Sox in good shape any way you cut it
No panic even though Indians are closing in
Jose
Contreras gets it. He had
been asked about the importance of his victory over the Minnesota Twins yesterday, what with the Cleveland Indians breathing down the White Sox’s neck and all. He at first answered the question, giving translator Joey Cora a stock reply about “a big series,” but then followed Cora’s translation with an unsolicited assessment.
“I’m very confident with a 31⁄ game lead,” Contreras said. “ We haven’t been playing good, but we still have the lead. Now we play Cleveland head-to-head, and if do well, everything will be fine.”
And if they don’t play so well?
The truth is that if the Sox can win just one of three, things still might be fine.
While many hyperventilate about the Sox’s underwhelming second half, they are still in great shape.
Forget about the white-hot Indians, who visit U.S. Cellular Field beginning tonight. The team that matters most for the Sox’s playoff hopes is the New York Yankees, who are second to Cleveland in the wild-card race. And the Sox have a five- game edge on them.
Not that finishing second is ever anyone’s goal, but what difference does it make if the Sox advance to the playoffs as a division champ or a wild card? It probably would mean going to Boston as a road team instead of opening the first round at home against the Angels.
That’s an insignificant difference, given the American League’s balance and that the Sox have the best road record in the league at 47- 27. Factor in their nine-game home losing streak in the playoffs, which dates to Game 1 of the 1959 World Series, and that the last three Series winners have been wild cards and you can make a case that they’d be better off qualifying as the runner- up.
I’m not going to, but you could. The ideal route for the Sox is to get good enough pitching to win 10 of their remaining 14 games and go in with the confidence of a 100- game winner. But regular- season success has had very little carryover into October since baseball went to the three-tier playoff format.
The Sox have had their ugly moments along the way, surethose back-to-back losses last week in Kansas City stand out- but the reality is their lead has disappeared more because of Cleveland’s great play than their bad play. The Indians’ 32- 11 record since Aug. 1 gives them a shot at one of the fastest finishes in history. They’ve made up 111⁄ games on the Sox, who once held a 15game lead.
But it’s wrong to paint the Sox as a team clinging to a life preserver. They haven’t had a run of injuries and appear to be in stunningly good mental health, with few players hanging their heads like the Cubs did late in 2004.
“They’re pretty good,” manager Ozzie Guillen said of his players. “They’re having fun. My clubhouse is loud. People are talking. We’re not sitting in chairs just thinking about how things are going.”
Guillen wishes his team had been better than 3- 7 since Sept. 7 or 22-23 since Aug. 1, but he knows how baseball goes in cycles. He also knows that the teams that win have players who step forward when other players have slowed down.
So it is that he has begun turning ninth-inning leads over to rookie Bobby Jenks, who is on the roll of his young life, while appreciating Dustin Hermanson’s humility.
Hermanson was warming up in the ninth inning when Guillen walked to the mound and motioned for Jenks to replace the forgiven Damaso Marte with two outs and the Sox leading Minnesota 2- 1 yesterday at the Metrodome. Hermanson could have left a pall over the victory by sulking, but instead he patted Jenks on the back and said he knows his stuff isn’t what it should be.