Rank Team ERA
1 St. Louis 3.49
2 Houston 3.51
4 Chicago Sox 3.61
5 LA Angels 3.68
11 Atlanta 3.98
13 San Diego 4.13
22 NY Yankees 4.52
24 Boston 4.74
This is a little bit interesting. Look at the overall rankings for the ERAs of the playoff teams and compare the rankings to the teams’ relative successes and you can see that the old mantra of pitching beating hitting is still true. For all the A-Rods, Pujols, Mannys and Big Papis, you need Buerhles, Garcias, Contreras, Garlands, Backes and Oswalts to have a chance in the postseason.
That said, I have never seen worse hitting in a postseason in 25 years of watching baseball. I don’t think I saw 25 really good at bats in all of October. It was just brutal - guys swinging at junk, letting meatballs go by, hacking away after a pitcher was obviously wild, guys with no plan and no clue. It seemed to infect every team. The Astros looked horrible today; Garcia really wasn’t pitching very well but they happily bailed him out again and again.
And the Astros were the team that beat two other teams. Other teams were even worse. The Angels’ hitting performance in the ALCS was so bad it was surreal.
Other thoughts:
The White Sox deserved to win the World Series. 99-63 and 11-1 in the playoffs. Umpiring oddities aside, they earned it as much as any team ever has.
I agree that the MVP Award should have gone to Joe Crede. Dye was very good but Crede was far and away more important.
I found it really amusing that people kept talking about how the White Sox were a team that does the little things. Actually, they were the most home run-dependent team in all of baseball, hitting 200 homers (great) but scoring just 741 runs (bad.) **Hitting home runs was the only thing their offense did well. ** They didn’t hit for average, didn’t hit doubles or triples, didn’t steal bases especially well.
Scott Podsednik hit two playoff homers while hitting zero in a full season of play. I believe the last player to do that was also a White Sox; Lance Johnson, who hit no homers while playing full time in 1993, but hit a bomb against Toronto in the ALCS.
I totally disagree. The World Series especially left me impressed by the way the vast majority of hitters worked counts, took pitches and generally didn’t give away outs. You hardly ever saw a guy swing at the first pitch. Every single pitcher who played had nasty stuff, there wasn’t a single guy other than Astacio throwing meatballs. Both staffs featured overpowering fastballs and nasty sliders. I agree that the Angels and Red Sox were largely the exceptions, they got themselves out against the Sox many mnay times. However it’s clear where that got them. These final two team rarely ever surrendered to an easy at bat. These guy grinded. I watched every pitch of these games and I didn’t see a single meatball go by, very few were thrown and they tended to get drilled when they did. The picthing on both sides was just dominating. If you didn’t think Garcia had electric stuff tonite you were watching a different game.
As a Cubs fan, just chiming in to say that we were thrilled, excited, and delighted by the White Sox season and ultimate win.
(I hate this notion – inflamed by the press – of northside/southside Cubs/Sox rivalry. Yeah, my favorite team is the Cubs, but it’s great to have a second team to cheer on as well.)
My only disappointment was that the win wasn’t in Chicago. It looked kinda pathetic, to see all those Sox players jumping around like crazy on the field, and all the people in the stands just sitting there looking glum. We switched to local news to see the partying in the streets. On t’other hand, the sweep was nice.
I was begrudgingly pulling for the Sox too, but be careful about that we stuff. Cubs fans are a pretty openminded group, but Sox fans have been made bitter by years in the Cubs shadow. As a result they are a pretty viscious and vindicitive lot. They take more joy in Cubs losses than they do in Sox wins. Cubs fans are generally indifferent to the Sox, Sox fans loathe the Cubs. I only mention this to illustrate how unpleasant I expect these next years to be being a Cubs fan surrounded by some mean spirited Sox fans. So while I like the Sox players and their style, I cannot be happy for Sox fans who I expect to be a really obnoxious bunch.
Chiming in from Cleveland congratulations to the White Sox. If it couldn’t be the Indians (and it never is) at least the Tribe lost out to the Champs after giving them a good run for their money.
As for the Cub fan/Sox fan silliness, twenty years ago I went to school with and became good friends with both Sox fans and Cub fans. Even back then the only thing they could, reluctantly, agree on was that the all liked Ditka and the Bears.
Really high batting average during the series (.450-ish) and hit the game winning RBI in game 4.
I really don’t get it either. If it was going to be based on one play (the GW RBI), than what about Uribe getting that Bartman ball on the 2nd out in the ninth?
Why the hell didn’t a fan smack it out of the way?
My favorite NL team for the longest time was the Astros (circa Mike Scott, Nolan Ryan, Rob Denier, Ken Caminiti, Dale Hatcher, etc.). Am I the only one who likes the orange jerseys?
Anyway, any of the games could have gone either way. Just because the Astros got swepted doesn’t mean that it wasn’t exciting. The Sox had to grind out each and every victory. Every at bat, every pitch, every hitting/pitching change, match-ups, pitch outs, hitter’s count/swing away were all important. Any one of those factors could have swung the game around a different way. It could have easily been a 4-0 Houston sweep and Chicago weep. These were all one and two run games. Every game Chicago went to go and close the Astros had someone on base, and, iirc, someone was in scoring position. I recall a Maalox commercial, and I know what those moments are like from watching these games. I know the ratings were low for this series, which is a shame, because this was some great baseball.
If it were the Cubs winning, I would be begrudgingly rooting for them, too. However, all of what you posted above can easily be turned around the other way. Cub fans always boast how they are the toast of the town and always make it a point that they have more friends, making Sox fans feel like a real miinority. Also, the only park I’ve ever had beer dumped on me was in Wrigley (granted, some of my comments may have been misinterpreted by the volume and choice of venacular, but that doesn’t excuse the behavior, particularly of that one 50-yr old grandma :)) I also don’t feel the urge to throw back a meaningless homerun. The only time I’ve had beer threated to be dumped on me in The Cell was by a Cub fan, luckily her son was not wont to be witnessing such disturbing behavior.
Don’t speak for all of us, Dex. I grew up a Cubs fan in the South Side, and when my Sox fan friends were out in the streets banging pots and pans cheering the Cubs demise in '03, it’s a bit difficult to work up any sort of pride that the Sox won this year. Yes, it’s a Chicago team, and yes, I will begrudgingly say they deserved to win it and played some great baseball. But the White Sox winning the World Series means about as much to me as the Washington Nationals winning it all.
And I do enjoy the rivalry. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
However, all of what you posted above can easily be turned around the other way. Cub fans always boast how they are the toast of the town and always make it a point that they have more friends, making Sox fans feel like a real miinority. Also, the only park I’ve ever had beer dumped on me was in Wrigley (granted, some of my comments may have been misinterpreted by the volume and choice of venacular, but that doesn’t excuse the behavior, particularly of that one 50-yr old grandma :)) I also don’t feel the urge to throw back a meaningless homerun. The only time I’ve had beer threated to be dumped on me in The Cell was by a Cub fan, luckily her son was not wont to be witnessing such disturbing behavior.
