General Sports Water Cooler

Monday through Thursday
Detroit at Chicago: Porcello vs. Quintana; Fister vs. Peavy; Scherzer vs. Liriano; Verlander vs. Sale
Oakland at Anaheim: Parker vs. Haren; Straily vs. Santana; Griffin vs. TBA; Anderson vs. Wilson

Tuesday through Thursday
New York at Boston: Kuroda vs. Lester; Phelps vs. Cook (ESPN); Hughes vs. Doubront (MLBN)

I mentioned in the Yankee thread, I would be satisfied if the Red Sox could take 1 of 3 from the Yankees.

Someone awesome, please tell me what the team's record is with and without Markakis this year.

Thanks.

For the rest of the season, just win 2 games every series! 92 wins, win division. Easy peasy.

This has been haunting me since about 9 pm on Saturday

62-42 with. 16-20 without.

And as telling as those numbers are, there are plenty of other things that happened while Markakis was gone, or shortly after he came back, that were contributing factors to our improved play- settling the LF situation, improving the defense at 3B, our rotation getting much-improved outings from guys like Gonzo/Britton/Tillman.

That is not meant to diminish the impact of losing Markakis, of course. But I think that the record without Markakis would have been better if some of these other changes had already occurred.

Sooo nervous.

Yep. I'd feel a lot better with a win tomorrow night.

I'm pumped to get this series started. I said I wanted exciting September baseball, and that's what I've got. Let's get it, boys.

And you certainly can't complain about the pitching matchups here (Hammel/Chen for us, missing Price/Shields for them.)

Let's just win 2 of 3 so we can all get off the ledge...

A's and Angels have pretty brutal schedules the rest of the way. We have to hold ground/gain a little the next six and then clean house in the following 10 against Bos and Tor.

2 of 3 would be huge.

On paper, the pitching favors us, especially since the Rays don't score a lot. Hopefully we can take advantage.

I fully expect Chen to bounce back from his last start.

I hope the guys are relaxing today, getting some well-deserved rest and taking their mind off of baseball for a bit. Maybe Matusz can organize a team trip to the acquarium.