Busy Weekend
Long, busy weekend. Ran errands during the day Friday and Saturday. Went to the bar Friday night and to Timm's house on Saturday. Got together with my Mom's side of the family to celeberate my mom's and my aunt's birthdays (10th and 11th, respectively) and then played golf. So I kept busy.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer is just killing me. The Forum section was awful today. The city and the media are in the pockets of old-school, old-economy, old-politics interests and seemingly can only agree to work together to try to save old and doomed jobs and values without looking forward to the new. This is incredibly frustrating. I will rant on this further later, but keep this in mind as the theme for the week.
**WARNING TO TIMM: The Remainder of the Blog concerns baseball, the Great American Pastime**
Big weekend for the Tribe. Get out the Brooms! Swept Detroit and have 3 in KC and then 3 hosting Tampa Bay in the next week. Have to try and take all 6, and really no less than 5. They stand at 60-52, with 50 games left to play. Based on the way everyone around them is playing, I, calling upon the spirit of Lou Brown, estimate that it will take 32 wins to win the wild card. So, that's .640 baseball, which means you need to win pretty much every series from here on out. Hopefully, this also a sign that the Indians have solved the problems they've had so far with their Central division opponents, who they are still only 19-27 against so far, and have losing records against all save Detroit. With 10 games against Tampa Bay and KC, and 6 more against a collapsing Detroit, you have the opportunity to get a lot of those 32 wins. In theory, if you take 20 wins there, you would only need to play .500 ball in the remaining 24 games, assuming my prediction is correct.
In fact, this is speculation. Let's break down the schedule a little bit more and see how this could go down the stretch. I'll try and look at all the divisional and wild-card contenders (Red Sox, Angels, A's, Indians, and Yankees). The White Sox have all but clinched the Central at the moment.
Code is Team Home games/Away Game
Boston(63-47, 30/22): (BAL - 3/3, CHI 3/0, DET 3/3, KC 0/3, LAA 3/4, NYY 3/3, OAK 4/0, TB 4/3, TEX 3/0, TOR 4/3)
New York(59-50, 27/26): (BAL 4/4, BOS 3/3, CHI 3/3, KC 3/0, OAK 0/3, SEA 0/4, TB 3/6, TEX 4/0, TOR 7/3)
Athletics(64-47, 28/23): (BAL 3/4, BOS 0/4, CLE 0/3, DET 0/3, KC 3/0, LAA 7/3, MIN 6/0, NYY 3/0, SEA 3/3, TEX 3/3)
Angels(64-47, 23/28): (BAL 0/3, BOS 4/3, CHI 0/3, DET 4/0, OAK 3/7, SEA 3/6, TB 3/3, TEX 3/3, TOR 3/0)
Indians(60-52, 27/23): (BAL 3/0, CHI 3/3, DET 3/3, KC 3/7, MIN 3/3, OAK 3/0, TB 6/4, TEX 3/0, TOR 0/3)
Let's divide the league into groups:
Contendors: the five above mentioned and Chicago
Fringe Teams: Minnesota, Texas, Toronto
Done: Baltimore, Detroit
Overdone: Seattle, Kansas City, Tampa Bay
As far as things match-up schedule-wise, here's the breakdown:
Red Sox: 20/10/12/10
Yankees: 15/14/8/16
Athletics: 20/12/10/9
Angels: 20/9/7/15
Indians: 9/12/9/20
So things look good schedule-wise for the Tribe. I also personally think that the Done teams will start looking more and more like overdone teams down the stretch. Minnesota might make their way towards done if they don't start hitting. Toronto is too inconsistent to make the playoffs, but they could cause trouble. And I really don't know much about Texas other than that they can score a ton of runs and always give the Tribe trouble.
Thus, I figure you can estimate .500 against your fellow contendors, .600 against the fringe teams, .700 against done teams, and .800 against overdone. This is a liberal estimate, but here goes.
That gives the teams the following records down the stretch:
Red Sox: 20/10/12/10 = 10+6+8.4+8 =32.4 = 95.4 wins
Yankees: 15/14/8/16 = 7.5+8.4+5.4+12.8 = 34.1 = 93.1 wins
Athletics: 20/12/10/9 = 10+7.2+7+7.2 = 31.4 = 95.4 wins
Angels: 20/9/7/15 = 10+5.4+4.9+12 = 30.3 = 94.3 wins
Indians: 9/12/9/20 =4.5+7.2+6.3+16 = 34 = 94 wins
So what's that tell you?
Two things. One, it's going to be a hell of a stretch run. Two, the Indians have to hope that a couple of the real contendors establish themselves, pull away and beat up on the other contendors. Discounting the White Sox, the 3 games with Oakland are really the only games they have against the other contendors. If the Tribe can split or even take 4 from Chicago, they could lose all three to Oakland and still benefit if Oakland can take a bunch from Anaheim and knock them out. Same deal with Boston or New York. I think the Tribe can beat the Yankees to the finish line, they're only giving a half-game and have more consistent pitching. I think they can play better than the other three, but I don't know if they can play 4.5 games better, and they have to play 4.5 games better than one of them to make it. The best hope: that either Oakland or Anaheim folds down the stretch.
