Championship Series

[LITTLE NELL]

I will be giving out a lot of handshakes to some golfing buddies tomorrow, quite a few Michigan transplants here in Sebring.

[Brian26]

Wow, quite the scene with Leyland and Dombrowski helping hold Ilitch up on the platform.

[SCCWS]

Originally Posted by LITTLE NELL

I will be giving out a lot of handshakes to some golfing buddies tomorrow, quite a few Michigan transplants here in Sebring.

Nell: Didn't know you were in Sebring. Nice town in the middle of Florida. Had a good breakfast a few years ago in Jimmy's Greek American as we were passing through the town.

[JB98]

The team with the seventh-best regular season record in the American League is going to the World Series.

Sometimes, getting to the playoffs is the hardest part.

[Brian26]

Originally Posted by Dan H

You are right; we will never know. I don't buy the logic the Sox would've gone deep into the playoffs if they got there. First, Chris Sale is a great talent but he is no Verlander. Besides, 95% of the time, 85 wins doesn't get a team into the playoffs. The Sox just weren't good enough.

The World Series could be the Tigers (7th best team in the AL) versus the Cardinals (5th best team in the NL). All the Sox had to do was make the post-season. As I said earlier in this thread, it was the easiest path to the World Series in many years. It's a lost opportunity.

The other thing that sucks is that the Tigers had a 7-inning party in the clincher. When's the last time any Chicago team had a chance to clinch at home in that manner? Maybe the '85 Bears against the Rams in the NFC Championship?

I hope this pisses off the White Sox as much as it pisses me off, but I doubt it.

[LITTLE NELL]

Originally Posted by SCCWS

Nell: Didn't know you were in Sebring. Nice town in the middle of Florida. Had a good breakfast a few years ago in Jimmy's Greek American as we were passing through the town.

Being a Greek-American we go to Jimmy's about once a month, they have a great Gyro platter which includes a Greek salad and Fries. Quite a few other eating establishments here in Sebring are owned by Greeks.
You are right, Sebring is a nice town and is located in a spot where in 70 to 90 minutes you can be in Disney World, Tampa-St Pete, the Space Coast, Sarasota and Ft. Myers and of course lots of nice Golf Courses.

[PaleHoser]

Take away Valverde's meltdown in Game 1 and the Yankees score exactly two runs in four games.

With five days off, Verlander's in line to make three starts in the World Series. Tigers will be hard to beat.

Any chance the Tigers leave Valverde off the World Series roster?

My only regret is that Derek Jeter got hurt. I would have loved to see his reaction at the end of tonight's game.

[Hitmen77]

Congratulations Tigers for being American League Champions. I'm glad the Yankees are going home.

Originally Posted by WhiteSox5187

Yea, I know that everyone thinks the Sox could have had the same success the Tigers have had this year but the fact is that two of our three best pitchers were absolutely gassed by the middle of September.

I agree. The July version of the White Sox would have had a decent shot at the series, but the regular season is a 162 game marathon and the Sox were obviously gassed by the end. It's not just the pitchers, position players like Youkilis and Dunn faded badly at the end.

I know we led the Tigers most of the season (including a 3 game lead w/ 16 games to go), but the Tigers just have much more depth than the Sox. As much as I like Sale, we don't have anyone who's even close to as good as Verlander and perhaps Scherzer too. The Tigers have 2 players on their roster who are on track to be 1st ballot Hall of Famers.

IMO, there's a difference between the Yankees just going over the top year after year outspending even the 2nd richest team by tens of millions and the Tigers putting up the money to bring a 2nd pennant in 6 years to Detroit. I can't fault the Tigers organization for investing resources in both their major league roster and their farm system to get it done. They have their faults, but they obviously were able to step up against the big boys when it mattered? When was the last time other than 2005 that a White Sox team really got going down the stretch when the season was on the line?

[Hitmen77]

Originally Posted by Brian26

The World Series could be the Tigers (7th best team in the AL) versus the Cardinals (5th best team in the NL). All the Sox had to do was make the post-season. As I said earlier in this thread, it was the easiest path to the World Series in many years. It's a lost opportunity.

The other thing that sucks is that the Tigers had a 7-inning party in the clincher. When's the last time any Chicago team had a chance to clinch at home in that manner? Maybe the '85 Bears against the Rams in the NFC Championship?

I hope this pisses off the White Sox as much as it pisses me off, but I doubt it.

Yep, that's pretty much my thinking too.

Since the AL Central was formed under the 3-division/wild card format, we have seen the Indians dominate (7 times as champs including 6 times in 7 years, 4 ALCS appearances, and two pennants), the Twins dominate (6 times as champs including 4 times in 5 years...though they always choked in the playoffs), now the Tigers have won their 2nd straight division title, one 95-win wild card season, and 2 pennants since '06).

When are the Sox going to dominate the Central? 2005 was awesome, but it's 1 ALCS appearance in 18 seasons. Aside from 2005, only 2 playoff appearances (1-6 record) in the other 17 seasons.

