April 11, 2007
Big Win
The Sox took the field today after a devastating 2-1 lose to the Oakland A's last night by giving up 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th inning. Closer Bobby Jenks was called in to end the game, but he gave up four hits en route to the game winning single by Mark Ellis with two outs. Jenks said in a post game interview, "Tonight's all on me" after blowing his first save in two chances.With the loss on their minds, Mark Buehrle took the mound for today's day game. In the first inning, the A's jumped all over Buehrle by getting 3 runs. After that, Buehrle settled down and continued to pitch 6 scoreless runs. The Sox got the majority of their offense in the latter part of the game, scoring 2 runs in the 8th and 3 in the 9th. Jermaine Dye led the offense with 2 hits, 2 RBIs, and 2 runs scored.
As the season progresses, look for continued improvement from the young starting pitchers for the Sox. There is still A LOT of baseball to be played (154 games for the Sox)...
Fairly even playing field
As the second week of ball comes to an end, some trends are starting to appear. In the AL, there are only 2 teams with less than 2 losses (Cleveland and Seattle, which both have had 3 games canceled due to weather). The even playing field shows that high budget teams such as the New York Yankees are only having slightly better success that lower budget teams such as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. This trend is not shown in the National League.
A second trend is only 5 teams in the AL have winning records at home. This is very odd because of home field advantage and fan support, especially early in the season. I feel like this will change as the season progresses. This trend is apparent in the NL, with only 6 teams with winning records at home.
I would like to wish all 30 teams good luck on their quest to make it to the 2007 MLB World Series.
Posted by adamcole at April 11, 2007 09:37 PM