Sock Drawer Revisited...

In a stunning(or not so stunning when I actually pull the Boston beer goggles off my eyes) turn of events, the Red Sox are headed home for the winter without winning a game, swept out of the playoffs by a team that I wrote off and that now seems to be everyone’s new pick to win the World Series: the Chicago White Sox. Good luck trying to find a spot on this bandwagon; its gone from nearly empty(not even Jay Mariotti wanted a place up there) to being overwhelmed with amnesiac overzealous baseball fans(Jay included) eager to witness the next historical triumph and see the city of Chicago be this year’s Boston and end their 88 year World Series drought. It’s the stuff that dreams are made of….Or at least every other sports story right now.

In reality, what makes the White Sox any better now that they have swept the Red Sox then they were before? Now that my eyes are opened, I will admit it: The Red Sox pitching staff was simply awful. They replaced Pedro(15-8 2.82 ERA, 208 Ks and a measly .204 BAA with the Mets) and Derek Lowe(who for an offensively challenged Dodgers squad had an average year: 12-15 but a 3.61 ERA that would have easily led this year’s Boston starters) with David Wells( 15-7 4.45 ERA and an ugly .296 BAA) and Matt Clement( who had a great first half( 10-2 3.85 ERA) but faded in the second half(3-4 5.72 ERA) ). Factor in the injury to Keith Foulke and you have a team with no starters with more than 16 wins(despite scoring the most runs in the American League), no starter with an ERA under 4 or over 200 strikeouts, no proven closer(despite Timlin’s success as a setup man the last couple years he is not comfortable finishing games) and with the only reliable option for middle relief being a rookie reliever who was converted from the starting rotation midway through the season(Jonathon Papelbon). A team without a good bullpen simply can’t win in the playoffs. Despite the offensive capabilities of this team(45+ HRS and 140+ RBIS from both Ortiz and Ramirez and the highest scoring offense in the league) they were doomed before the series began.

The White Sox on the other hand do possess this one needed element of a World Series winner: a good bullpen. When you can ignore three pitchers with sub-3 ERAs and call in El Duque you know you’ve got a good pen. Without El Duque, this series would still be being played as we speak, but bases loaded and no outs quickly turned into distant memory and the White Sox had Boston back on the ropes for good. They obviously have a great bullpen. This team also scored double digit runs in the first game of the series proving that they have a good enough offense to win it all. So why am I hating on them?

First of all, keep in mind who they were hitting against. The way Clement has thrown during the second half of the year, I could probably have hit a homerun off of him. And his other comrades on the Boston staff weren’t much better. Secondly the 2005 White Soz are streakier than my roommate’s underwear. Note that they are the “White” Sox and not the “Grey” Sox. That’s because the only two colors this team knows are black and white. All season long this team has been hot and cold, and despite their current 8 game winning streak(regular season and playoffs combined) everyone seems to be forgetting that they had to play that well to hold off a charging Indians squad that cut their 15 game lead down to a game and a half. In the blink of an eye, they went from a late-season collapse of epic proportions to having the best record in the American League. To put it bluntly, when they’re good, they’re good; when they’re bad, they’re bad. Their 35-18 record in one-run games was obviously important, especially since they took several of these away from the Indians, who lost 36 one-run games this season,. However, take a minute to go back and read some of the box-scores during their early September freefall and you will find many blow-out losses in which the Sox lost by 5 runs or more. When things start going poorly, they fall apart before eventually picking it up and going on a ridiculous winning streak to keep their heads above water. They get too caught up in losing games and making excuses for poor performances( read: Mark Buerhle’s crazy claims against the Rangers, accusing them of stealing signs by reflecting lights from centerfield). I believe that the playoffs do not allow enough time for the White Sox to complete this crazy cycle that they run on again. I think it’s safe to say that last year's ALCS was an anomaly. Therefore, I feel that when the White Sox do meet resistance and things start to go poorly, they will fall apart and not have time to recover within the restrictions of a 7 game series.
That is why this year’s World Series will be a Sox-less one. For Chicago, as we Red Sox fans told ourselves for 85 consecutive Octobers, “there’s always next year…..”