Offensive Output

[hold2dibber]

I wanted to get a feel for where the Sox would be if the offense was scoring runs at the same pace as last year. I realize that this is FAR from exact, but just out of curiousity, I looked at the avg. runs per game for the Sox last year (5.28) and then looked to see how many of this year's losses would have been wins had the Sox scored 5.28 runs (in other words, how many games have the Sox lost in which the other team scored 5 or fewer runs). The results? The Sox have lost 12 games in which the other team scored 5 or fewer runs. As a VERY rough approximation, the Sox might have won 12 more games this year if their offense was producing at last year's level. Hell, even if you half that number to 6, the Sox would be right in the thick of things.

As much as the bullpen and the defense have been shaky at times, and despite Buehrle's and Garland's struggles, the reason (IMHO) that they are underperforming is their stagnant offense. And I don't think you can blame KW for this - he had every reason to expect the offense to produce at or near last year's levels (I for one thought they'd score more, particularly if Jimenez put up an above-.350 OBP, which he has done). If they were doing as expected offensively, this team would be fine right now. They desparately need to can Manuel as soon as possible -- this season is still salvageable (but just barely). My fear is that KW is going to wait until the end of what is likely to be a disasterous road trip before pulling the plug. It will be too late at that point.

[dougs78]

Originally posted by hold2dibber
I wanted to get a feel for where the Sox would be if the offense was scoring runs at the same pace as last year. I realize that this is FAR from exact, but just out of curiousity, I looked at the avg. runs per game for the Sox last year (5.28) and then looked to see how many of this year's losses would have been wins had the Sox scored 5.28 runs (in other words, how many games have the Sox lost in which the other team scored 5 or fewer runs). The results? The Sox have lost 12 games in which the other team scored 5 or fewer runs. As a VERY rough approximation, the Sox might have won 12 more games this year if their offense was producing at last year's level. Hell, even if you half that number to 6, the Sox would be right in the thick of things.

As much as the bullpen and the defense have been shaky at times, and despite Buehrle's and Garland's struggles, the reason (IMHO) that they are underperforming is their stagnant offense. And I don't think you can blame KW for this - he had every reason to expect the offense to produce at or near last year's levels (I for one thought they'd score more, particularly if Jimenez put up an above-.350 OBP, which he has done). If they were doing as expected offensively, this team would be fine right now. They desparately need to can Manuel as soon as possible -- this season is still salvageable (but just barely). My fear is that KW is going to wait until the end of what is likely to be a disasterous road trip before pulling the plug. It will be too late at that point.


First of all, I'll point out that there is a flaw in your methodology. In order to really capture the difference you'd have to look at all the games (including the ones they won) to see how many wins we "should" have. Perhaps even more precisely would be to calculate the number of total runs we would have scored by now if we were averaging 5.28 runs per game. (games x 5.28). Then subtract the total number of runs we have scored in our wins. This will leave a figure that can be divided by our number of losses to yield how many runs we should have scored in our losses to keep our overall runs per game at 5.28. Then compare this figure to the runs we've given up in our losses. That should be a more precise calculation.


But overall, i agree. I place the blame for this season squarely on our offense. This team wide funk has gone on too long and is the main reason we are so bad. If you would have told me that we would be getting this type of pitching I'd tell you we'd have a record like the Giants do. Our offense should be exceptionally good...instead they are right there with cleveland and detroit.

[Rocky Soprano]

Offense? What is that? Do we have that? I think you got the wrong team. We have Ordonez but no one by that name, Offense. Sorry...