Black Betsy

One Curse Down...

And one to go. Congratulations to the Boston Red Sox on winning the World Series. That broke a curse dating back to 1918. OK, our curse now dates back to 1917 (really, 1919, the origin of the Black Sox Curse). Its our turn to break the curse now. If only you could loan us David Ortiz, Curt Schilling, Johnny Damon . . .

Game 1, Boston vs. St. Louis

Once again, I was blessed enough to get tickets to a post season game and headed up to Boston for Game 1 of the World Series between the Red Sox and the Cardinals. Here's my recap.

Boston is not an unfamiliar city to me. I lived there for 3 years while going to school. I've managed to come back several times since, but not for the past few years. Here's the bottom line - I've never liked Boston all that much. The weather is horrible - a cold Seattle - and New Englanders can be just as boorish as Yankee fans, except that Yankees play in the City that Never Sleeps. Boston goes to sleep at 2 a.m., whether you want to or not.

But I arrived at a different Boston. It wasn't a new Boston. Think of it more as having its bricks re-pointed. It was cleaner and more modern that I had remembered it - the new construction had given it a fresher feel. Logan Airport had been redone to make it more airy and brighter - it was a dismal place when I flew in and out for Thanskgiving, interviews, etc. - and the Airport "T" stop was dramatically re-modeled and looked like a centerpiece station. I was impressed right away.

I was no fan of Fenway, either. I know people love Fenway with its historic charm and its quirks and its tiny nature. But when I went in the mid-90's, I thought the grandstands were a joke - most of them face the right field seats, not the field - populated by New England's delinquentest young males. Luckily, I was able to see some Sox victories, including this 17-11 drubbing highlighted by an Officer Karkovice grand slam.

But Fenway, like Boston, has been re-pointed. Although it maintains the faint smell of urine that seems to run in the 1910's-era ballparks (Wrigley has it, Comiskey had it, and I'm sure Tiger Stadium had it - maybe it something about the concrete), Fenway has been remodeled in a lot of ways that make it much more enjoyable to watch a game. First, there are actually concession stands where you can buy things like Italian Sausages and beer. Old Fenway seemed like a Soviet Supermarket; there was one line for beer, one line for chowder and the person serving you at the front didn't really care whether you got yours or not. Now there are plenty of concessions, often in highly accessible locations (I was able to get two beers and return to my seats in RF Box 89 in less than 2 minutes). In addition, I finally had good seats at Fenway - which makes a ton of difference. I had forgotten how close every seat is at that park. So, begrudgingly, I've added Fenway to the list of parks I do like. The leopard has changed its spots.

I will give you a word to describe how I felt about the game - weird. When I first went to our seats, it was during the singing of the National Anthem. And despite the fact that we were in Massachusetts with a bunch of so-called liberals, I've never heard a crowd sing a louder, truer, more emotional version of the Star Spangled Banner. By the end, I was singing it myself it was so moving. Stephen Tyler of Aerosmith couldn't be heard over the voices of the Boston faithful. It was as if singing the National Anthem was equivalent to cheering for the Red Sox. I thought that the National Anthem would set the tone for the whole game.

It didn't. Although the Red Sox fans went crazy for Ortiz's homer in the first they were remarkably quiet throughout the game. While the whole crowd stood and cheered from when it was 3-2 on Damon until the bottom the first ended, there was a lot of sitting the rest of the game. I have a couple of notes in my scorebook about it:

(1) "All the cheers come from behind us." We were sitting in about the 20th row in the right field seats, but people around us were joining in, rather than leading the cheers. I thought that was telling - the crowd was a little blue blood for my liking. They paid a lot for the tickets and they were treating it like a tennis match at the club.

(2) "Red Sox fans don't realize it's a game." After squandering a 7-2 lead, and as the Cards made it 7-5 and then 7-7, the Red Sox fans didn't seem agitated. They were a little indifferent to the Red Sox being shut down by Haren from the 3rd to the 6th. This was just a "happy to be there" crowd.

(3) "Oddly out of it as the Cards come back." There was not a lot of panic in the crowd as the Cards came back to tie the game at 9-9. I would have been anxious - maybe just a little. Chad said it might have just been Red Sox fans waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It was as if the Red Sox fans had spent all their energies in games 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the ALCS and could only get up for the 1st inning of Game 1 of the World Series. The whole feeling was odd.

