How Good Are The Sox Now?

With the blowout win and Indians loss, the Sox now take the all-important AL lead in run differential. Why all-important you ask? Because end-of-season records are more important than August 17th records. And while we don't know the end of season records yet, history tells us that run differential is a better predictor of the future than W/L record. And ... Fangraphs does the math for us!

How good are the Sox now? The Boston Red Sox now have the greatest probability of any AL team to be World Series champions. That's how good.

phenweigh said:

Because end-of-season records are more important than August 17th records.

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True, but August 17 records mean more than May 17 records. And I'm having trouble imagining the Sox returning to their April-May performance level for an extended period of time. The starting pitching may be better, but the offense has cooled off a bit and the bullpen has gone from above-average to worse-than-mediocre.

I love those graphs...very slick interface
http://www.fangraphs.com/coolgraphs.aspx?lg=AL&div=E&stat=poff&year=2016

They are very good but the bullpen is a huge Achilles heel. In previous WS runs, they've managed to straighen out questionable set up situations, so there's hope. But, to me, the are short two arms out there, and that assumes Kimbrell will be fine. One of those arms may come from the 5th starter spot, who else?

I think the only real shot at a WS title is if Price/Porcello/Wright can consistently go 7-8 innings per start. They've done it in stretches before, but I just don't trust Farrell's slow hook when pitchers start laboring through the 7th and 8th innings.

AB in DC said:

I think the only real shot at a WS title is if Price/Porcello/Wright can consistently go 7-8 innings per start. They've done it in stretches before, but I just don't trust Farrell's slow hook when pitchers start laboring through the 7th and 8th innings.

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or they go 6 innings and it rains.

Plympton91 said:

They are very good but the bullpen is a huge Achilles heel. In previous WS runs, they've managed to straighen out questionable set up situations, so there's hope. But, to me, the are short two arms out there, and that assumes Kimbrell will be fine. One of those arms may come from the 5th starter spot, who else?

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Buchholz?

phenweigh said:

history tells us that run differential is a better predictor of the future than W/L record.

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Hmmm. When I examined this very question several years ago, using data for all AL teams between 1961 and 2006, I found that after the mid-point of the season, extrapolating a team's current winning percentage did a better job than using Pythagorean methods.

http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/baseball/record_corr/compare_pred.html

Maybe Fangraphs is doing something more complicated with the run differential.

If they keep up the pitching(3.24 ERA in August), this team can make an October run. It's as simple as that. We know the offense will be there.

Plympton91 said:

They are very good but the bullpen is a huge Achilles heel. In previous WS runs, they've managed to straighen out questionable set up situations, so there's hope. But, to me, the are short two arms out there, and that assumes Kimbrell will be fine. One of those arms may come from the 5th starter spot, who else?

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I know it seems crazy given what we gave up for him, but to KNOW that Pomeranz go into the bullpen and do it well is a huge plus for this staff. I think the hope is to role with Price/Rick/Eduardo/Wright (in some order) and put Clay and Pomeranz in the pen.

The starting pitching is probably good enough to win the ALE/AL. The problem is the BP. Taz is cooked, Barnes will be cooked, Ross and Ziggy seems ok, Kimbrel mostly good. IMO they need another late arm and the return of a rested healthy effective Koji, to protect those 4-run leads and not allow them to become 1-run leads for Kimbrel to save.

Rasputin said:

That said, how many teams are there that are clearly better than the Sox?

I think most people would agree on the Cubs and the Nationals.

After that, who? Texas has a run differential that's barely positive. Baltimore, Toronto, and Cleveland could be better, but it wouldn't be by much. Maybe the Dodgers and/or the Giants.

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Definitely the Dodgers if Kershaw returns. Both Giants and Cards are in the conversation as well. I think you could actually make a case that 4 or 5 NL teams are better than than anyone in the AL.

