The 35th Street Review

Five incorrect statements likely to be declared as fact during today’s A’s/Sox broadcast on Fox:

1. The Sox are in trouble without Jose Contreras on hand for the stretch run. Self-explanatory.
   
2. Ken Griffey, Jr.’s veteran presence be the difference between the Sox making the playoffs and the Sox not making the playoffs. This may actually be partially correct, but less in the sense that Griffey’s teaching the kids a thing or two and more in the sense that he’ll be playing center even though the Sox have a superior hitter and fielder wasting away on the bench.
   
3. The White Sox pitching staff as a whole, despite being awful at worst and shaky at best, is one of the best in baseball. Also self-explanatory.
   
4. The Oakland A’s are one of the best-run franchises in baseball, which is only true if you also also define colleges who are continually trounced in the first round of the NCAA tournament or NFL teams who squeak into the playoffs with 8-8 records only to be brutalized by superior teams as the most successful in their respective leagues. So really, this is the national media’s way of saying the A’s are the Southern Illinois of Major League Baseball. . . which is not exactly a compliment.
5. That Greg Smith, man, he is a good pitcher. And perhaps he will be today, but we all know that has less to do with Smith and more to do with the Sox’ collective inability to play well in Oakland. Maybe it’s the stadium, but the more likely explanation is the Good Guys’ collective fear of being shanked by a stray chain mail-clad Raiders fan.

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Elsewhere, in a bit of useful news for anyone who plans their road trips well in advance, Mark Gonzales reports the Good Guys are visiting Cincinnati and Milwaukee next year during interleague play. [Chicago Tribune]

If you read any of the Big Three mainstream media sports websites, you’re probably familiar with the so-called Power Rankings, in which each team in baseball is put through some extremely non-scientific analysis and ranked relative to one another. And if you read this site, you probably know I’m as big a supporter (and perpetrator) of pretty much any nonsensical assessment of the state of baseball.

BUT. . .

A week into the season, shouldn’t things like potential and possibility go by the wayside? As an example, Fox Sports currently ranks the winless Tigers as the sixth-best team in baseball. The Royals and White Sox, who each swept said alleged sixth-best team, sit at 15 and 23 respectively. Over at Sports Illustrated, the Tigers, Royals and Good Guys go 10th, 27th and 24th. All this while the Tigers rank last in pretty much everything and the Sox and Royals sit atop the AL Central.

Yes, the Tigers COULD score a ton of runs. And yes, they COULD win the division by a long shot. But trading possibility for reality, 5-2 is still superior to 0-6 and potential is worthless when you’re losing 13-2 to the so-called 15th best team in the game.

Examining exactly why the Chicago Cubs won the same number of playoff games this year as the 35th Street editorial team.