3s are wild

Thursday was an off day, and I had meant to make a long post yesterday examining the three keys to the Sox success so far in 2005. The season is officially approximately 33 and 1/3rd over.

1) sPod OBP has climbed to .374, the best among Sox regulars. That puts him about 13th amongst AL players, much lower when you add in the NL. Pre-season I indicated that there would be a very direct correlation between the Sox success and sPod's OBP. So far, that hasn't excatly been the case, the Sox have had an enormous amount of success despite his OBP being below the magical number for a good lead off man - .400. To his credit, sPod is leading the majors in stolen bases (he's been a terror on the basepaths) and is hitting near .300. I'm convinced that he needs to be at .400 if the Sox success is going to continue thru the 2nd half of the year.

2) Its fairly obvious the criticism that AJ got in SF last year was undeserved. He's emerged as a team leader who's kept the pitchers in check. It will be interesting to see if the Sox leadership and team dynamic change now that Big Frank is back.

3) The pitching. I think its fair to say that despite his last 2 outings, Jon Garland has been a huge surprise winning 8 straight games. He doesn't strike a lot of guys out, but he makes key pitches. We'll see if the K/IP ratio increases and his success is maintained. I also think its fair to say that Buehrle has pitched as anticipated. I'll go so far to say the both Contereas and El Duque have pitched better than expected. Neither are off the charts, but both have avoided meltdowns and kept the Sox in just about every game they've started, with a couple of exceptions. Garcia has not been the ace everyone expected in 2005. But to his credit, he's been about the same as we saw last year. McCarthy performed as you'd expect from a 21-year old phemon - he mows down the Cubs at Wrigley, then gets shelled at Texas. Par for the course for a guy who wasn't even on anyone's radar back in Feburary.

I added a cool photo blog link at the right under "Misc" called 'Looper' - it focuses on photo art in the Loop.

Coupla tavern reviews coming this weekend as well... stay tuned!