Rox Talk

The Week That Was

A 5-1 week against the Nationals and Giants. The Roxs currently stand at 70-54. Three and half games back from division leading Los Angeles in second place and three games ahead in the Wild Card Hunt. Currently 34-24 at home and 36-30 on the road, the Roxs have outscored its opponents 632-549 (expected wins is 70 versus historical wins at 58). On pace for 91 wins with 826 runs scored and 717 runs against.

Rox are starting to look like a playoff team. Playoff teams get it done against bad teams. Going into DC and sweeping that series before the look ahead 4 game series at home against the Giants was huge. The Rox are 52 - 26 (that's a 0.670 percentage!) under Tracy. That is an amazing number. Hard to believe either the Rox were that bad out of the gate or that unhappy with Hurdle at the helm.

Not to look ahead but with one more game tonight against the Giants and 3 with the Dodgers the possibility definitely exists for the Rox to be tied for the Division Lead come Friday! I have tickets for Thursday game so I will certainly be rooting for this to occur. Either way the Rox have made up a huge gap (15.5 games!). With 38 games to go the gap is so much smaller that September will just be a tug of war. I remember back in high school when the Braves picked up Fred McGriff and went on a tear catching the Dodgers and Giants and making the playoffs. Good times. And finally why is it the Rox get no respect? We are the last competitive division in baseball with three teams still in the playoff chase and what do we get? Nadda...give me Roxtober again!

Some interesting sites:

Fan Graphs - Those wacky odds against Rox

NY Times - Ichiro, modern day Pete Rose...what is wrong with hitting base hits?

Olbermann - Gotta love baseball history!