The game itself was terrific. The aforementioned Ortiz home run was amazing - it looked strange coming off the bat and I thought there were going to be serious questions as to whether it would be fair or foul. But it absolutely screamed by us - the only thing I could compare it to was the flyover by the F-16s before the game. You turned your head quickly but it was gone. A tremendous shot.

Larry Walker was in a groove all evening. His double down the line in the first was a wicked, hooking line drive. From my perspective in the right field seats, shots down the line seem like they can end up anywhere - they come so fast and the wall is so oddly shaped that you can't tell if it will be a home run or a long single. His home run was a no-doubter.

Let me interrupt my story for a second to criticize the brain-dead practice of throwing back the visiting team's home runs. A foul ball in a major league game is a gift from the Baseball Gods. It is the rare colorful bird that perches on your windowsill for you admire just as you are looking out the window. When you catch a foul ball, you can say you caught a foul ball, and that's cool.

But a home run ball is something more special. It is your swatch of the fabric of the game. The ball you have has gone from the Dominican Republic (or wherever they make them), to Major League Baseball, to the umpire's room, where it is rubbed down with mud from the Delaware river, then placed aside for use in the game. At just the right time, when some other ball has done its duty and retired, it enters the game. The umpire grabs it from his ball bag, fires it to the pitcher, who catches, feels for his grip, takes the sign from the catcher and throws his pitch. In the second it takes to the plate, the batter decides whether he will swing - more unconsciously than consciously after seeing tens of thousands of pitches throughout his life - and takes his cut.

At the time he makes contact, the ball and bat meet at just the right spot - near the end, but not too near the end of the bat. The ball reverses direction and arcs away towards the seats. Maybe the outfielder gives chase, maybe he knows the chase will be futile and becomes a spectactor himself. The ball soars over the fence, and the batter slows his effort into a jog as the umpires twirl their fingers to indicate the home run. That ball is no longer just a ball. It's a home run. It's in the box score. It's recorded into history, logged as 1 at bat, 1 hit, 4 bases, 1 home run and some number of RBI. When the batter gets back to the dugout, he'll get high fives and tell his teammates how he struck that pitch.

You don't throw the history of the game onto the field. You might as well throw your own status as a fan onto the field. You are given a piece of the game by the Baseball Gods and you reject it. That cannot sit well with Them, and They have been known to punish those who anger Them. Good grief, folks, this tradition grew up in Wrigley Field, and look at how they've done! So, as far as I'm concerned, anyone throwing a home run back is not only should be ejected, but should be offered up in sacrifice in some way to the Baseball Gods to heal the insult laid upon Thier Great Benevolence. Maybe a phone book upside the head. The Baseball Gods like that.

But I digress. Woody Williams serves up pretty good batting practice, doesn't he? He was knocked around easily by the Red Sox. But then Haren happened. I don't know anything about Haren - not even his first name - but he silenced the guns from the Red Sox lineup and allowed the Cards to get back in the game. Luckily for the Red Sox, he couldn't pitch the rest of the game, and the Cards fed them a diet of Carero, King, and Tavarez in the 7th and 8th. (Former 2000 White Sox hero Cal Eldred struck out Varitek to end the Red Sox seventh and stem the bleeding).

Not content with the lead, the Red Sox gave the Cards a tie in the 8th. Of course, the Cards may have also just decided to use the effective strategy of hitting the ball to Manny Ramirez, who makes Carlos Lee look like Willie Mays in left field. My notes say "Ramirez absolutely brutal," and that pretty much summed it all up right there. Manny giveth at the plate and taketh in the field.

Then the bottom of the 8th. After Varitek reached on the first and only Cardinals error, Mark Bellhorn hit a lofty fly to right. Somehow, years of baseball and softball and judging flyballs made me come to a conclusion that Bellhorn's fly and the foul pole would intersect. Surprising myself, I said aloud "that's going to hit the foul pole" when it was just reaching the outfield. Doink. Then it actually got really loud. Chad was as excited as I've seen him, and the crowd was finally back in the game.

The rest of the game was a no brainer. Foulke, who had come in during the 8th and had been victimized by Manny Ramirez's hatchet job in right field, shut the door after a double to Marlon Anderson. Cedeno struck out to end it, and there was an enormous cheer from the Boston faithful - as if to say, if we can win Game 1, we are going to win the Series.

