The Battle for .500

[Moose Milligan]

With the season heading into the final month and the playoff chances slipping seemingly day by day, this rest of this season (for me, anyway) is about individual performances (Manny, Schoop, Davis, Gausman, Givens) and seeing if we can finish above .500 for the 4th season in a row.

It'll be a hard road, I believe we have the 2nd toughest schedule in the league moving forward.

What say you, do we finish above .500 or not? State your arguments for or against.

[maybenxtyr]

I don't see them finishing over.500. Tough schedule, and a bad team make a bad combination for achieving this goal. A few years ago I would have been besides myself about the way this season has gone down, but as I age I'm realizing how unimportant baseball is anymore.

[tntoriole]

I would not have thought this would be possible, but given the schedule remaining, the current state of the starters who ALL. with the possible exception of Chen, seem to be in bad funks, and with what I see as a worsening team attitude- they really seem to be going through the motions in a lot of games, I think a death spiral is more likely than not.

[Moose Milligan]

I don't think we do. This team only scores when hitting homers and that seems to be growing more and more evident by the day. This team hasn't been consistent all season and while I think it'll be close, this team falls just short.

[Aristotelian]

Bottom line is we are missing the playoffs. .500 is an arbitrary line. I really don't care if we win 79 or 82 games. I am much more interested in whether Urrutia or Alvarez can OPS .750, Givens can maintain anything close to his production, Roe can get back to his first half production, etc.

[SeaBird]

I don't think we do. This team only scores when hitting homers and that seems to be growing more and more evident by the day. This team hasn't been consistent all season and while I think it'll be close, this team falls just short.

Bingo! Too reliant on the home runs. It's like an all or nothing approach. Tough, tough schedule for the remaining 34 games to hope for anything much higher than .500. Frobby posted that they have had one winning month all season. No evidence or performances to indicate that September will be any different.

[fastball]

The trouble is our F/A will start thinking about where they will land next year. It starts

to take the heart out of there game. End of year.

[Aristotelian]

The trouble is our F/A will start thinking about where they will land next year. It starts

to take the heart out of there game. End of year.

They will have a short memory if the O's make them the best offer to stay. More likely, the O's will continue to play the vets, but will not make them the best offer, and the vets will leave anyway.

[Can_of_corn]

With the season heading into the final month and the playoff chances slipping seemingly day by day, this rest of this season (for me, anyway) is about individual performances (Manny, Schoop, Davis, Gausman, Givens) and seeing if we can finish above .500 for the 4th season in a row.

It'll be a hard road, I believe we have the 2nd toughest schedule in the league moving forward.

What say you, do we finish above .500 or not? State your arguments for or against.

This is where I am.

I won't root against the team but I have to admit it would be nice, if they are not making the playoffs, if they end up with a protected first round pick.

Just sayin'.

[webbrick2010]

I believe we are a lock for last place in the AL East

We have the least talent on the ML roster

and the least talent in our farm system

The Red Sox have turned the corner, with great young talent (Bogaerts, Castillo, Bradley JR, Betts, Swihart, ERod) leading the way. They will pass us.

[Uli2001]

There should have been a third option in the poll, "undecided." There are pro and con reasons for a winning record right now. The con reasons were exposed by previous posters. The pro reasons are Buck Showalter's track record of finishing strong and the fact that they have been playing under their talent level (i.e., underachieving). It is plausible, in my opinion, that they could still "turn it on" before all is said and done. I would say it's around 50/50 right now that they finish above .500. One more week of poor play will definitely tip the scales towards a losing season.

[jjnono]

Twice in the last year the FO, IMHO, failed to make this team better; once in the offseason, and again at the trade deadline (although I don't really know how much interest there was in our FAs). I think a losing record is probably guaranteed. I said this was a 80-84 win team on paper at the outset, and I don't see anything to make me think that won't be true. The starting pitching just isn't good enough (disappointing), and the talent level at both the ML and MiL level doesn't inspire confidence that a turnaround is on the horizon.

[Nevermore]

There should have been a third option in the poll, "undecided." There are pro and con reasons for a winning record right now. The con reasons were exposed by previous posters. The pro reasons are Buck Showalter's track record of finishing strong and the fact that they have been playing under their talent level (i.e., underachieving). It is plausible, in my opinion, that they could still "turn it on" before all is said and done. I would say it's around 50/50 right now that they finish above .500. One more week of poor play will definitely tip the scales towards a losing season.

I agree. I voted that they would barely finish above .500, but I could have voted the other way. I'm just not sure.

[MdSooner]

I voted yes. Just by 1 game or 2. (The same as I did in this poll prior to the start of the season.

But Buck might not decide to play all of our FA's and give an open audition for the guys most likely returning next yr to show what they have.

I don't know

[Can_of_corn]

I voted yes. Just by 1 game or 2. (The same as I did in this poll prior to the start of the season.

But Buck might not decide to play all of our FA's and give an open audition for the guys most likely returning next yr to show what they have.

I don't know

I don't see Buck doing that. Maybe Pearce gets squeezed for playing time, but that would be it.