88 wins.

[terpoh]

1 hour ago, Flash- bd said:

We'll get to 90 wins. People get way too down during down periods. 

You do realize that we have played .450 ball for the past 53 games. Over 1/3 of a full season. If we play .450 ball the rest of the way we would win 16 more games (89 wins). It’s not that far fetched, and in fact I’d argue it should be expected that we will not win 90. Hope we do, but it would take playing much better baseball than we have since mid June. And we are more decimated by injuries now. Not sure 53 games is a “down period”

[glenn__davis]

1 hour ago, Flash- bd said:

We'll get to 90 wins. People get way too down during down periods. 

Yeah.  Love the board. Tough to read at times right now.  Think last year spoiled a lot of people.  People acting like we'll likely miss the playoffs when we have a 7 game cushion approaching September. Glad the team has more moxie than some of its fans. 

[survivedc]

55 minutes ago, terpoh said:

You do realize that we have played .450 ball for the past 53 games. Over 1/3 of a full season. If we play .450 ball the rest of the way we would win 16 more games (89 wins). It’s not that far fetched, and in fact I’d argue it should be expected that we will not win 90. Hope we do, but it would take playing much better baseball than we have since mid June. And we are more decimated by injuries now. Not sure 53 games is a “down period”

I mean, to be fair, it wouldn't require playing "much better." We're talking about a 1 win difference. 

[Uli2001]

1 hour ago, terpoh said:

You do realize that we have played .450 ball for the past 53 games. Over 1/3 of a full season. If we play .450 ball the rest of the way we would win 16 more games (89 wins). It’s not that far fetched, and in fact I’d argue it should be expected that we will not win 90. Hope we do, but it would take playing much better baseball than we have since mid June. And we are more decimated by injuries now. Not sure 53 games is a “down period”

Also to be fair, I think those 53 games began with a 4-game losing streak. Since that losing streak, they have played .500 ball. That's exactly what they are now, a .500 club. So that's about 17-18 more wins, that makes it 90-91 wins. It could be enough for the top WC, provided no one gets hot. Division would require the NYY to play .500 or less.

[SteveA]

2 hours ago, Uli2001 said:

Also to be fair, I think those 53 games began with a 4-game losing streak. Since that losing streak, they have played .500 ball. That's exactly what they are now, a .500 club. So that's about 17-18 more wins, that makes it 90-91 wins. It could be enough for the top WC, provided no one gets hot. Division would require the NYY to play .500 or less.

Actualy there was an 8-13 stretch that contained TWO 5 game losing streaks early in this 50+ game everyone talks about, and we have consistently been a .500 or slightly above team since.   

Now ".500 or slightly above" is not great, and we need to be better.   But eveyrone pointing at the "under .500 for 50+ games" over and over again, is deceptive.   We had a horrible stretch before the break where we were 8-13 with two 5 game losing streaks, which accounts for all of the "under-500-ness" of the entire 53 game period and then some.

• We are 17-15 since that stretch ended (16-15 since the All Star Break over a month ago)
• We haven't lost more than 2 games in a row since before the All Star Break, not one single time.
• We haven't been swept since early July during that 8-13 stretch.
• We have only lost ONE series in the month of August so far

Note that I am not saying our recent stretch of .500-ish is good enough.  We are going to have to do better to win the division.  But anyone who is going out of their way to glom that 8-13 stretch from late June / early July onto any snapshot of the season to try to make a point about the team, is deliberaely going out of their way to paint a negative picture.   We have been a .500ish or slightly better team for over a month now, but all the glass half empty folks find a need to start counting in late June to be sure to include that really bad stretch so they can make their dramatic point about how bad we are.  They are cherry picking the worst possible stretch to try to make their sky is falling point when the really bad segment of that stretch is the farthest removed in time.

It doesn't make sense that 53 games of 25-28 is somehow indicative of "who we are now" than 32 games of 17-15, not when the worst play was back in late June / early July.   Why, because it's a bigger sample size?   OK, let's go back 14 games further, where we are 35-32 our last 67.    

