Is .500 in jeopardy?

[Moose Milligan]

As far as I’m concerned, the playoff race is over. Even if we won the past couple series, the Rays and Blue Jays are winning at a better clip. 
 

At this point with the way we’ve been playing over the past week or so, I’m starting to wonder if our shot at a .500 season is in jeopardy.  Even if we finish below that mark, the season still should be considered a success but I think it would still sting, it’d probably cost Hyde manager of the year.  
 

The rest of the schedule is pretty stout and I can easily see this happening. And if we don’t watch out, we can still finish below the Sox in our all too familiar position. 

[eddie83]

It’s possible they fall below if they keep hitting like this. 9-13 gets them to 82-80. 
 

I was just hoping they would be in the race as long as possible. The bats this weekend were bad. I know Saturday the game was over early but it’s been frustrating to watch them hit. 
 

They need to beat WAS and DET when they play them. The Nats have been playing better lately. I just hope they can get the bats going some and don’t limp into the off-season. We don’t know how much will be at stake for NYY and TOR the last 6 games. Odds are NYY may clinch the division at some point that series. TOR will want to set up their pitching for the playoffs. 
 

They look like a team that has the weight of the world on their shoulders. Hope the off day will help. Be nice to score some early and maybe relax a little. 

[JR Oriole]

I do think .500 and 4th place are both in jeopardy. Boston is not a normal last place team....there is proven talent all over that roster.  After everything this team has accomplished, to finish under .500 and in 5th place would negate most of it because it would imply a 9-21 finish against mostly division rivals.  That would sound like....every other year.  

[Spy Fox]

I think it's possible given the tough schedule, but more likely they go ~.500 the rest of the way to finish with 83-85 W's. I don't see a team in collapse, I just see a slumping offense and a bad week.

This team has been so consistent that people forgot what it's like to have a bad week. The team hasn't lost two straight series since the All Star Break, and the last time they had a losing week of two series (Monday to Sunday) was June 27 to July 3.

This losing week just stings extra because we haven't had one in a while, and it's coinciding with other hot streaks in a way that makes the WCGB look insurmountable. 

[glenn__davis]

19 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

I think it's possible given the tough schedule, but more likely they go ~.500 the rest of the way to finish with 83-85 W's. I don't see a team in collapse, I just see a slumping offense and a bad week.

This team has been so consistent that people forgot what it's like to have a bad week. The team hasn't lost two straight series since the All Star Break, and the last time they had a losing week of two series (Monday to Sunday) was June 27 to July 3.

This losing week just stings extra because we haven't had one in a while, and it's coinciding with other hot streaks in a way that makes the WCGB look insurmountable. 

Definitely agree with all of this.

I can see them limping to the finish a bit and running out of gas.  I may be in the minority, but I don't really care about .500.  I have a pretty binary view - you either make the playoffs, or you do not.  If you don't make the playoffs then finishing above .500 or in a certain place in your division doesn't really matter to me.

Which doesn't mean that the season hasn't been successful, I think it very much has been regardless.  I think we've found some good nuggets and we've found the areas that need to improve to try to make the jump next year.

Edited September 12, 2022 by glenn__davis

[forphase1]

Simply hard to win with these cold bats.  Too many poor hitters in the lineup too often (Odor, Chirinos) which is magnified when the 'better' hitters like Hays and Mountcastle are struggling and not able to carry the team. I think .500 is going to happen, but if the bats keep up this frigid pace, falling below that is possible.   Partly depends on lineups going forward. 

[Sports Guy]

As Hyde said yesterday, you can’t expect tour best players to be playing every day at this point in the season.

They start to tire out and need rest and the Os have like 1 day off the rest of the year.

You are going to see more lineups like the one we saw yesterday a little more often.

[Aristotelian]

I'd say under .500 is about as likely as making the playoffs. We'd have to do pretty bad to play 7 games under .500 the rest of the way. Could happen though. 

[JR Oriole]

I can really only follow the games online, but from what I can see when we are hitting, we have a lot of 1-2-3 innings, a lot of falling behind early in the count (where the pitches at least online do not appear to be in the strike zone), a lot of pop-ups, and just not a lot of baserunners at all.   The stats show us 25th in the majors in OBP.  Also looks like we are 27th in O-Swing %.  I think we had 14 strikeouts yesterday out of our 27 outs, which means a ton of unproductive outs.  Not sure where to find the stats for productive outs as a team, but I suspect we are not great in that area as well.  

Foot traffic on the basepaths creates stress for the opposing pitcher, and it feels like we are making things very easy for the opposition regardless of who is pitching.

[Brian88]

If we keep scoring 0 runs I’d say so 

[baltfan]

At this point, I am all for finishing lower in the standings for a better pick and actually a chance at the #1 overall.

[Moose Milligan]

1 hour ago, glenn__davis said:

Definitely agree with all of this.

I can see them limping to the finish a bit and running out of gas.  I may be in the minority, but I don't really care about .500.  I have a pretty binary view - you either make the playoffs, or you do not.  If you don't make the playoffs then finishing above .500 or in a certain place in your division doesn't really matter to me.

Which doesn't mean that the season hasn't been successful, I think it very much has been regardless.  I think we've found some good nuggets and we've found the areas that need to improve to try to make the jump next year.

I agree with this partly, specifically the part about either you're in the playoffs or not. 

But it's been so long for this team, I still think it's important that they just win more than they lose and can say they had a winning season.  The season has been successful but I'd like for them to see it through all the way.

[Sports Guy]

17 minutes ago, Brian88 said:

If we keep scoring 0 runs I’d say so 

You did well in math class, didn’t you?

[Brian88]

7 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

You did well in math class, didn’t you?

After gym and lunch, math was my best class.

[Frobby]

Short answer is that .500 is not guaranteed by a long shot, with the difficulty of our remaining schedule.