Off-Season Blow to Twins

This is something that would otherwise stay below the radar, but I picked it up on a post at Bat-Girl.com, from the Pioneer Press:

While catcher Joe Mauer rehabilitates his surgically repaired knee, another prominent left-handed-swinging Twins rookie, outfielder Jason Kubel, will be doing the same this offseason. Kubel suffered a major knee injury this week in an outfield collision in the Arizona Fall League. The injury could turn out to be a torn anterior cruciate ligament, which could take until well
into next spring for recovery. Before the injury, Kubel was expected to become a regular in the Twins' lineup.

Wow. Kubel tore up AA and AAA last year, and looked to jump into the Twins' lineup as yet another productive but cheap player. That would free up the money that the Twins would otherwise spend on low-OBP all-star Jacque Jones for re-signing Koskie and Radke. It is now possible that Jones will be retained for several million dollars that could have been spent on pitching. Of course, if Kubel is ready in May, Michael Restovich could be the Twins' early season solution in Right Field. Maybe even Shannon Stewart could be trotted out to Left Field while Ford moves to Right and Fatty Matty LeCroy serves as a full time DH.

I continue to believe that the Sox would be best served by signing Brad Radke away from the Twins. He is valuable to the Sox in his own right as a #2 /#3 starter and in making the Twins worse. But the demand for Radke's services may very well be high in the offseason, with the Yankees' collapse in the ALCS. Buy George, I think he'll spend some money.

My Trip To Game 6 Of The ALCS

This was my first trip to Yankee Stadium, so I was expecting to arrive at a place steeped in history and a feast for a baseball fan. I was expecting a quintessential baseball experience. Instead, I learned that, to a large extent, Yankee Stadium is an artifact of the 1970's period during which it was refurbished. With a surprisingly cheap exterior facade, it was unrecognizable as a stadium up close on the outside.

Once inside, I was taken aback by the narrowness of the concourses and walkways. With concrete on all sides, it was a very cramped feeling - it reminded me of the narrow hallways of the bowels underneath a grade school rather than one of the modern ballparks with a wide concourse, pleasing sight lines, and cushy amenities.

The cramped feeling was exacerbated by the Yankee fans themselves, who clog together in the concourses in their ubiquitous puffy Yankees jackets and equally ubiquitous wide gaits. Yankee fans don't walk to their seats, they swagger to them.

While I was wearing neutral colors - a 2003 All Star Game White Sox hat - my friend Chad wore a Boston hat proudly. At various choke points in the concourse, Yankee fans would ambush Boston fans like Chad, pointing to them and chanting "Assss hoooole, Assss hoooooole." Throughout the night, this would be a theme - Yankee fan aggressiveness without any real creativity in either their insults or their obscenity.

(Delightfully, however, the woman at the bottom of the escalator to the upper deck greeted us kindly by saying "The Yankees welcome you." Class. The Yankee employees were nothing but kind and courteous - a real credit to the organization.)

As we emerged from the upper deck concourse, me with a fair-to-midland Italian Sausage ($6.75) and a Coke ($4.75) in hand, the blue blazing interior of Yankee Stadium came into view. It seemed, yet again, like a 1970's stadium rendition, complete with a staggeringly steep upper deck. Think the North Face of Everest. Comparable to (and perhaps even steeper than) the upper deck at US Cellular Field. Climbing up to our seats, we were greeted with a view of almost the entire field - except for the left field line and corner. This, of course, would come into play later.

One interesting feature of the pre-game was a montage of the Yankees' feats of the 2004 season. Quite frankly, it was intimidating. The Yankees apparently scored a lot of runs this year, mostly doing so in the 9th inning in games in which they were trailing. That pattern seemed to repeat over and over on the screen, often accompanied by the Yankees' radio announcer, whose tag line is "The Yankees win! Theuhuhuhuhuh Yankees Win!," notable for it odd focus on the article in the phrase rather than the noun or verb. Other than that, there were a lot of banal pre-game things on the video screen - just like every other park in the majors. I was kind of expecting - after 26 championships - the Yankees would be different somehow. Mickey
Mantle, Joe Dimaggio and the Babe don't quite fit with the Alan Parsons Project.

The game itself, however, met and exceeded my wildest expectations. There was an enormous amount of energy from the first pitch of the game; at times just potential, but often kinetic. I noted in my scorebook that "people are standing with 2 strikes in the first inning!" Even the littlest moment was important to Yankees fans, and they seemed to demand satisfaction whenever satisfaction was near. This turned out to be extremely frustrating to them; the Red Sox seemed to string together an inordinate amount of 2-strike hits, and by the 5th inning, they no longer stood with every 2-strike count.