Rasputin said:

You can definitely make a reasonable argument. That's kind of the beauty of being in the AL at the moment. You can be the fifth or sixth best team in baseball and still only have to face one team better than you in the post season. It's not as awesome as being the best team, but it aint bad either.

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True. But you're probably right about the AL playoffs being a toss-up. BP odds put the Sox at 67% probability to make it to the ALDS, though I would shade that down to around 60% since I am discounting the team's April-May performance more than most. So that would be 15% chance of winning the pennant. And then they'd be at least 2-to-1 odds against winning the WS against one of the top NL teams. So a 5% chance of a title?

StupendousMan said:

Hmmm. When I examined this very question several years ago, using data for all AL teams between 1961 and 2006, I found that after the mid-point of the season, extrapolating a team's current winning percentage did a better job than using Pythagorean methods.

http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/baseball/record_corr/compare_pred.html

Maybe Fangraphs is doing something more complicated with the run differential.

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Thanks for this, and it certainly makes sense in the limit as projecting a team's final record after 161 games based on current record would be quite accurate. So as we approach the 3/4 mark of the season, a simple look at the standings is quite effective for projecting.

I'm not sure what Fangraphs does, but it almost certainly must start with the current records (as mentioned in your link to be the best starting point which is logical) and project from there. Otherwise the +7 run differential Rangers would project to 82 wins, not 93 wins.

It is definitely a parity year in the AL. They really need to get that division win because a one game playoff vs. Baltimore or Toronto is not a fun thought.

AB in DC said:

Definitely the Dodgers if Kershaw returns. Both Giants and Cards are in the conversation as well. I think you could actually make a case that 4 or 5 NL teams are better than than anyone in the AL.

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I think even with Kershaw, ( a very big if) the Sox match up ok with LA.
Maeda has been solid but I watch him a lot and he's usually done by the 80 pitch mark (82.8 average to be exact. 4th fewest average)
Then they have Hill, Kazmir, and a bunch of guys who can't stay healthy.
The bullpen aside from Jansen is probably as much of a question mark as the Red Sox' too.

SouthernBoSox said:

I know it seems crazy given what we gave up for him, but to KNOW that Pomeranz go into the bullpen and do it well is a huge plus for this staff. I think the hope is to role with Price/Rick/Eduardo/Wright (in some order) and put Clay and Pomeranz in the pen.

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Not just because of what we got for him. How many All-Star caliber pitchers with sub-3.00 ERAs on playoff teams end up in the bullpen?

I did some math and 60-40 seems about right for NL Champs vs Sox.

Assumptions:
- Red Sox talent level equivalent to a .550 (89-win) team
- NL Champs talent level equivalent to a .600 (97-win) team
- For simplicity I assumed a .600 team would beat a .500 team in a single game 60% of the time. Since a .600 team would beat another .600 team 50% of time (obviously), that would suggest that the NL Champs would beat the Sox about 55% of the time. There may be more accurate ways to do the math but this seems reasonable as a rough estimate.

If i did the math right, a 55-45 favorite would win a seven-game series 60.8% of the time. That might be a smidge high since AL has home-field advantage, so 60% seems appropriate..

StupendousMan said:

Hmmm. When I examined this very question several years ago, using data for all AL teams between 1961 and 2006, I found that after the mid-point of the season, extrapolating a team's current winning percentage did a better job than using Pythagorean methods.

http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/baseball/record_corr/compare_pred.html

Maybe Fangraphs is doing something more complicated with the run differential.

Click to expand...

phenweigh said:

Thanks for this, and it certainly makes sense in the limit as projecting a team's final record after 161 games based on current record would be quite accurate. So as we approach the 3/4 mark of the season, a simple look at the standings is quite effective for projecting.

I'm not sure what Fangraphs does, but it almost certainly must start with the current records (as mentioned in your link to be the best starting point which is logical) and project from there. Otherwise the +7 run differential Rangers would project to 82 wins, not 93 wins.

