All over the south side and south suburbs, sphincters are puckered to epic tightness today. The White Sox, the team that Hawk Harrelson insists had the best record in baseball “all season” (though that’s wrong) are coming home to get a face-to-face look at the team that’s been pissing in their Cheerios all month. The Cleveland Indians.
Normally, there’s nothing to fear in Cleveland other than a burning river and Hep B and/or C. But currently there’s a baseball team there that has won 12 of its last 13 games and has been chopping games off the Sox lead since early August.
What once was going to be a cruise through September, only to be toned down by talk of not being the 2001 Mariners, has become a nightmare for the Sox who are being compared to the 1969 Cubs. That’s never a good thing.
The simple fact is that the Indians have been the best team in the American League since the All-Star break. They have the big leagues’ best bullpen, their starting pitching has been dominant and their offense is balanced, hitting on all cylinders and much to the delight of Dusty Baker is full of lefty-righty balance.
Can they catch the Sox? If the Sox play like they did on their road trip through Kansas City and Minneapolis they can. The White Sox nearly sucked the oxygen out of the dome yesterday, winning a game 2-1 that they should have won 7-1, and only actually winning when a routine grounder to second hit the mound and was butchered by the Twins’ second baseman. This followed two hilarious losses in KC.
However (you knew that there’d be a however), the Sox can probably survive the Indians’ surge if they simply win two of the six games in the upcoming serieses (serieses? I use that a lot, that’s not a word though, is it?). The reason is not that the Sox are so good, it’s that they might be able to bumble their way to the finish line just in time. If the Indians had gotten hot one week earlier than they did, the Sox wouldn’t stand a chance.
The reason is simple. The Sox offense is horrible. For all this talk about making over the team so it can play “small ball”, all Kenny Williams did to his offense in the offseason was to kill it off. That was never more evident than in the last three games they played against the mighty Cubs. After lighting up the Meat Tray in a 12 run outburst in game one, the Sox scored two runs the rest of the series and went the final 16 innings of the series without as much as a threat of scoring a run. As we are reminded daily, the Cubs are bad.
After the first game of that series, the Sox were 50-22 and Kenny and Ozzie Guillen were talking about how they’d remade their team around pitching, defense and situational hitting. A few of us figured they were right about the first part, since to that point the Sox were being led by great seasons from Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland and had found a closer in Dustin Hermanson.
After 71 games, Buehrle was 9-1 and Garland was 12-2. That’s 21-3 and if you have two pitchers 18 games over .500 you’ve got a shot at being 28 over like the Sox were.
Since then? Buehrle is 6-7 and Garland is 7-7. The Sox? They’re 40-47. (OK, fine, it’s 40-37, just enough to get caught from behind.)
The day the Sox were 50-22, the Indians had lost four straight and were 37-32. They were 11.5 back and that deficit could eventually reach 15 games.
But since that day, the Indians have gone 50-30. Nobody noticed for a while. Especially not the Sox.
They kept gazing at the Indians and when Torii Hunter ripped his ankle apart in Boston, the Sox started printing playoff tickets. They’re main concern was who they were going to get in the playoffs.
It has to be the ultimate form of hypocrisy to openly root for a team from another city, like the Indians, right? Shouldn’t we just resign ourselves to the idea that no team in Chicago has won anything in nearly 100 years and just band together to root for the Sox? Won’t we feel guilty rooting against them?
Just as guilty as they felt watching games six and seven of the NLCS in 2003 and rooting for the Marlins.
Go Tribe.
I’ve been watching the Indians night in and night out since the Cubs flushed their season way back in late July. The Indians are fun.
I watch them and wish the Cubs had the balls to do what the Indians did. Three years ago, Mark Shapiro blew up his team, even as it had just made a playoff appearance against Seattle. He went young. He didn’t have a great farm system, so he traded for prospects, and most of them actually panned out. Guys like Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee and Travis Hafner.
Other young players stepped up like Coco Crisp, Victor Martinez and this year, Jhonny Peralta. They got lucky with a few retreads like Bob Howry (the best set up man in the AL since July 1, and the best Indians’ reliever in 2004 and 2005) and Ronnie Belliard. They spent money and added Kevin Millwood and Aaron Boone (who was awful in April, May and June but hit .311 in July and .322 in August). Their manager, 37 year old Eric Wedge, shaved off his porn ‘stache. That had to be the ultimate sacrifice. The fact is, they played young guys, stuck with them and found out which ones could play.
So they took themselves out of baseball limbo. That area where you are too good to bottom out and too bad to win anything important. They took themselves out of contention to rebuild and now, they are seemingly set up for another prolonged run.
