Posted on 04/20/2007 8:07:32 AM PDT by misterrob
The Sox and Yankees are resuming their long standing rivalry with and a mix of old and new faces. The Sox have upgraded their team with additions of JD Drew, Julio Lugo and Dice-K. The Yankees return with changes to the starting rotation and the subtraction of Gary Sheffield. Both teams figure to compete deep into the season.
For two states without much to brag about with respect to their elected officials,
Chucky and Hidabeast vs the Flip Flopping Gigalo and the Swimmer
or
The Spitter vs Coupe Deval
Here's to another season of Yankees vs Red Sox on FR!
The Yankees reminded me of the White Sox last night.
The match ups for each game could go either way, so you could have anything from a Yank-off sweep to a Red Sox sweep. Either way, the Skanks are in deep trouble in the East and Wild Card races.
After these three games who do you have to pitch the next two before you get back to this trio??? The Red Sox have Wakefield and Lester, or Tavarez or Buchholz and the Yank-offs have..umm..Mussina and Hughes, or Clippard, or Igawa, or Karstens. Ugly.
The Yaankees started playing up to their considerable (albeit older) talent and made a run. However, the wheels have come off as the starting pitching is showing its weaknesses and you can only outslug teams for so long. If the Sox play 1 game over .500 at 16-15 the Yankees have to win 25/31. That’s 6 trips through the rotation which means everyone goes 5-1 with no nights off from the offense. Mussina gonna do that? Clemens? Hughes? A-Rod cannot hit a HR every night.
As a Sox fan I know that they are capable of blowing this down the stretch but short of a major injury to some kep players I don’t see it. I fear the Yankees more than any other team in the postseason given the depth of their roster (outside their middle relief). The Disney Angels can be beaten, Detroit is has holes (including the biggest A-Hole in Sheffield) and Seattle is flawed as well.
You can also add the number of 1st place team’s wins (80) and 2nd place team’s losses (59) and subtract the sum of the two numbers from 163.
80 + 59 = 139
163 - 139 = 24
I’m a Red Sox fan living in the Chicago area. I love the Red Sox but it’s sad to see what’s happened to the White Sox, I must say. In watching and listening to the games, it was obvious that the Red Sox Nation is real and has a large contingent in Chicago. After the two games on Friday, the losing pitchers said that they felt as if they were playing a road game. Ken Harrelson (he does color commentary for the White Sox) repeatedly noted the large amount of red apparel in the stands. One of my friends, a White Sox fan, was at a game in a suite. They were mostly partying, and he said that every time there was a huge cheer and they turned around to see what was going on, it was the Red Sox scoring, not the White Sox making a play.
The Red Sox (and a few other teams, like the Yankees) do have a lot of a) New Englanders travel to see games, or b) people
in that area who just are Red Sox fans. In places like
Anaheim, Balt., Chicago, etc. you will see them.
I went to
Baltimore to see Orioles play Yankees and you’d think it were Yankee Stadium.
A place that holds 46,000 might normally have 20,000 people
attending but when Sox or Yanks come to town, it could be
close to a sellout, if not a sellout.
In places like Florida there are New Englanders who have
gone to retire, and they cheer the Sox when they play in
Tampa Bay. In NYC, you will even get quite a few
Red Sox fans attending because it’s fairly close. Before
they moved to DC, the Expos would get a lot of NY fans;
I went to one game at Olympic Sta. vs. Mets and you could
tell a lot of New Yorkers were there. Maybe on vacation
in Montreal,and they picked the week when the Mets (or
Yanks in interleague) were there.
I remember in ‘94, the strike year, the Indians kept
selling out Jacobs Field and fans had to go to other
stadia to catch them. I went to a game at Fenway the
Friday before the strike started—after a 2.5 hr rain
delay, the game got called without a pitch being thrown.
But I was talking to Tribe fans who were excited about
their team (in first place IIRC) and were frustrated that the strike was about to happen.
The Indians sold out “the Jake” 455 straight times. If
you go there, under retired numbers it says “455—The Fans”.
The Red Sox are now up to about 370 straight sellouts at
Fenway and hope to break the record next year.
And yes it’s weird and sad that the White Sox, who won
it all a couple years back, are doing so poorly.
