd in the AL in runs scored, again behind NY and Detroit.

Here are the teams which are ahead of us in hitting HRs:

Yankees
White Sox
Devil Rays
Indians
Rangers
Tigers
A's
Blue Jays

Only 2 of those long ball hitting teams will be playing in October, along with the 9th in the AL Red Sox. Get off the HR issue. It doesn't matter nearly as much as you think it does.

Fuck Ryan! He's a curmudgeonly old geezer who hasn't gotten over the fact that the game has changed over the last 30 years. If we pick up a game on the Yankees this weekend, he (and every other idiotic media mouthpiece) will be singing a different tune.

Dear Bob Ryan:

Go fuck yourself.

Love,
StartedIn67

Thin & 67,

Amen and Amen!!!

Ryan and his band of vultures are pandering to the part in all of us that wants to give in to the panic and say "here we go again". Remember, their business is putting arses in the seats (or eyeballs on the sportspage in this case)

Bad news is always going to sell more than good news so it does these yahoos no good to talk about the reasons why the Sox will pull this off.

I say the Sox win the division by 3 games. My neighbor is the only blowjay fan in the world I know and I've told him if the jays don't at least split he may want to park his car elsewhere for a while.

ok ryan is wrong as are the rest of the baseball press,but on what basis do any you you really believe the sox with ridiculous amount of injuries are capable of winning any series at this point.the yankees are not losing4 games from here,not the way they are playing and the minor league teams they will be playing,cmon this club is in bad health and the medical staff may have become more important than fraconna,do no not ignore the health right now,its bad.

As was the health of the Cardinals at this point last year.

Putting the power myth to rest once and for all. The Red Sox in 2007 are 2nd in the AL in OPS, behind only NY, 3rd in the AL in SLG, behind NY and Detroit, 3rd in the AL in runs scored, again behind NY and Detroit.

Here are the teams which are ahead of us in hitting HRs:

Yankees
White Sox
Devil Rays
Indians
Rangers
Tigers
A's
Blue Jays

Only 2 of those long ball hitting teams will be playing in October, along with the 9th in the AL Red Sox. Get off the HR issue. It doesn't matter nearly as much as you think it does.

Thin:

Completely agree with you; HRs are overrated, and then teams tend to play for the long ball; when it doesn't come, you lose.

However . . . one can't help but wonder what this team's record would be if both Papi and Many were having good HR years. Wow, we'd be at least 5-6 games ahead of where we are now, probably pushing 115 wins.

But the flip side is Youk, Pedroia (Crash), Lowell, and now Ellsbury have all played far over their heads. Or at least what was predicted of them. So we gave up some long balls in exchange for the great play of these 4 guys; we've done just fine.

Pedroia over his head? How do you quantify that? What body of major leaguer work suggests what his capacity is, really? It's entirely possible that we've found ourselves situated with a spunky little fuck-yeah Wade Boggs clone patrolling the right side of second base these days. Just imagine what his numbers would look like without that April adjustment period, eh?

And then think again that his first cousin .100 SLG removed is sitting in AAA waiting to patrol the LEFT side of second base. Some fun, eh?

Putting the power myth to rest once and for all. The Red Sox in 2007 are 2nd in the AL in OPS, behind only NY, 3rd in the AL in SLG, behind NY and Detroit, 3rd in the AL in runs scored, again behind NY and Detroit.

Here are the teams which are ahead of us in hitting HRs:

Yankees
White Sox
Devil Rays
Indians
Rangers
Tigers
A's
Blue Jays

Only 2 of those long ball hitting teams will be playing in October, along with the 9th in the AL Red Sox. Get off the HR issue. It doesn't matter nearly as much as you think it does.

Thin:

Completely agree with you; HRs are overrated, and then teams tend to play for the long ball; when it doesn't come, you lose.

However . . . one can't help but wonder what this team's record would be if both Papi and Many were having good HR years. Wow, we'd be at least 5-6 games ahead of where we are now, probably pushing 115 wins.

But the flip side is Youk, Pedroia (Crash), Lowell, and now Ellsbury have all played far over their heads. Or at least what was predicted of them. So we gave up some long balls in exchange for the great play of these 4 guys; we've done just fine.

youk wound up exactltlt where most people thought he would mid teen hrs a 285 or so ba and little better in th rbi dept,my arguement is that against ace pitching playing for long innings can be like waiting for snow in georgia it doesnt happen often thats why they are ace pitchere,mistakes happen thats where the hr problem seems to be the issue for me,sabbathia is far more likely to give up a homerun thatn to walk and allow a couple of hits.id be curious to see wher the ops has been since the yankee series team wise.

Putting the power myth to rest once and for all. The Red Sox in 2007 are 2nd in the AL in OPS, behind only NY, 3rd in the AL in SLG, behind NY and Detroit, 3rd in the AL in runs scored, again behind NY and Detroit.

Here are the teams which are ahead of us in hitting HRs:

Yankees
White Sox
Devil Rays
Indians
Rangers
Tigers
A's
Blue Jays

Only 2 of those long ball hitting teams will be playing in October, along with the 9th in the AL Red Sox. Get off the HR issue. It doesn't matter nearly as much as you think it does.

Thin:

Completely agree with you; HRs are overrated, and then teams tend to play for the long ball; when it doesn't come, you lose.

However . . . one can't help but wonder what this team's record would be if both Papi and Many were having good HR years. Wow, we'd be at least 5-6 games ahead of where we are now, probably pushing 115 wins.

But the flip side is Youk, Pedroia (Crash), Lowell, and now Ellsbury have all played far over their heads. Or at least what was predicted of them. So we gave up some long balls in exchange for the great play of these 4 guys; we've done just fine.

youk wound up exactltlt where most people thought he would mid teen hrs a 285 or so ba and little better in th rbi dept,my arguement is that against ace pitching playing for long innings can be like waiting for snow in georgia it doesnt happen often thats why they are ace pitchere,mistakes happen thats where the hr problem seems to be the issue for me,sabbathia is far more likely to give up a homerun thatn to walk and allow a couple of hits.id be curious to see wher the ops has been since the yankee series team wise.

Sabathia and Carmona have given up 19 and 14 HR respectively in 64 starts, including many against Detroit. That says you have about a 50/50 chance of getting lucky enough to go yard on them in an outing. Detroit with all their power went 6-12 against the Indians, including 2-5 against Sabathia and Carmona.

HR's don't win in the postseason. Diamondbacks, Angels, Marlins, White Sox, Cardinals. None were good HR hitting teams.

Can't quite do OPS since the Yankee series without taking a lot of time I don't have to do the calculations, but here are the AVG/OBP/SLG/OPS numbers for the AL playoff contenders for both the last 7 days and the month of September:


Last 7 days:
------------------------------------
BOS .245/.359/.472/.831
NYY .273/.360/.368/.728
CLE .272/.342/.426/.768
LAA .261/.332/.374/.706


September:
------------------------------------
BOS .279/.363/.457/.820
NYY .276/.366/.449/.815
CLE .264/.346/.440/.786
LAA .289/.364/.416/.781


That's right, folks, for both the past 7 days and the month of September, the Sox have been outslugging not only the Yankees, but all the other AL playoff teams.

edit: in the month of September, we've hit exactly the same number of HR's (27) as the almighty Yankees. In the last 7 days, we've hit 9 HR's and they've hit 2.