Quote:
Originally Posted by dlk9s
If you're depressed about being in 1st place, I have no idea how you survived 1983-2007.
Obviously I'm not depressed about that. Let me clarify. I actively started following the Crew around 1998 or so, when I started middle school. I know what it's like to be eliminated from playoff contention two weeks into the season. Now I am hopeful that the team is turning around in a permanent way, now that we have a great stadium and are setting attendance records which equals a bigger payroll, but I know that things can turn cold for a decade or more. In the last two years, we did have a great team, but things fell apart in the end (yes, we did make the playoffs in 2008, but the team just wasn't playing well, and nobody thought they could do anything to Philly) We saw in the second half of April and nearly all of May the potential this team had. I feel like if this team is gonna make a deep playoff run, this is the time. You don't know who's going to be around in a couple of years (I'm talking mostly about Prince, and it kills me when people suggest we trade him for pitching - he's too clutch, he averages an RBI PER GAME, he's won too many games by himself, he's too big an icon in Milwaukee already, and only Pujols really rivals him in the NL).
So yeah, when the starting rotation falls apart, when one of your highest paid players goes into a huge slump, half the lineup suddenly can't buy a hit, your top doesn't produce much and you start losing a lot of close games, yeah, it's depressing. I remember telling everyone that despite losing CC and Sheets, the team would be ok because we had a dominating righty (Gallardo), a dominating lefty (Parra), and a solid control pitcher who was improving every year (Bush). Gallardo's doing great, like almost Cy Young award great, but Parra lost his mind and got demoted, Bush got injured, and suddenly I'm left hoping the team can just keep it together. Maybe these things happen to every good team...I wouldn't know
The whole being a fan of a good baseball team is new to me. Overall I'm really happy with the them. If Burns turns into a good starter (not losing it after giving up a walk and an HR in the first inning was nice) and McGehee really is a .300 hitter with power then I think they have enough depth to survive. If we have that and a good JJ Hardy I think the team rolls in July.
As for 1st place...it's largely meaningless at this point, but I do know that the Cards having great pitching and Pujols, that the Cubs could wake up at any time, and that with a 6 team division, you never know when a team can suddenly go on a ridiculous run (like the 2008 Astros did).