Last year we finished 1 game out, this year????

I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday...Although, to be honest, as much as I dislike the Giants, I would rather see them there vs. the Cubs...

 

tied...and we win a playoff game vs the cubs on monday

if we dont make it, i want to see the cubs vs red sox

 

If this team wins 4 out of 6 (which they should), they'll end up with 90 wins.

I won't be dissapointed with that... 90 wins is very respectable.

We have to remember that, even if we had Pettite, Clemens, Miller all healthy... we couldn't have predicted that this team was going to win 100+ regular season games. (even before the season, when making the playoffs seemed like a formality). That stuff doesn't happen too often, even with the best of teams.

Thus, the Astros would have been where they are right now... a wild card contender. Nobody was forcasting a possible 105 win season for the Cardinals.

 

This is what I've been thinking about after the more disappointing losses the past week.

We're battling the Cubs for a playoff spot -- exactly where everyone thought we'd be. Nobody really thought we were going to run away with the division, did they?

Only thing is, the Cards had one of the great seasons in recent memory, so we're battling for the Wild Card and not the division crown. We're still one of the top teams in the NL -- at least by win-loss record.

90 wins isn't too far off of where I thought we'd end up.

I know it would be frustrating to come up short once again, but 90 wins as a final outcome is pretty good on paper with Pettite and Miller missing so much time. It's just frustrating the way the season played out (dead in the water and then right back in it) -- IF we end up a game or so back, that is.

But if we make the playoffs, how satisfying would that be?

 

I agree, we won the 2001 division title with only 93 wins

All things considered they are about where i expected

 

Also, they would have won last year's division title with 88 or 89 wins.

I guess they picked the wrong year to be a pretty good team... but then again, they picked the right year to have a guy like Clemens on the staff. Clemens, plus a healthy Oswalt, would have ran away with the division last year. (hell, a healthy Oswalt alone would have meant a division winner).

This stuff does happen (good teams not making the playoffs)... see the 1993 Giants who finished with 103 wins and still didn't make the playoffs because the Braves finished with 104 wins !

Of course, this was before the wild card. Ironically enough, it added fuel to both the pro-wild card people, and the anti-wild card people.

The pro-wild card people pointed out that a team like the 93 Giants deserved to make the playoffs, given that the other division winner in 93 had a much worse record.

The anti-wild card people (Costas) remarked that this would be the last great pennant race of our time... because in the future, whenver you'd have two great teams in a division... most likely, one would end up winning the wild card anyways, making the pennant essentially meaningless (see 2001 Astros vs. Cardinals, or any Red Sox vs. Yankees for the last 2-3 years).

 

Damn those Braves. That is an unbelievable run. And even more unbelievable the failure that ultimately follows.

 

DaDa...if they do win...if they pull this comeback off. are they still heartless in your book? you posted that the other day...and in baseball, where the margins between winning a playoff spot and not winning a playoff spot seem so tiny (1 game out of 162), it just struck me as odd that you would say that. particularly after they got themselves back in this race with a very improbable comeback in a spot where a lot of other teams would have quit.

 

Exaggerate much?

 

Exactly, old man grump was simply terrible for the team. I hated his strategy from the day we hired him.

 

Yea, unfortunately, McLane and co. wanted to go with somebody who was almost the virtual opposite of Larry Dierker.

--One who didn't call his players out in the media (they got one that didn't speak to the media at all... or at least in any terms other than a cliche).

--One who made decisions based on a vast amount of baseball knowledge and managing experience, not because of what happened within the last week. (dierker not bringing in Dotel, and bringing in the relatively "hot" Mike Jackson in the playoffs).

--One who'd managed before in the playoffs

--One who'd managed before in the playoffs and actually won a playoff round.

The only guy readily available that fit all those requirements was Jimy, and he doesn't have a tremendous career amount of managing wins for no reason.

Of course, he's also an expert at his teams finishing second... thus, we were stuck with meeting his career goals.

But, there's no way the Astros would have hired Garner (or any other "player's manager") after Dierker... they were looking to go the opposite route.

 

I sure hope this year doesn't end the same way. I would love to see the Cubs have a short 2 game skid....man would that be nice.


If not the Astros, I want to see the Giants win the WC.