lee harris

Well, as I expected the Yankees fought back and steadied their ship. Since I
never really got my hopes up about the AL, which we probably lost out on
earlier in the season with some of the games thrown away, I'm not
disappointed. Things are looking great, and you never know what can happen
from now until the end. I'll take post season play any which way.

OK, here are the numbers, looks like I was pretty reasonable with my
estimations, with only Seattle really differing from what I predicted about
a month ago

Red Sox
83 wins - 1 ahead of my projection, 1 win ahead of Seattle, 1 behind Oakland
and 2 behind TEE. A series win in Baltimore would be huge, especially if we
can then add on a series win at Fenway vs the ChiSox before Tampa Bay comes
to Boston. I have us down for 86 wins at that point, but 87 should be a
reasonable target at this stage.

Mariners (chief WC rivals currently)
82 wins - 6 (!) behind my estimation, clearly in a bit of a tailspin right
now, and with 10 games vs Texas and Anaheim to come, that might continue.

Athletics
84 wins - exactly as projected
it was good of Tampa Bay to stall the Oakland train, but also serves a
reminder that the DRays games will not be pushovers, especially with our
rotation. Also have 10 games coming up against Anaheim and Texas, so
hopefully neither the A's or M's will have anything more than 6 or 7 wins.


Yankees
85 wins - as projected
with Detroit, Tampa etc coming up, I'm not going to think about them unless
something weird happens and they slide back down to us in the standings

Bottom Line:
Remember, we are guaranteed an opportunity to pick up at least 3 games with
Oakland playing Seattle, and in all likelihood one of them would win 4 of
the 6, so theres a good chance a 4 game window could be opened while were in
Cleveland, Tampa and home vs Baltimore.

Our next 10 games:
3 in Baltimore
3 vs ChiSox
4 vs Tampa Bay

Projected - 89, but we're 1 game up on projection so 90 would be around par,
which is a 7-3 run - I'd take that in a second.

Oakland
4 vs Anaheim
3 in texas
3 in Anaheim

Seattle
3 vs Texas
3 vs Anaheim
4 in Texas.

I find it very hard to believe that either team will *significantly* take
any edge over Boston over the next 10 games, I think Oakland might win 7 or
8, Seattle maybe 6 or 7, if Boston wins 7 things are looking very, very rosy
for us in terms of "the job ahead" (but we'd still have to do the business
in those last games vs "minnows").


Fingers crossed, and let's hope today was a temporary glitch in the hitting
matrix.


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lee harris

that should have read AL East. My hopes are very much alive for the AL.


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mcduck

Pretty fair assessment. We are now over a 60% shot at postseason, up from my
estimated 33% shot a couple of weeks ago. We can beat either of the west
teams if we play well and have an outside chance of winning the East if NYY
continues to have problems hitting.

With our hitting right now, a team does not have a good shot of beating us
unless they get good pitching, and the teams we are about to play generally
do not have pitching depth. So they will have some good pitching games, and
then we are only even shots to win, but against mediocre pitching, we are
the odd-on favorites. Thus, as long as the hitting stays hot, the chances of
a major skid are small. and we do have some good pitchers, although everone
after Pedro is inconsistent.
--
McDuck

harnish227

Not really. Say Oak. goes on a tear and pulls ahead, clinching the West before
the Seattle series even starts. Then Oakland is busy setting up their rotation
and resting regulars while Seattle(who we are fighting for the WC) takes 4 of 6
from Oak.

I still think the Sox can catch the Yanks. Their bats are cold and their
pitching is suspect. 2.5 games is no problem, if they play well and dominate
the bad teams.


Steve
"I'd have 'Van Goghed' him" Bill Lee on manager Johnson's less than forceful
protest of the Armbrister call.

Remove "selig" to reply by e-mail.

lee harris

then we pick up 4 games on Oakland, hence my thinking that as long as we
don't drop too far behind either of them (1 up on Seattle in wins, 1 down on
Oakland) then everything looks rosy. Unless Oakland takes 3 games more than
us over the next 10 then we're looking good (I also worried about the
scenario you mentioned, but that only hurts us if Oakland is 4 or more games
ahead of us at the start of that final week or so)


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mcduck

Lee is dealing with fan expectations, not giving a pep talk to the troops.
He is correctly saying that we fans should not feel our team is out of the
race until the end under v. reasonable assumptions.

You are entirely right that every game matters and every game is likely to
be a serious contest, and victory will go to the team with the best talent
focused on winning (whatever that means). No one should be conceding the
division. I think the odds are at least 1-5 of winning the division, and
that is not even taking account of the poor NYY hitting of late. Still, the
odds of winning the WC are much better than that. fortunately, any
constructive steps we take to win the division will also help win the WC.

Torre is boasting that Wells "restored order," but what Wells did was
prevent chaos. NYY is not at all out of the woods, and they know it. They
are a three-game losing streak away from a return of chaos. They got a great
pitching performance from a guy they have been pummeling in the press, and
they even had trouble closing out the game with their top guy on the mound.
So NYY had a serious edge, due to earlier RS failures, but they have to play
well or they are in a lot of trouble.

Lee is giving unsolicited advice to ng fans on how to enjoy the coming race
to the finish. My unsolicited advice to you is to stop looking for minor
errors by GL, stop worrying about Merloni (who really cares whether he got
to make 3 outs yesterday or had to share the out-making with Jackson), and
start enjoy all the positive achievements of a team that has shown a lot of
fight and character.
--
McDuck

harnish227

But that won't matter. In my scenario Oakland is irrelevant. They have already
clinched the division.We are now only battling Seattle and if Sea. takes 4 of 6
from Oak--that spells trouble.

I'm not trying to shoot down your hopes. I agree, that if we stick close to
both teams we should be fine. But it's always preferable to shape your own
destiny by winning and staying in the WC lead and not having to worry about
staying up for the West Coast scores.

If the Sox are clicking, I think they have the best team in the AL. They should
make the playoffs.
Steve
"I'd have 'Van Goghed' him" Bill Lee on manager Johnson's less than forceful
protest of the Armbrister call.

Remove "selig" to reply by e-mail.

lee harris

good point, I suppose my calcs assume that a 4-2 split for Seattle would put
them in as division winners, but of course, as you rightly point out, if
Oakland is more than 4 up on Seattle, then a 4-2 or 5-1 run by Seattle vs
Oakland could be very problematic!
Hopefully the Sox will continue to hammer in the runs and it will all be
academic though!


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