We'll see.
Peace
The Cleveland Plain Dealer is just killing me. The Forum section was awful today. The city and the media are in the pockets of old-school, old-economy, old-politics interests and seemingly can only agree to work together to try to save old and doomed jobs and values without looking forward to the new. This is incredibly frustrating. I will rant on this further later, but keep this in mind as the theme for the week.
**WARNING TO TIMM: The Remainder of the Blog concerns baseball, the Great American Pastime**
Big weekend for the Tribe. Get out the Brooms! Swept Detroit and have 3 in KC and then 3 hosting Tampa Bay in the next week. Have to try and take all 6, and really no less than 5. They stand at 60-52, with 50 games left to play. Based on the way everyone around them is playing, I, calling upon the spirit of Lou Brown, estimate that it will take 32 wins to win the wild card. So, that's .640 baseball, which means you need to win pretty much every series from here on out. Hopefully, this also a sign that the Indians have solved the problems they've had so far with their Central division opponents, who they are still only 19-27 against so far, and have losing records against all save Detroit. With 10 games against Tampa Bay and KC, and 6 more against a collapsing Detroit, you have the opportunity to get a lot of those 32 wins. In theory, if you take 20 wins there, you would only need to play .500 ball in the remaining 24 games, assuming my prediction is correct.
In fact, this is speculation. Let's break down the schedule a little bit more and see how this could go down the stretch. I'll try and look at all the divisional and wild-card contenders (Red Sox, Angels, A's, Indians, and Yankees). The White Sox have all but clinched the Central at the moment.
Code is Team Home games/Away Game
Boston(63-47, 30/22): (BAL - 3/3, CHI 3/0, DET 3/3, KC 0/3, LAA 3/4, NYY 3/3, OAK 4/0, TB 4/3, TEX 3/0, TOR 4/3)
New York(59-50, 27/26): (BAL 4/4, BOS 3/3, CHI 3/3, KC 3/0, OAK 0/3, SEA 0/4, TB 3/6, TEX 4/0, TOR 7/3)
Athletics(64-47, 28/23): (BAL 3/4, BOS 0/4, CLE 0/3, DET 0/3, KC 3/0, LAA 7/3, MIN 6/0, NYY 3/0, SEA 3/3, TEX 3/3)
Angels(64-47, 23/28): (BAL 0/3, BOS 4/3, CHI 0/3, DET 4/0, OAK 3/7, SEA 3/6, TB 3/3, TEX 3/3, TOR 3/0)
Indians(60-52, 27/23): (BAL 3/0, CHI 3/3, DET 3/3, KC 3/7, MIN 3/3, OAK 3/0, TB 6/4, TEX 3/0, TOR 0/3)
Let's divide the league into groups:
Contendors: the five above mentioned and Chicago
Fringe Teams: Minnesota, Texas, Toronto
Done: Baltimore, Detroit
Overdone: Seattle, Kansas City, Tampa Bay
As far as things match-up schedule-wise, here's the breakdown:
Red Sox: 20/10/12/10
Yankees: 15/14/8/16
Athletics: 20/12/10/9
Angels: 20/9/7/15
Indians: 9/12/9/20
So things look good schedule-wise for the Tribe. I also personally think that the Done teams will start looking more and more like overdone teams down the stretch. Minnesota might make their way towards done if they don't start hitting. Toronto is too inconsistent to make the playoffs, but they could cause trouble. And I really don't know much about Texas other than that they can score a ton of runs and always give the Tribe trouble.
Thus, I figure you can estimate .500 against your fellow contendors, .600 against the fringe teams, .700 against done teams, and .800 against overdone. This is a liberal estimate, but here goes.
That gives the teams the following records down the stretch:
Red Sox: 20/10/12/10 = 10+6+8.4+8 =32.4 = 95.4 wins
Yankees: 15/14/8/16 = 7.5+8.4+5.4+12.8 = 34.1 = 93.1 wins
Athletics: 20/12/10/9 = 10+7.2+7+7.2 = 31.4 = 95.4 wins
Angels: 20/9/7/15 = 10+5.4+4.9+12 = 30.3 = 94.3 wins
Indians: 9/12/9/20 =4.5+7.2+6.3+16 = 34 = 94 wins
So what's that tell you?
Two things. One, it's going to be a hell of a stretch run. Two, the Indians have to hope that a couple of the real contendors establish themselves, pull away and beat up on the other contendors. Discounting the White Sox, the 3 games with Oakland are really the only games they have against the other contendors. If the Tribe can split or even take 4 from Chicago, they could lose all three to Oakland and still benefit if Oakland can take a bunch from Anaheim and knock them out. Same deal with Boston or New York. I think the Tribe can beat the Yankees to the finish line, they're only giving a half-game and have more consistent pitching. I think they can play better than the other three, but I don't know if they can play 4.5 games better, and they have to play 4.5 games better than one of them to make it. The best hope: that either Oakland or Anaheim folds down the stretch.
We'll see.
Peace
posted by David Ebersole at 12:04 AM
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