Chicago White Sox Playoff Scenarios – Can Buehrle Save Season?

by Jerod Morris

A season that started with a lot of question marks for the Chicago White Sox has come full circle 160 games later, with only one important question remaining: Can Mark Buehrle save the White Sox season?

Over the past week, the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins have done their best to act like they do not want to win the AL Central. After sweeping the White Sox at home, the Twins have lost two in a row to the Kansas City Royals. The White Sox, who entered the series against the Twins with a 2-1/2 game lead, promptly dropped two more games at home against the Cleveland Indians.

Thus, here is where we sit: Minnesota is 87-64, the White Sox are 86-64.

Here are the scenarios:

If Minnesota wins and the White Sox lose, the season is over for Chicago and Ozzie Guillen is taking Jerry Reinsdorf’s private plane to Miami.

If both teams lose, which seems likely if the trends of this weekend continue, or if they both win, then the White Sox will play Detroit tomorrow. Lose against Detroit, and the Sox will finish a game behind the Twins and the season over. Win, and a one-game playoff against Minnesota would be forced. That game would be played on the South Side.

If the White Sox win and the Twins lose, the White Sox would be up 1/2 game and would still need to play the Tigers game. If they beat the Tigers (and probably starter Freddy Garcia) the Sox would be in the playoffs. If they lost to Detroit, then there would be the one-game playoff against Minnesota.

Got it? Basically, the White Sox just need to win today and the season continues. If we lose, we have to hope Minnesota gets swept at home by Kansas City. I’m not really excited about the chances of that happening, no matter how well Kansas City is playing.

So what has to happen today for the White Sox to win? Well, the bats have woken up. Jermaine Dye has homered in two games in a row. Paulie jacked two yesterday. Our offense is showing resiliency and coming back from deficits created by our porous pitching. And Cliff Lee is not pitching today. The White Sox are facing some no-talent ass clown named Bryan Bullington. He has given up 3 HRs in just under 10 innings this year. He did, however, throw five scoreless innings with 6 Ks against Boston in his last outing, so he must have some decent stuff. But the point is, our offense seems to be clicking again and I like our chances at home, with clutch veterans, against Bryan Freaking Bullington.

The game will come down to what has defined our week: pitching. The numbers are not pretty right now. Our bullpen has surrendered 12 runs in the last 13-2/3 innings. That’s an ERA of almost 947.50. Well, not really…it only seems that way. (Coincidentally, that is Javier Vazquez’s ERA in big games.) The backbone of our pitching staff, Mark Buehrle, is on the hill today. And while the numbers don’t inspire confidence, I will always have faith in Mark Buehrle to put us in a position to win. And he needs to. We need a vintage 8 inning, 1 ER, 5 K performance from Buehrle and then hand it over to Bobby Jenks to lock it down, even if we’re up 20-0 going into the 9th. And even Bobby has been affected by the disease of ineffectiveness plaguing our entire pitching staff, blowing a save at Minnesota.

So what are the ominous numbers for Buehrle?  Well, he has gotten shelled in two out of three starts versus Cleveland this year.  For his career, Buehrle has an ERA just under 5.00 against Cleveland.  Plus, Buehrle is pitching today on only 3 days’ rest.  However, look at a little deeper.  We all know that Mark Buehrle has a rubber arm, so the three days’ rest thing doesn’t really concern me.  Plus, Mark has been pitching well recently.  He has thrown 5 straight quality starts, and has an ERA under 3.00 at home this year.  The key is for Buehrle to either finish what he starts or at the very least go deep into the game.  I have more confidence in Barack Obama and John McCain not issuing any more attack ads than I do in our bullpen getting key outs.

I am certainly happy that Cliff Lee is not pitching today, but even if he was, my prediction would be the same:  the White Sox WILL win today’s game.  I think that Mark Buehrle will pitch well, our offense will stay hot, and if nothing else we have the law of averages on our side.  We are not a great team this year, but we are good.  And good teams don’t lose 6 games in a row.  I think we’ll find a way to win today, powered by a great start from Mark Buehrle.  I also think that Minnesota will win, because I just don’t see Kansas City sweeping the Twins in the Metrodome.

That will lead to hopefully two more games next week to determine who wins the AL Central.  I’m not sure either the White Sox or Twins deserve it based on how they’ve played in September…but someone has to win it.  As Ozzie Guillen said, “The bottom line is we have to look at each other and say we have the three biggest games of the year and they have to go for it,” Guillen said. “That’s the only way we’re going to do it.”

Let’s go do it Sox.  I don’t think I’ll be able to sit back, relax, and strap it down today, not with the anxiety of these games plus the additional excitement of an NFL Sunday.  But I do think the White Sox will put a few on the board, find a way to get the W, and live to fight another day.

Tags: chicago, Chicago White Sox, cleveland indians, mark buehrle, minnesota twins, MLB, ozzie guillen

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