Are the Sox pissed off? Even if they were, are they pissed off to actually do something about it to make our team the one that dominates our division?

I almost wonder if we'll see the Royals have a crack at dominating the AL Central for more than 1 season before we see the Sox finally do it.

[Railsplitter]

Bye-bye Yankers

[central44]

Originally Posted by Dan H

You are right; we will never know. I don't buy the logic the Sox would've gone deep into the playoffs if they got there. First, Chris Sale is a great talent but he is no Verlander. Besides, 95% of the time, 85 wins doesn't get a team into the playoffs. The Sox just weren't good enough.

The Sox fell off a cliff though. They had the talent to win more than 85, and inexplicably got caught up in bad habits such as swinging for the fences, trying too hard, etc.

Apparantly they didn't have what it takes to handle pressure, because they had the division virtually won--barring an embarrassing choke--and they couldn't even manage that. Their opponets would have been a smoke-and-mirrors Oakland team and a Yankee team that they not only handled during the regular season, but fell off a cliff of their own in the postseason. It's not a guarantee that the Sox would have gone to the World Series, but the Tigers just did it against two less-than impressive teams and the Sox had a better record than them the vast majority of the season. It's not like it's far fetched to think the Sox would have made a deep run as well.

For me, it just feels like another sucker punch in a recent flurry of them--the 2010 and 2011 Bears and last season's Bulls team. But in this case, there's no injury to blame--the Sox played well below their abilities, choked away a convincing lead, and should be furious with themselves now that Detroit is going to the World Series.

[Jollyroger2]

Originally Posted by Hitmen77

Yep, that's pretty much my thinking too.

Since the AL Central was formed under the 3-division/wild card format, we have seen the Indians dominate (7 times as champs including 6 times in 7 years, 4 ALCS appearances, and two pennants), the Twins dominate (6 times as champs including 4 times in 5 years...though they always choked in the playoffs), now the Tigers have won their 2nd straight division title, one 95-win wild card season, and 2 pennants since '06).

When are the Sox going to dominate the Central? 2005 was awesome, but it's 1 ALCS appearance in 18 seasons. Aside from 2005, only 2 playoff appearances (1-6 record) in the other 17 seasons.

Are the Sox pissed off? Even if they were, are they pissed off to actually do something about it to make our team the one that dominates our division?

I almost wonder if we'll see the Royals have a crack at dominating the AL Central for more than 1 season before we see the Sox finally do it.

Even if the Sox are pissed off, who cares. Doesn't do any good now. It would have been nice if they had shown up for a half dozen or so of the games vs. Detroit and maybe things would be different now. They rolled over meekly in their last two trips to Detroit and then didn't hold serve enough at home. And they couldn't beat even the dregs of the league when they needed wins.

I hate seeing them celebrate but kudos to Detroit.

[DSpivack]

Originally Posted by Brian26

The World Series could be the Tigers (7th best team in the AL) versus the Cardinals (5th best team in the NL). All the Sox had to do was make the post-season. As I said earlier in this thread, it was the easiest path to the World Series in many years. It's a lost opportunity.

The other thing that sucks is that the Tigers had a 7-inning party in the clincher. When's the last time any Chicago team had a chance to clinch at home in that manner? Maybe the '85 Bears against the Rams in the NFC Championship?

I hope this pisses off the White Sox as much as it pisses me off, but I doubt it.

Clinch a championship, or a conference title? I remember the 2006 NFC title game as basically a party sending the Bears to the Super Bowl in the 4th quarter, though the game before that was close. Going back, the Bulls blew out the Heat in Game 5 of the 1997 East Finals, but every other clincher to the Finals was on the road as they were almost always the better seed.

[palehozenychicty]

Originally Posted by Brian26

The World Series could be the Tigers (7th best team in the AL) versus the Cardinals (5th best team in the NL). All the Sox had to do was make the post-season. As I said earlier in this thread, it was the easiest path to the World Series in many years. It's a lost opportunity.

The other thing that sucks is that the Tigers had a 7-inning party in the clincher. When's the last time any Chicago team had a chance to clinch at home in that manner? Maybe the '85 Bears against the Rams in the NFC Championship?

I hope this pisses off the White Sox as much as it pisses me off, but I doubt it.

It'd be a thought. But our team doesn't have the firepower. September makes that clear every season.

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by Dan H

You are right; we will never know. I don't buy the logic the Sox would've gone deep into the playoffs if they got there. First, Chris Sale is a great talent but he is no Verlander. Besides, 95% of the time, 85 wins doesn't get a team into the playoffs. The Sox just weren't good enough.

Logic doesn't count for anything in the postseason. Was Sale gassed? Was Quintana gassed? Was the offense gassed? Or were they feeling the effects of the pressure? No one can really say so except the guys in the clubhouse.

The Cardinals improbable 9th inning rally against the best team in the National League in the LDS was sparked by a guy who hit .227 (Descalso) and a guy who played in 26 games and hit .232 in AAA this season (Kozma).

You. Just. Have. To. Get. There. Everything else is out the window.