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Maybe I'm missing something - ignore the following if I am.

It is meaningless to not use the current record. If you use 100 games worth of data in your model to say a team is a "0.500-quality team", but their actual record is 55-45, your model is predicting that the the best guess for the remaining 62 games is 31-31, or a final record of 86-76 (not 81-81), while the win% model would predict 89-73. The model isn't predicting that the gods will change history and take away five of the previous wins. If you don't start the model with current wins, of course the current win% is a better predictor, on average, than modeled projections, because the current win% is starting off with a lead - i.e., it is tautologically always 100% correct to that point.

StupendousMan said:

Hmmm. When I examined this very question several years ago, using data for all AL teams between 1961 and 2006, I found that after the mid-point of the season, extrapolating a team's current winning percentage did a better job than using Pythagorean methods.

http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/baseball/record_corr/compare_pred.html

Maybe Fangraphs is doing something more complicated with the run differential.

Click to expand...

phenweigh said:

Thanks for this, and it certainly makes sense in the limit as projecting a team's final record after 161 games based on current record would be quite accurate. So as we approach the 3/4 mark of the season, a simple look at the standings is quite effective for projecting.

I'm not sure what Fangraphs does, but it almost certainly must start with the current records (as mentioned in your link to be the best starting point which is logical) and project from there. Otherwise the +7 run differential Rangers would project to 82 wins, not 93 wins.

Click to expand...

Last year FG started using RoS ZiPS projections which are modified by "depth chart projections" that essentially weight those projections by what we estimate for playing time.

So pretty much they equal (RoS projected W/L based on ZiPS and IP/PA projections for pitchers/hitters) + (to date W/L record).

I believe there is an option to toggle "pythag" mode and "coin-flip" mode somewhere as well where it projects the RoS based on year-to-date pythag and year-to-date win%, respectively.

maybe I've gotten numb to how bad the bullpen has been, but I'm not too hot about today's loss. hell, we almost finally got to KRod anyways.

this team needs to outmash to win. we knew this coming into the season. It's unfortunate that the starting and the bullpen really haven't synced up, and a lot of that is Koji finally breaking down some and the worst case scenario for Carson Smith playing out, along with Kimbrel not transitioning well to AL. Taz being cooked was entirely predictable, and Barnes has been better than expected but still not a reliable piece, same with Ross Jr, Hembree. DD actually downgrading with Abad has been a killer too.

with the starting pitching seemingly fixed, games will be won getting 4+ runs against the starters and leaving as much low-leverage work to the bullpen as possible. Behind shitty Taz today (and I agree, it was a poor call by Farrell, but he really doesn't have any options) was the fact we stumbled to a 1-1 tie over 7 innings. Part of that was the scheduling, part of that was JBJ doing nothing in two key spots, part of that was X still slumping, etc.

3-1 start to this trip is great, even better with 2-0 against Baltimore. Onwards.

Collective games over/under .500 doesn't tell you anything about the strength of the top teams. It just means that there's a greater deviation between top and bottom teams in one league vs the other.

In the NFL the AFC regularly won a majority of games vs. the NFC in the 1980s and 1990s, but NFC teams won the Super Bowl for 12 straight years.

I think run differential perhaps is not a very good indicator of post season success, especially if its largely due to offense. Red Sox have punished poor to mediocre pitching, which has inflated their run differential, but you don't face many bad pitchers in the post season.

The SPing looks like its coming around, fingers crossed, but the bullpen is scary stuff. Its hard to find teams that go deep in the post season w/o dominant bullpens. Sometimes, like in 2003, a bullpen finds itself in the post season after struggling for much of the regular season. We will have to hope that's the case this year. Maybe DD can pull of a waiver deal, or someone like Papelbon can help, but its probably going to have to be done with in house options and wise usage.

