The feel-good hit of the summer

Jake Peavy not only came out of his White Sox debut healthy — he picked up the victory in a 13-3 thrashing of the Kansas City Royals.
Take notes, John Danks, because here’s a guy who knows how to win.
peavy0919
Even better — Tyler Flowers contributed to the cause as well. He drew his first major-league walk, singled through the left side for his first major-league hit, then came around to score his first major-league run.
It’s worth stating that he also blew his first major-league bunt attempt. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Flowers fouled off two awkward attempts, then struck out to help stifle a burgeoning rally.
Hopefully, it comes out as nobody’s fault. Flowers probably hasn’t been asked to bunt much in Birmingham or Charlotte, and Ozzie Guillen has never seen him try to execute one in a game situation, so hopefully it’s water under a bridge, Flowers will work harder at it until he becomes a proven major-league hitter, and Guillen doesn’t ask him to do it again anytime soon.
Weird as it seems, the Sox are still only 5 1/2 games out of first place, and 3 1/2 behind the Twins.  If the Sox win and the Twins lose tomorrow, the Sox are technically in control of their destiny. Sure, they have to play nearly perfect ball in order to take advantage of that fact, but it’s also worth stating, nevertheless.

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pander

There are seven possibilities that emerge from our six with Detroit, assuming they are the only target we have to worry about.
We gain -6/-4/-2/0/+2/+4/+6 games on Detroit.
Lemme just go ahead and put gut-feeling odds on each possibility:
+6 games: 2%
+4 games: 8%
+2 games: 18%
+0 games: 32%
-2 games: 19%
-4 games: 15%
-6 games: 6%
I’d honestly think winning 4 games (pulling 2 games closer) is about as realistically good as we could hope, short of a hot streak to coincide with Detroit’s continued suckitude (and even that may not be enough to win a full 6 games, half of which are at Comerica).
To that end, we have 7 non-Detroit games (1 KC, 3 CLE, 3 MIN) in which we must (following the idea we go 4-2 against DET) win 5.5 times in that they lose. In essence, EXCLUDING their games with us, we’ll need to go 7-0 and they’ll need to go 2-6 in order to TIE. If we go 6-1 they need to go 1-7, and if we go 5-2 they’ll have to go 0-8.
So clearly, based on realistic assumptions of the remaining games with DET, unrealistic requirements emerge regarding the rest of the schedule. How best to alleviate such unrealistic parameters regarding our/their performance against other division teams with the remaining games?
Assume unrealistic results in the Sox/DET series. It’s really the single chance we have to pull close. While losing any more to the Twins would be bad, ANY series in which we don’t win at least 5 versus the Tigers is pretty much a death sentence.
So yeah, funny thing that hope. I’m pretty sure after all this blathering about how the Sox can make the playoffs Andrew Reilly would probably want to come over here and beat me with a pipe, but hey, this is sort of fun. Hope lives on, like a betting on a river card to produce a gut shot straight. We Sox fans have nothing to lose by hoping the unrealistic occurs.

jimbo

I hate to simplify your formula but when we win all of our remaining games, we’re in. In looking at our schedule, I don’t see how we could lose one.

shakey

It’s nice to have a pitcher that shows that he cares. It can only do good things for our younger pitchers.

cushinglee

After the 11-0 game, it is very hard for me to have any confidence that this team can stage a miracle comeback. If they lose today everybody will be complaining again.

cushinglee

One run scored, eight men left on base…..

vasoxfan

What a refreshing change from the malaise we have suffered of late.
Peavey’s a gamer. The offense provided run support and probably the most miraculous thing about the game is the bullpen did their job and didn’t give up any runs in 4 innings! ! PTL!!!!
Can we repeat this behavior? Let us all hope that we can.

pander

Peavy’s a gamer. Peavey’s a manufacturer of fine musical equipment.

pander

Motherfucker. Robinson Tejada Robinson Tejada-ed us.