WS stands for White Sox and World Series – Coincidence?

By: Kolsky

The baseball season is 70 games old, which makes it about 43.2% complete, give or take 0.009% or so. That also makes it time to obnoxiously and prematurely speculate about who is primed and ready for the World Series.

Yes, a month before the Midsummer Classic even happens, we erstwhile members of the sports media have to sit down at our keyboards and tell you who’s going to the Fall Classic. And fall – you could be forgiven for forgetting given our strange new weather patterns – happens after summer.

But with the first Cubs-Sox series of the year ripping off the wrapping paper starting Friday – and both Chicago baseball teams in first place for the first time in God knows how long – now is probably as good a time as any to encourage some good, old-fashioned bickering between the North and South Sides.

And though I was tragically born in Brookline, Mass. and reared in Evanston on our City’s northward border, I am your White Sox representative. Don’t ask why, just accept it; love it, even.

Since you’re probably a Cubs fan, you are likely getting relatively puffy-chested in theold debate over which team is better-suited for a championship run. Well, I’m here to burst your bubble, because the White Sox are just biding their time, my friend, and are significantly better-suited to win the 2008 World Series than their crosstown counterparts.

And here’s why I’m right, in three simple steps…

(1) The Curse.

I don’t want to be that guy, but… oh, hell, I don’t really mind being that guy: THE CURSE. There, I wrote it – in capital letters. Do I believe in ghosts and goblins and curses and witches and whatnot? No, never. But do I insist on following the same routine for watching White Sox games? Yes. Even when I’m watching on my DVR and the action has already happened, there’s a part of me that believes my behavior has some small effect on the game.

Baseball is fairly well accepted, I think, as the most superstitious of all sports. From the Curse of the Bambino to the many quirks of the Turk Wendells of the world, the sport is filled with references to the supernatural or otherwise mystical entities. The Cubs Curse is no different – logic, nevermind statistics, would suggest that the team should have tripped and fallen into a World Series Championship at some point in the last 100 years.

The fact that they have failed to do so does not mean that the Baseball Gods (speaking of which, how often do you hear about “the gods” of any other sport?) are punishing the Cubs for a perceived slight to a goat ten decades ago – but don’t think for a minute that the weight of 100 years of failure won’t try to crush the Cubbies at some point this year. Just ask Moises Alou, Mark Prior and Dusty Baker. And Alex Gonzalez, while you’re at it.

I don’t know if there are supernatural forces really at work here – I think there are probably not. But I don’t discount the importance of thousands of people believing that there ARE these forces, and you can bet your bottom dollar that at least a few of those believers are wearing the blue pinstripes for a living.

(2) The Route.

Simply put, the White Sox would be in third place in the NL Central, sitting 5.5 games behind the Cubs. Instead, they’re in first place of the AL Central, 4.5 games ahead of the Minnesota Twins, who are under .500 – like every other team in the division.

Contrary to preseason predictions, the NL Central is arguably the best division in baseball right now, while the supposedly powerful AL Central flounders along with a collective record about 16 games below break-even. The Indians can’t hit, the Tigers can’t pitch, and Minnesota is incredibly young and inexperienced, particularly in the pitching staff. Then there’s Kansas City, who simply can’t win.

Meanwhile, the Cubs have baseball’s best record at 19 games over .500, and they can’t pull away from the Cardinals who, after being predicted as a doormat, have the second-best record in the NL.

Does this guarantee the Sox a trip to the playoffs? Not at all. But it does make their road an awful lot easier. We all know that once the playoffs start, anything can happen – just ask the Rockies, even if they didn’t win the World Series. But looking at a team’s chances, their road to get to the playoffs is perhaps the most important thing, and the Cubs’ road will be significantly tougher than the Sox’s.

(3) The Pitching.

This is the most important of my three points. Which you might have guessed, given that the first two have virtually nothing to do with the White Sox’s current roster.

The Cubs have a pretty solid pitching staff. Certainly their ace is the top dog in the city – there’s no question that Carlos Zambrano is the best pitcher in Chicago, if not in baseball. But let’s look at each staff as a whole…

After Zambrano, the Cubs throw Ryan Dempster – a great surprise and a bona fide number two at this point. But things get ugly after that: of the other players who have seen starting duty for the Cubs, Rich Hill has the best ERA at 4.12, and he was sent to the minors after being almost incapable of finding the plate. The current 3, 4 and 5 starters – Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis and Sean Gallagher – have all been inconsistent at best.

In the bullpen, Kerry Wood has been quite good (despite blowing four saves) and Carlos Marmol is arguably baseball’s best setup man, but those two are followed by more question marks – Michael Wuertz is throwing well now but has never been known for his consistency, Bob Howry and Neal Cotts have ERA’s pushing five, and last year’s promising youngster Kevin Hart has been downright bad all year.

On the South Side, the pitching staff has been almost uniformly spectacular. In fact, the only two pitchers currently on the roster with ERA’s over 3.34 are the perceived number one and two starters: Javier Vasquez is 7-5 and near the league lead in strikeouts despite a 4.13 ERA; Mark Buehrle sports an ugly 4.47, but is also tied for the team lead in quality starts, with nine. Jose Contreras, supposedly a question mark, looks almost like the pitcher who dominated the majors for a year in ‘05 and ‘06, and youngsters Gavin Floyd and John Danks have been fantastic – and surprisingly consistent – all year long.

Meanwhile, the bullpen may be the best in baseball. Scott Linebrink has been a revelation, and is one of the only setup men in baseball who might be better than Marmol, and Bobby Jenks has been one of the most consistently successful closers in baseball since his 2005 debut. Meanwhile, Boone Logan and Matt Thornton have been murderous, particularly against lefties, and Octavio Dotel has proved to be a nice pickup. The lone bullpen pitcher with an ERA over 3.00 is Nick Massett, a long reliever whose modest 3.34 fails to capture the critical role he’s played in several games where starters were bounced early.

All told, both sides of town have impressive staffs, but there shouldn’t be much discussion over whose is better. And if Sox fans learned anything in 2005, it’s that pitching wins championships.

So there you have it – small victory though it may be in mid June, the White Sox are more prepared for their World Series run than are the Cubs.

There are other things I could point out – the Sox hitting has yet to really click, but they still lead the majors in home runs and sit in first place. The Sox play better defense than the Cubs, on the whole.

But let’s be honest, folks. We don’t know who’s going to win the World Series, because crap happens: injuries happen, collapses happen – hell, anything can happen.

I’m not backing off my claims – I still like the Sox’s chances. I’m just saying it’s unpredictable, and the World Series is a long, long way away.

So for now, I’ll settle for four out of six in the Crosstown Classic.

Go Sox.

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Matt Kolsky (please feel free to call him Kolsky) is the contributing editor of the Chicago Sports Review and the editor-in-chief of Serious Sports News Network. You can hear Kolsky live on Chicago's kookiest and most fun sports radio show, The Morning Break, on Fridays (from 10-Noon on WSBC 1240 AM). As you can see, he's very busy, but you can also send him email via serioussportsnewsnetwork@gmail.com, and it's entirely possible that he'll respond.

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1 Comment

  1. If they give out World Series rings for reaching third base with Polyurethane Patty and leading the league in F-bomb average, I’d say you’re in business. Otherwise, I would bet WS will stand for Wasted Season once October rolls around. Go Cubs!

    Comment by Den Cotton on June 19, 2008

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