The post season is still pretty much a roll of the dice, good pen or not good. The team that happens to be playing the best with the hottest players tends to go far. We have seen 100+ W teams bomb because they went cold, and 85 W teams win because they got hot at the end. The best team simply does not win it all that often. Not in baseball, especially not under the current WC system. Get in and pray, that's basically it.

Yeah, I was going to push back on that too. The top 5 teams in the AL all might be the second best team in the NL, IMHO. The Cubs are a clear favorite based on their top 3 starters and Chapman, but even there, they're the Cubs.

More pushback against thoughts of NL superiority.

Playoff teams if the playoffs began today:
AL East: Blue Jays 69-52 (.570) +7 ALE, +1 ALC, +3 ALW, +6 NL. The Jays are solid across the board, with winning records in all divisions. They've played their two main competitors, the Red Sox and Orioles, to the plus side of even (7-6 against both) and feasted a bit on the Yankees (9-3). The only team that has given them trouble is the White Sox (1-5), and they're just 6-7 against the Rays.

AL Central: Francona-men 69-50 (.580) +16 ALC, -5 ALE, +5 ALW, +3 NL. Cleveland owes almost all of its winning record to its unlikely dominance over its division: 9-3 vs ChiSox, 11-1(!!!) vs Tigers, 8-5 vs KC. That's a total of +19, or Cleveland's overall plus wins. Oddly, the Indians have a losing record against the weakest ALC team, the Twins, at 5-8. The Indians have also made hay against AL bottom feeders the Angels (6-1) and the Rays (5-1). Against top AL teams, Cleveland doesn't look so hot, with losing records against the O's (1-5), Red Sox (2-4), Mariners (3-4) and Rangers (1-2), while playing the Jays even (2-2).

AL West: Rangers 72-50 (.590) +13 ALW, +1 ALE, +3 ALC, +5 NL. The Rangers, with a run differential of +7 (570 RS vs 563 RA) are the unlikeliest of playoff contenders. But they've reached their peak the hard way, going 27-8 in 1-run games. The key for the Rangers has been kneecapping their closest rivals: they're 11-2 against the Astros and 8-4 against the Mariners, while going a collective .500 against the weaker Angels and A's (13-13 total). They have also dominated the Royals (6-1), while having trouble with the Twins (2-5). They're .500 against the big three in the AL East (Bal 4-3, Bos 3-3, Tor 3-4), and looking good against the AL Central (Cle 2-1, Det 4-2).

WC1: Orioles 67-53 (.558) +5 ALE, +13 ALC, -7 ALW, +3 NL. The O's are a collective -1 against the other top 3 teams of the AL East, earning their +5 in the division on the strength of a 9-3 record against the struggling Rays. Their dominance of the AL Central is thorough, with single losses in their season series to-date to the Indians, Tigers and Twins (13-3 total) and winning records against all five teams. Houston (1-3) and Seattle (1-6) have given the O's the most trouble, with the Rangers also taking the season series (3-4), leading to that -7 mark against the AL West.

WC2: Red Sox 67-53 (.558) +2 ALE, -3 ALC, +8 ALW, +7 NL. The Red Sox have played the AL East about even, with their 6-7 record against the Blue Jays the only negative. The Tigers have presented their greatest challenge, with the end-of-July reverse sweep at Fenway anchoring the current 0-4 record. About half of their overall +14 record is due to dominance over the AL West, with the Astros (5-2) and A's (3-0) proving beatable. The other half of the Sox' overall positive record is due to continued dominance over NL teams (12-5), with only the Dodgers eking out a series win in the spacious confines of Dodger Stadium.

NL East: Nationals 71-49 (.592) +18 NLE, 0 NLC, -2 NLW, +6 AL. The Nationals would be nothing without their little brothers in the NL East. The have feasted on the Braves (9-1), Phillies (8-4) and Mets (9-4), leading to +17 of their overall +22 wins. The Nats also dominated the AL Central, winning series against four of the five teams and splitting four with the Indians. They've had trouble against their main NL rivals, going 2-5 against the Cubs and 1-5 against the Dodgers. Good teams win the games they're supposed to win, so with 22 games left against the bottom three of the NL East expect a bunch more Ws for the Nats, but don't expect too much from them in the playoffs.