How about the Marlins who won 2 World Series and I believe
soon got rid of most of their talent (’fire sales’) and
soon went into the dumpster?
One year, I forget when, the White Sox were only three
games out of first place at the trading deadline and
they got rid of more than a bit of their talent.
Fans were frustrated about that.
good point! should have thought of that. My explanation came from various newspapers, which would put down the team’s
current magic number and then explain how the formula works.
That is known around town as the “White Flag” trade. Some of the people that the White Sox picked up became important in 2005.
After 2006, the White Sox figured that their starting pitching and their hitting were fine, but that they needed help in the bullpen. They went out and got it - preseason evaluations in the Chicago papers were encouraging. What happened? The offense has never produced, all year, from the beginning of the season to now, and no one in town forsaw that. That has really surprised people. The starting pitching has struggled, more than people figured. And none of the bullpen moves worked. Bobby Jenks will end up with around 40 or more saves (if the White Sox can take a lead into the 9th at least 4 or 5 more times this season) and tied a major league record for consecutive hitters making out (41). They have exactly 2 starters with ERA’s under 4.00 and only one of those has a winning record (Vasquez, 11 - 7) - the other, Mark Buhrle, is 9 - 9. The rest of the pitching staff has just not performed, and neither have the hitters. Ozzie has taken some heat, but people are starting to come around to the realization that this is a player failure.
Not that I wasn’t thrilled to see the Red Sox come in and sweep. They needed the wins, and it coupled great with the MFY’s troubles in Detroit.
The 4 games here were all sellouts, and had been since the beginning of the season. I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to spend $100 for a good seat from the scalpers, either legal or illegal. A whole lot of people didn’t show up for the games, which helped Red Sox Nation really stand out.
I think part of the reason why you see so many Red Sox fans around the country is that you have a lot of kids come from all over the nation to go to MIT, Harvard, BU, BC, Tufts, etc. and get into the Red Sox. Then they go home and follow the team.
The Red Sox also have such an interesting history about them that it makes people all over the world fall in love with the franchise.
The last Red Sox series in Baltimore set an attendance record for Fenway Park South..err..I mean Crammed In Yards. A Yank-off fan friend of mine got tickets for us to see the Skanks play the Oreos last series they had in Baltimore and the stadium was only two-thirds full. The atmosphere definitely was not like when the Red Sox are in town.
FABULOUS graphic! Printing it now... thanks! :o)
HOME RUN BY MANNY!!!
So far so good. Dice-K’s lack of control was certainly an issue in the first inning. Since I am out of area I have to watch YES for MLB coverage and those idiots in the booth were talking about the Yankees retaliating for hitting A-Rod.
Same here. This guy is worthless.
So do I. I want this guy off our team yesterday! WHY did Theo want this guy so much???
Whiff after whiff... The Red Sox might as well go back and get Mark Bellhorn...
...and WHY can't Youkilis hit anymore?
Joba Chamberlain is awesome. I guess he came all the way up from Single A? Wow. Definitely a force to be reckoned with...
I continue to be underwhelmed by Dicey-K...
Hubby predicted the Red Sox would lose this game. He thinks the Yanks will take two out of three. What say you?
Yanks have to sweep this series to make a dent in the lead or at least win 5/6 of the games with the Sox. It could happen but not likely. If the Sox go 16-14 the Yankees have to go 24-6 the rest of the way. To put that into perspective, Wong and Petite (sic) cannot lose another start, Clemens can lose 1 out of his remaining 6 and the two rookies (since Mussina is out) can lose 5 between them. I simply don’t see how Hughes, Clemens and whoever they plug in at #5 going 12-6 the rest of the way. If Wong and Petite lose even one start each then that number becomes 14-4.
Manny going down makes the WMP trade that much more curious. We might see Ellsbury back up in short order which means that Francona will have to shift the offense to run and gun for a while. I could also see the team trying to add a bat.
Dice-K should have a much better record than 13-11. In too many starts his team didn’t score any runs. He should be at least 17-7. But, Tek still calls too many fastballs. Dice-K has a good offspeed pitch that wasn’t used in 2 strike counts. Tek wanted fastballs away and the Yankees simply don’t swing at those.
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