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When five Red Sox losses are four but also still five, baseball history if there'd always been Wild Card slots, top-ten Kingman, Chris Sale delivers

Saturday 8/31/24

I incorrectly wrote the other day that the Red Sox had lost five in a row when technically they had only lost four in a row despite having lost five in a row. They were swept at home in a three-game set by the Diamondbacks, then lost both ends of a doubleheader to the Blue Jays. That's where I got the five. But that first game of the doubleheader, being a continuation of another game, counted as a game from that earlier date, whenever it was. My bad.


Then they won two in a row, dropped the series finale to the Jays, and beat the Tigers last night in ten. The Tigers have kind of come out of nowhere. They're a .500 team, but that's all you need these days to be in the mix. Is that good? Do you like that? My feelings are mixed. The Red Sox typically aren't that good in recent years, so this gives me a better shot of seeing them play in October, which is really the only reason I "like" the plethora of Wild Card spots. All things being equal--meaning, if I didn't root for the Red Sox and want to see them play in October--I'd prefer to do away with the current set-up. You're rewarding too much mediocrity. My desire for the Red Sox to make it to the postseason is, I admit, a selfish one, not a best-for-the-game one.


I was thinking yesterday about how different baseball history would be if the Wild Card--or some other playoff system--had always been in place and what percentage of the World Series champions that would change. Twenty-five percent? Could be even higher. The Red Sox would have won somewhere in there before 2004, right? 1972, maybe? The 1985 Yankees could have been a World Series winner. There'd be all of these odd teams that got hot, had a starter or two go on a roll. The 1985 Mets also could have won it all. There might have been a Subway Series that year.


Yesterday I saw someone write that they consider Dave Kingman one of the top ten "untainted" home run hitters of all-time. You have to do some real maneuvering to get Dave Kingman onto that list ("Sorry, Mel Ott!"), but this pleased me nonetheless. Kingman!


Here's some insight into how people think: In almost no instance when they say something is one of the top things out of however many things have they given any thought to what else is on that list or would have to be omitted as a result. This is unthinkable for me, personally. I've thought everything through and will give you the rest of the list. I never just throw out numbers. But that's what other people do. They just say things. 'Cause.


Chris Sale is going to win the NL Cy Young award if he doesn't get hurt, and with this Cy Young he will now make the Hall of Fame. I detest Chris Sale. I need not go into all of the reasons why again. I've written enough about them in these pages and talked about them plenty on the radio. This is what I expected from Sale this year. I understand that if he was on the 2024 Red Sox he would be giving them nothing because he is a massive bitch--which I am not using in any gendered sense. He'd have found a way to get hurt and would be good for three wins. Chris Sale doesn't do pressure. He does low expectations. Because he is weak. Asked to be the guy, he cannot be the guy. (Which he tries to cover up by pretending he is very tough.) But put him on a good team where he's less counted on, he has the stuff to get people out until the playoffs when it's bitch-time for Chris Sale no matter what. In other words, he sickens me from afar this year, but I was prepared for this. Hell, I probably wrote in these pages before the season that this was going to happen.



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