NL Central: Cubs 77-43 (.642) +5 NLE, +18 NLC, +2 NLW, +9 AL. The Cubs have beaten just about everybody, particularly feasting on their NL Central brethren. The Reds (10-3), Brewers (9-3) and Pirates (9-3) have offered little resistance. Only the Cardinals (6-7) have provided a challenge. They rolled over the AL West, going a collective 11-2 with a September series against the Astros still to come. Who's going to stop them? They've had trouble from the Mets (2-5) and three NL West teams -- the Giants, Rockies and Padres -- have each taken 2 of 3 against the Cubs to date.

NL West: Dodgers 67-53 (.558) +7 NLE, +3 NLC, +5 NLW, -1 AL. The Dodgers have taken care of business at home, leading the season series against the three weaker NL Westers. Against the better NL teams they've been handled by the Giants (4-6), Cubs (1-3), Pirates (2-5) and Marlins (0-4), but have handled the Cardinals (4-2), Nationals (5-1) and Mets (4-3). Against the AL East, they won two of three each against the Red Sox and Blue Jays, lost two of three to the Orioles and split four with the Rays. Closer to home, the Angels handed them their lunch with a 3-1 series win.

WC1: Giants 67-54 (.554) +1 NLE, +3 NLC, +13 NLW, -4 AL. Like Cleveland, all of the Giants positive record is due to their dominance of the division. With winning records against all four division rivals, the G-men have particularly enjoyed playing the Diamondbacks (9-5) and Padres (9-3). Outside the division they look like a … well, like a .500 team, with only one season series, against the Brewers (5-1), looking lopsided. Against the top NL teams they've been … meh: Nationals 3-4, Cardinals 1-2, Cubs 2-1, Marlins (4-2), Mets 2-2, Pirates 3-4.

WC2: Cardinals 64-56 (.533) +1 NLE, +6 NLC, +4 NLW, -3 AL. Only the Pirates (5-8) in the NL Central have figured out how to stop the Cardinal, who have dominated the Brewers (9-3) and bested the Reds (7-5) and, most surprisingly, the Cubs (7-6). The Nationals (2-5), Dodgers (2-4) and Marlins (3-4) have had their number, while they've bested the Bochy-boys and Mets (2-1 each). The Cards haven't fared well against the AL, losing series to the Rangers (0-3) and Mariners (1-2), splitting a home-and-home series with Houston (2-2 - each win by the visiting team), and losing three out of four to the cross-state rival Royals. Only a mid-May sweep over the Angels (3-0) has softened an otherwise rough go against the AL.

What does all this mean? To me it means that beyond the Cubs, the top teams are pretty evenly matched, with a bit of advantage to the AL clubs based on their more difficult schedules. Jon Abbey noted above the overall win differentials for each division. Another poster discounted that notion, but I think it's valid.

ESPN posts an RPI standings which includes a strength of schedule (SOS) component. Now, due to the relatively small pool of opponents (compared to college basketball) the SOS scores don't vary too widely, but there is a difference. The range runs from the Dodgers (.490) to the Blue Jays, Royals and White Sox (.508). Among the other playoff bound teams (if the playoffs started today), the Orioles (.507), Red Sox (.506) and Rangers (.505) have high SOS scores, while the Giants (.491), Cubs (.494), Cardinals and Indians (.499) have low SOS scores.

The top of the RPI standings look like this:
Cubs .531
Rangers .526
Blue Jays .523
Orioles .520
Nationals .519
Indians .519
Red Sox .519
Mariners .511
Tigers .510
Cardinals .508
Giants .507
Dodgers .507

Or put another way, Cubs clearly in front, every AL contender even with or slightly better than the Nationals, and the bottom three NL contenders not even surpassing two AL clubs that won't make the playoffs. That seems about right to me.

