Just a year removed from a ‘Cinderella baseball betting World Series’ title run, there were big expectations in the windy city for the Sox to have another banner baseball betting year.
But that wasn’t meant to be and the Sox were passed up by their AL Central rivals. It wasn’t really that awful of a baseball betting season and the Sox made it close in the run to the baseball betting playoffs, but the expectations for this MLB betting team were simply too high and the pitching staffs of its division rivals were simply too good.
There are probably about four other baseball betting divisions that this team would have won in baseball, unfortunately the Sox play in one of the toughest in baseball betting and the club just wasn’t good enough last baseball betting year to return to post season. The Sox weren’t bad in 2006 baseball betting season by any stretch of the imagination, simply just not elite. And with only four baseball betting playoff spots available in the AL, they just weren’t quite at that level.
In most years, for the White Sox a 90-72 baseball betting season would be something to celebrate with the years of losing that the club and the city has had to endure. But coming off the back of a baseball betting World Series win, you just knew that anything less than back to back MLB betting titles would be a disappointment. And so 2006 was really a baseball betting season of impossible expectations. Still, the club strung together a very decent MLB betting home record of 49-32 and was that close to becoming one of only a handful of clubs with 50 wins at home. On the road the baseball betting team was completely different story going 41-40 and barely staying over .500 away from home. Its team winning percentage of .556 was very respectable and if the club could have poured it on at the end and finished up with a better baseball betting record than 5-5 over the last ten MLB betting games it might have been in the hunt for the wild card spot. As it ended, Chicago was six MLB betting games out of first.
When you talk about the heart of this baseball betting team then you have to include the team’s starting rotation, or at least it used to be that way. When Chicago traded away starting pitcher Freddy Garcia, the lynch pin to that staff, things went a little bit sour. Follow that with the departure of Brandon McCarthy, without adding any substantial pitcher in his place and the rotation gets a bit thin. As it stands the Sox will have a four-man rotation going into 2007 baseball betting season which will include: Contrares, Buerlhe, Garland and Vazquez. And that’s a pretty talented four man rotation but the team will have to add a fifth to compete in the AL Central and that doesn’t look all that promising.
The bull had a good baseball betting year in 2006 with Bobby Jenks closing out games in a pretty regular fashion. He’ll be back again in 2007 baseball betting season along with his number one set up man Mie MacDougal. But this baseball betting year they’ll have some help. Management brought in and traded for David Aardsma (always first in the alphabetical listing of the team roster) and Andy Sisco to help out with the middle relief, which will be extra important this baseball betting year if the Sox have to stick to a four-man rotation for very long.
The position players on this team also had a good MLB betting season and there’s no reason why 2007 shouldn’t be a repeat of 2006. The star at the plate is of course the slugger Jim Thome who has been playing DH the last few seasons which allows him to concentrate on hitting and what he does best, hitting homeruns. He’s only a few short of 400 so expect some big things from this big man this season. Helping out with the offensive duties is first baseman and all-star Paul Konerko, who after a few rough years is back to putting up big numbers like 2006’s .313 batting average with 35 homers and 113 RBIs. The outfield is above average but aside from the two heavy hitters there really isn’t anyone that will kill you in this line up. 2007 should be another good year for the Sox, but they’ll have a tough time winning the division, expect a repeat of 2006.