One of the only baseball blogs (to my knowledge) in the blogosphere that focuses on the Montreal Expos. Okay, mostly baseball in general, however with Montreal Expos references to be found within!

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Chicago White Sox, 2005 World Series Champions

One day shy of a year after the Red Sox won their first World Series title in 86 years, the Chicago White Sox win their first in 88 years!

Turned out game 4 had the best pitchers duel, when it was probably least expected. Which made for an entertaining game. I believe Phil Garner will, or rather has been, under fire from fans and media for some decisions, but getting the Astros to the WS, and last year to the NLCS, and almost the WS is still quite an accomplishment.

To see the look of disappointment on George H.W. Bush's face, priceless! I think I may have been rooting more for the Astros to lose, but either way, that amounts to rooting for the White Sox. Both teams, the Astros, and White Sox beat the teams I wanted to see in the WS, the Cardinals, and Angels respectively. The White Sox also beat the Red Sox, which didn't really bother me that much, only reason I was rooting for them for the most part was if the Yankees beat the Angels. However I was happy to see the Angels beat the Yankees.

One thing worth mentioning that most highlight reels will skip, is Carl Everett's job in grounding out to second, to advance Willie Harris to third, who then scored on the next batter, Jermaine Dye's single to centerfield. This off closer Brad Lidge. Oh, yeah, and Carl Everett was an Expo for half a season! He was brought in as a replacement of sorts for Vladimir Guerrero. Had he played as well as he did with the White Sox when he was with the Expos, he would have been much closer to a Vlad replacement, but even then, Vlad is pretty much impossible to replace! In his first game back as a White Sock, July 19th, 2004, he went 2 for 5, drew on BB, and scored twice, including a solo homer!

Run differential was a mere +6 for the White Sox over the Astros, which tied the 1950 New York Yankees who swept the Philadelphia Phillies. The next three lowest run differentials in WS history goes as follows (all sweeps):

1963 +8 Los Angeles Dodgers over the New York Yankees
1914 +10 Boston Braves over the Philadelphia Athletics
1966 +11 Baltimore Orioles over the Los Angeles Dodgers

Maybe next year should be the Cubs turn! Regardless, it will be an interesting off season!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lots and lots of good details about the ball game I say.