Rasputin said:

After that, who? Texas has a run differential that's barely positive.

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Minor quibble: Beltre has caught fire over the last month and they traded for Lucroy, so while this is technically correct, the Rangers are no longer a team who we'd figure would post a barely positive RD the rest of the way or in the playoffs.

soxfan121 said:

Minor quibble: Beltre has caught fire over the last month and they traded for Lucroy, so while this is technically correct, the Rangers are no longer a team who we'd figure would post a barely positive RD the rest of the way or in the playoffs.

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You could add that Darvish had only three starts before the ASG, whereas he's back on his game now, as another factor here.

chrisfont9 said:

You could add that Darvish had only three starts before the ASG, whereas he's back on his game now, as another factor here.

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None of that makes up for the hundo in run differential between them and their main competition, though. As quickly as a hot streak begins, it can end. Darvish is an ace, but one that never comes without a question mark, and Lucroy is fantastic, but not a massive difference maker. Still believe Texas is a mirage.

Follow up to my post above, I made a table of head-to-head match-ups between the teams that would be in the playoffs if they began today. What stands out to me is the number of games the AL East teams have played against these opponents -- 44 each for the Red Sox and O's, 43 for Toronto -- compared to the other teams (Dodgers next most with 35, Cleveland the fewest with 23). No team stands out as dominating this quality competition -- 6 teams are between +2 and +4 wins overall -- although a couple of teams stand out for not faring well -- Cleveland 8-15, St. Louis 13-19.


(Sorry about the table. I will try to fix it asap, but I'm on vacation and may not be able to until 8/28.)

Texas this year is a textbook example of why in season winning percentage outperforms run differential when projecting how a team will do over the remainder of the season. The Rangers were a substantially worse team than their record showed for the first two thirds of the season or so, but because their record was good enough to give them a strong shot at the playoffs, they were major buyers at the deadline and picked up enough pieces to make them an actual good team.

As further illustration, going into July 31st, Fangraphs projections had the Rangers as a true-talent .491 team. One day and several major trades later, their true-talent projection improved to .519.

Looking at the remaining schedules of the Sox, O's and Jays

Games vs over .500 including borderline
Sox 23 (7 vs Yanks and 3 vs KC included) 13 vs. legit contenders
Jays 21 (7 with Yanks) 14 vs. legit contenders
O's 30 (2 vs Astros, 10 vs the Yanks) 18 vs legit contenders

Dreks remaining (teams in free fall, or last place
Sox - 16
Jays - 17
O's - 10

Home/Road remaining
Sox 16 and 25
Jays 19 and 21
O's 21 and 20

Off days
Sox 3 ( one before and one after their trip out west)
Jays 4 off days
O's 3 off days

Misc
The Sox have a west coast trip still, but the rest are in their time zone. They also don't have another O's/Jays game until September when rosters expand. I don't see a blown up bullpen happening again (blow ups still on the table). They also have the Moncada wild card if Shaw craps the bed. Ue could be back. Wright could be out a while, but Buch seems to have figured it out. Chris Young and Joe Kelly could also help down the stretch.

The Jays also have a west coast trip, and 3 remaining with the O's before roster expansion. Joey Bats and Kevin Pillar should be back from the DL.

All the remaining O's games in August are against over .500 teams with no days off. Darren O'Day could be out a while, but they are otherwise healthy.


I would be absolutely shocked if the O's win the division. Seattle may even edge them out, though I haven't analyzed their schedule as much. That last Jays/Sox series should be a doozy. Getting that extra win vs the D'Backs and sweeping the Indians/O's was absolutely huge.