The fact is that the Sox have a lot to lose. More than just a division title and all of the infamy that will go with it. The Indians have been better than them for two full months now, and could well stay that way for years.
The Sox played well enough early in the year that their task shouldn’t be that daunting. If they win two of the six against Cleveland, they’d have to lose every other game and the Indians would have to win every other game for the Sox to blow it. But the fact that it’s even come to this is downright amazing.
Remember how in 1998 we celebrated the Cubs getting to the playoffs because we knew there wasn’t anything else? They weren’t good enough, and weren’t playing well enough to do any damage in the playoffs?
I’m not saying.
I’m just saying.
Sporting events would be easier to listen to, if I left the booth to be with my dad.
Did you like how my partner was consistently going out of his way to defend Joey Harrington? Yeah, ex-QB turned analyst; that’s not TOO transparent.
Also, I know the Deadbirds were in town and so I may have gotten FOX to dispatch me to Chicago, but do you mean to tell me that yesterday’s game was really the #1 broadcast?
I am insufferable assbag, BTW.
The Sox are 40-37 since taking the first game against the Cubs at the Cell, not 40-47.
“anybody know what rhymes with pussy?”
Uh…. no.
Yes Joe, you are an insufferable assbag.
This comment brought to you by the 2005 Chicago White Sox:
Win. Or suffer the biggest collapse in baseball history.
“To open on the road, in the biggest NFL stadium in front of a very loud crowd and against one of the NFL’s defenses is not how you’d draw it up if you had a choice”
As opposed to playing against one of the WNBA’s defenses?
FYC!
The 93 cart was not put in action yesterday. Me and my ankle walked off the field.
The only thing that comes to mind when I think of pussy (besides Angie Everhart) is the WHITE SOX!!!! Man you guy’s fucking suck!!! I mean, say what you will about the Cubs but we didnt fuck away a 15 game lead in our division in just over a month! CHOKE BITCHES! CHOKE!!!!
I’m unfunny, but at least I’m taking an unfunny swipe at the South Siders:
Honesty compels me to agree with Andy. That pass from Orton to Moose at the goal line was a “laser” folks.
I was appalled when I saw them run out in the whites but honestly, if they keep playing like this they can wear pink with purple polka-dots for all we care.
You’ll see the Bears in me soon.
B. Leftwich does look like a fatass gary coleman! Good one #9!
The fact is, we probably won’t lose our lead. Even if we do, our record will be good enough to take us into the playoffs as a wild card. What you are seeing now, is how good we really are. We all played over our heads, and have since come back to earth. Truth is, we can’t beat good teams. In the playoffs, you face good teams, so expect us home in 3 or 4 games.
Dolan  No Friday summation from the Dwyer/Dolan Wrigley Summit? I’d have thought a protracted story about Dwyer weeping for his team’s loss like Tony LaRussa after being forced to watch 5 hours of dogs suffering in New Orleans would be on these pages. At the very least, you could have mentioned how Kelly did at the Manhole after the game.
15 wins isn’t an important number to me, because I’ll never get there.
It appears that I forgot to shave underneath my lower lip for SI.com picture day.
Either that, or I was tossing salad with Apex, and I forgot to use a napkin.
What? No comment on how only Olin Kreutz heard the snap count to start the fourth quarter giving the Lions a free play to maul Orton?
Geez. You’ve gone soft, Andy.
Olin wasn’t the only one to hear the snap count. He was the only one who didn’t know what it was. When the center snaps it and nobody moves, it means the center is the one who’s wrong.
But I’m a Pro-Bowler!
For a good laugh, read me.
We’d like to see the Yankees be the odd team out, as further proof that trying to buy a championship is an inexact science.
One dude in a White Sox jersey, being choked by another dude in an Indians jersey would be fung mang… that is as long as they actually choke.
This is a lot like 1969. If the Indians come through, you could honestly say that they won it. What are they, .800 over the past few weeks? That’s getting IT done, mister man.
And then, he touched me in my special place…he told me not to tell anyone, and that it was my fault…is this gonna make things weird for me?
Good to see Sloth posted a couple minutes before #28. It greatly increases the chances that he’s still the only creep who thinks children being raped passes for comedy.
Go Colts!
Eric Patterson (Korey’s brother) apparently just got moved up to West Tenn
Stats at Peoria:
110 games, hitting a league-high .333
13 homers, 71 RBIs and 40 steals.
League-leading 90 runs
Ranked top five in his league in the stolen bases, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, triples and hits categories.