No, we have to cherry pick the sample of games starting exactly after our record peaked on June 21, and measure everything from there, to paint he worst possible statisitcal picture, to support the fact that huge chunks of the sky are landing on our heads.

 

[ledzepp8]

10 hours ago, glenn__davis said:

Yeah.  Love the board. Tough to read at times right now.  Think last year spoiled a lot of people.  People acting like we'll likely miss the playoffs when we have a 7 game cushion approaching September. Glad the team has more moxie than some of its fans. 

Exactly right. It’s one thing to bemoan the struggles of the team. But you can’t just ignore that we have a sizable lead for a playoff spot and everyone else is struggling too. 

[Warehouse]

Here is what needs to happen for Red Sox to knock us out of the playoffs: 

(1) Boston sweeps Os in Fenway Sep 9, 10, 11

(2) Os go 13-19 (.406) in other remaining 32 games against teams other than Red Sox

(3) Red Sox go 19-14 (.576) in other remaining 33 games against teams other than Os

 

Red Sox would finish with 88 wins and Os would finish with 87 wins (note that Os have season series tiebreaker so would advance in event of a tie).

I could see maybe 2 of the three outcomes happening but very unlikely for all 3 to occur.  The most unlikely would be (2) which requires us to have a win percentage worse than the Angels for the rest of our games against non-Boston teams.

[Aglets]

[Aglets]

I like 98.7% odds.

[bpilktree67]

1 hour ago, Warehouse said:

Here is what needs to happen for Red Sox to knock us out of the playoffs: 

(1) Boston sweeps Os in Fenway Sep 9, 10, 11

(2) Os go 13-19 (.406) in other remaining 32 games against teams other than Red Sox

(3) Red Sox go 19-14 (.576) in other remaining 33 games against teams other than Os

 

Red Sox would finish with 88 wins and Os would finish with 87 wins (note that Os have season series tiebreaker so would advance in event of a tie).

I could see maybe 2 of the three outcomes happening but very unlikely for all 3 to occur.  The most unlikely would be (2) which requires us to have a win percentage worse than the Angels for the rest of our games against non-Boston teams.

Red Sox have 37 games left.  but it doesn’t change fact they gonna need lot of things to fall there way.  The Orioles would have to play .371 in that scenario with is basically playing at Rockies level rest of way.  That seems near impossible unless GRod and Efflin both miss entire rest of year.  

[Wavetrapper]

Late Aug/September schedule does offer Rockies, White Sox, Tigers so in theory that should help.  

6 game road trip at Minn and NYY could be a tough way to close things out

[Sports Guy]

Don’t forget the schedule eases up after this stretch. Getting a win today is huge.

Then the next 7 games while NY plays mediocre to poor teams is huge. 

[glenn__davis]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

Don’t forget the schedule eases up after this stretch. Getting a win today is huge.

Then the next 7 games while NY plays mediocre to poor teams is huge. 

Yep - the fact that we're still right there with NYY halfway through this stretch is big.  I still expect them to pull ahead a bit over the next week but then our schedule softens up as well.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, glenn__davis said:

Yep - the fact that we're still right there with NYY halfway through this stretch is big.  I still expect them to pull ahead a bit over the next week but then our schedule softens up as well.

8 games left.  Going 5-3 would be great but I will take 4-4.  Anything less than that and the lead for NY is probably 2+ games 

[ChuckS]

The lowered expectations, and even statements in other threads that we may not make the playoffs, is really confusing to me.  Our playoff odds are like 98 or 99 percent. 

Despite an awful bullpen, we still have one of the best offenses in baseball and a decent starting rotation (even in its decimated state).  

The Yankees have their own struggles.  I am expecting us to finish with 90-95 wins and it will just take playing roughly .500 ball to get there. 

Edited August 21 by ChuckS