Summarizing Heating's detailed post, I ranked the ten teams based purely on non-divisional win differential (before yesterday's games):

Boston +12
Toronto +10
Texas +9
Baltimore +9
Cleveland +3

ChiCubs +16
LADodgers +9
Nationals +4
St.Louis +2
SanFran 0


The Sox look a lot better than i expected by this measure, Indians and Nationals look a lot worse than I expected.

40 games to go. For a little historical perspective, here is a small sampling of Red Sox records through 122 games (end of season in parentheses):

2004 70-52 (98-64)
2007 73-49 (96-66)
2013 72- 50 (97-65)
2011 74-48 (90-72)
2016 69-53 (TBD)

If the 2016 Sox follow the record of the 2004 Sox from here on out, 97 wins. If they collapse like the 2011 edition ... 85 wins.

One can do all sorts of studies to try and determine a best fit prediction model, and they are useful, but history tells us the error bar can be high. Which is cool, we know there are no guarantees in baseball. Still, bullpen worries notwithstanding, winning 8 of the last 9 seems like a good sign.

The 2011 Sox were 5-4, and the 2004 Sox were 7-2 in the nine games prior to their 122 game record. In that small sample I see reason for optimism.

38 games to go, now. What a difference a week or two can make.

AL East:
Red Sox -- 70-54
Blue Jays -- 70-54
Orioles -- 68-56 (2 games back)

Red Sox are also now only 2.5 games behind the Indians for the best record in the AL.

And on Sunday, the Blue Jays optioned Aaron Sanchez -- their best starter this season by ERA, FIP, and WAR -- to AAA to help limit his innings.

Obviously not all is footloose and fancy free -- the bullpen is still the bullpen, the rotation has been better but the back end remains a concern, and so forth -- but in general things are trending as well as they have all season.

I mentioned the O's chances a few posts up and I think they will be on the outside looking in given how rough their remaining schedule is.

Sizing up the rest of the field:
The Tigers only have 7 more games against playoff opponents (unfortunately all against the Indians of whom they are 1-11 against). They also have 10 vs the Twins and finish in Atlanta.
The M's have 10 vs playoff opponents and also 6 vs. the Astros who have crept back into the race.
Speaking of the Astros - this is how their September starts @Rangers 3, @Indians 4, vs Cubs 3, vs Rangers 3, @ Mariners 3.
I guess the Royals are still in it, but they have won 8 just to get to within 4, so until they do something like sweep Boston, I'm not sure they'll be a factor.

My prediction on the wild card spots are the Jays and Tigers despite the M's being closer at the moment.

At this point, since the ASB the Red Sox starting rotation has been the best in the majors by fWAR, and 4th best in that time period by ERA. Injuries to Wright and EdRo (which seem to be minor, and have been ably filled in for by Buchholz) notwithstanding, the rotation has been pretty strong all the way through. The relievers, on the other hand, have been bottom-third of both categories, and responsible for a couple of the 7 games since the break where the team has given up 7+ runs (in 37 games):

7/20 - Bad Drew start (W)
7/23 - Mediocre/Bad Price start, bullpen implosion
7/24 - Mediocre Porcello start (W)
7/26 - Bad Wright start
8/7 - Mediocre/Bad Price start
8/10 - Good Drew start, bullpen implosion
8/21 - Bad Owens start

The (W) indicates that we still won the game, despite giving up at least 7 runs, thanks to the offense. Obviously it would be great it we could get Koji back magically rejuvenated, but we just need the bullpen to be able to string together a little consistency for a month or two to be a pretty complete team, and their variance is the most likely (team is 5-6 in one run games since the break). Shut Taz down with a sore shoulder for a few weeks, hope someone from AAA can come up and surprise in September, and pray that Kimbrel learns to throw strikes by October.

22 Road Games left
16 Home Games left

Road games are against:

3 TB (17 games out)
3 Oakland (20 games out)
3 San Diego (16 games out)
3 Toronto (tied for first)
4 Baltimore (2 games out)
2 TB (17 games out)
3 NYY (7 games out)

So 11 of the games are against teams that are well out of it, 7 are against our main rivals, and the last 3 road games are against the Yanks. I like this mix.

Home games are against:

3 KC (8 out but red hot)
3 TB (17 out)
3 Baltimore (2 out)
4 NYY (7 out)
3 Toronto (tied for first)

Slightly tougher home opponents coming up

While the opponents are favorable, and a split of 16 H / 19 A games is far less daunting than when the Sox departed for Anaheim on July 25 (at which point they had 41 road games vs. 22 home games left), we have to remember that the Sox STILL have a 9 game trip and a 10 game trip to complete. They're only halfway though the long road trips. Thus far they are 11-8 on the road, so obviously if they match that pace we would love their chances, but a lot of road work yet to be done.

I've been watching quite a few Mariners games and they have that sort of "something" that the Red Sox showed in 2013 -- the ability to pull wins out of the hat in a variety of ways. I don't think they have enough pitching (this is not Felix Hernandez's best season), but they have that sort of mojo right now that can get a team into the postseason.

The Tigers have the better starting pitching, but if the Orioles fade, Toronto or Boston is looking at the possibility of facing an 80% Hernandez in a one playoff

E5 Yaz said:

I've been watching quite a few Mariners games and they have that sort of "something" that the Red Sox showed in 2013 -- the ability to pull wins out of the hat in a variety of ways. I don't think they have enough pitching (this is not Felix Hernandez's best season), but they have that sort of mojo right now that can get a team into the postseason.

The Tigers have the better starting pitching, but if the Orioles fade, Toronto or Boston is looking at the possibility of facing an 80% Hernandez in a one playoff

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Assuming the rotation works out that way. The WC game is two days after the final game of the season, so if they are fighting for the last spot, there is a decent chance he is pitching one of the final 3 games of the season.

Bowlerman9 said:

Assuming the rotation works out that way. The WC game is two days after the final game of the season, so if they are fighting for the last spot, there is a decent chance he is pitching one of the final 3 games of the season.

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True. But, while I realize it's an eyeball test, there's just something about the way Seattle is winning games that makes me think they'll be around at the end.

tims4wins said:

While the opponents are favorable, and a split of 16 H / 19 A games is far less daunting than when the Sox departed for Anaheim on July 25 (at which point they had 41 road games vs. 22 home games left), we have to remember that the Sox STILL have a 9 game trip and a 10 game trip to complete. They're only halfway though the long road trips. Thus far they are 11-8 on the road, so obviously if they match that pace we would love their chances, but a lot of road work yet to be done.

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Yeah, the home/road split is finally less daunting. These last 3 games feel very important. I mean, I know that all the games count the same, but just a week ago I did not see this team as being much more than a .500 road team. If they can get out of Tampa in good shape, I think maintaining a road record of 5 or 6 games above .500 should be well within reach, which should put them in prime position for a playoff spot and maybe even the division if they can take care of business at home since they play their rivals.

It's been a good road trip, but they need to keep the pedal to the metal and fight through those end-of-road-trip doldrums. This road trip could end up 6-5, or 9-2. The former and we'll be saying on the weekend that they are who we thought they were, and the latter and we'll be feeling pretty freaking good. For me, if they can finish up in Tampa by taking at least 2 of 3 the rest of the season seems to set up better than I thought it would when we were looking at having 20 more road than home games left.

Bad news for Baltimore

Eddie Matz ESPN Senior Writer

The Orioles might have to go ace-less. Manager Buck Showlater said that Chris Tillman's bullpen session did not go well and that his shoulder is bothering him. Tillman's last start was pushed back three days due to the sore shoulder, and then when he did pitch, he got rocked by Houston, allowing six runs and walking five in just two innings. Showalter said the team expects to have more clarity tomorrow. Tillman is slated to start Thursday against Nats ace Max Scherzer.