There was, of course, an enormous focus on Curt Schilling. I watched him warm up before the game to get a read on how he was throwing. Of course, from the 10,000 foot level, I couldn't discern a thing. Luckily, the Yankee Stadium radar gun reading provided the first clue in the first inning - his first pitch fastball to Derek Jeter registered 93 miles per hour. I turned to Chad and nodded with approval -Schilling seemed to have his fastball early. A good sign.

In the top of the second, the Red Sox threatened. Chad lamented that Bellhorn, hitting with the bases loaded and one out, was playing badly and likely to strike out. I preminisced that he'd be more likely to hit into a double play in this situation. He obliged, which electrified the Yankee crowd.
In the bottom of the second, Schilling's fastball was gone. He was topping out at 90 mph, and most of his fastballs were at 87. This gave me a feeling of impending doom - that Schilling's first inning was pure adrenaline and that reality was closing in on the Red Sox. Then Posada lifted a high fly to right that I was sure was a home run. The ball jumped off the bat, the arc was right, but it fell just short. Chad told me that he had resigned himself to the fact that it was a home run. So Schilling escaped the second. Oddly, his fastball returned into the low-to-mid nineties in the 3rd and he never slipped back.

Schilling was a warrior. It really was an inspired performance. He often grimaced and limped around the mound after pitches. After taking a throw from Millar on a grounder, he appeared to be in a great deal of pain. Varitek bought him some time with a mound visit, and home plate umpire Joe West was kind enough to let them dawdle. Some of the Yankees fans were advocating bunts after that - not so much to get on base, but to injure Schilling. These are the same type of people who would root for the Cobra Kai in Karate Kid.

The Red Sox's four-run fourth knocked the Yankee faithful back a bit. They scored the runs with two outs, and most of the hits were with two strikes. This was extremely frustrating to them - as noted above, they expect to succeed in every situation. Unfortunately, I could not
see Bellhorn's home run; from my angle I could see his drive travel toward the left field foul pole, but did not see where it landed. After a puzzling minute - I didn't understand why Cabrera would be awarded home if it were a ground rule double - Bellhorn circled the bases for his home run.

After that, there was little notable in the next few innings. Lieber retired 10 or 11 in a row after Bellhorn's home runs. I wrote down that "Lieber getting through the sixth is huge" and then "Lieber getting through the seventh is huge." Schilling was equally impressive. Although he didn't strike out many, he did induce a lot of pop-ups.

Williams' home run in the 7th interrupted this stretch of good pitching and inspired the Yankee faithful - but not as much as you would think. Home runs to right field in Yankee Stadium from my vantage point in the upper deck are truly majestic. Williams' homer seemed to bound into the arms of a welcoming crowd. Since the stadium is so tall, and is higher than any fly ball, it seems like the right field stands just draw in home runs. A really nice sight to see, even if it put the Yankees on the board.

Then came the eighth. The one think I'll remember most from the 8th is how the Yankees fans cheered for Derek Jeter. It was messianic cheering; Jeter was going to save them from the Red Sox. I've never seen anything like it, and I can only imagine that it's due to year after year in which Jeter has come through in the clutch. The Yankees fans truly invested all their hopes in Jeter. And, of course, he singled Arroyo's first pitch into left to make it a 4-2 game.

The next at bat was A-Rod's rather eventful one. From my perspective, I could see A-Rod swipe at Arroyo's glove clearly. I also didn't know this was against the rules, so I was disheartened when I saw the ball fly away. After Jeter raced around to score and A-Rod went to second,
the Stadium was all kinetic energy. The upper deck shook - which is a very unnerving feeling. At that point, it seemed like the Yankees had the game won. An obnoxious Yankee fan approached Chad and made a grotesque sexual movement behind his head. Chad said he was already
picking out a landing area in front of us if they guy tried to come up and do that again.

But, the umpires congregated and called A-Rod out. No doubt the correct call, but I told Chad that if they reversed the call, it would get ugly. And it did, real fast. All manner of things cascaded from the upper deck onto the field. For those in the back of the upper deck, this largely meant that they were throwing things onto the heads of the people at the front of the upper deck. Lots of friendly fire. Bob Sheppard, the Yankees' PA announcer, then asked the Yankee fans to "continue to honor the tradition of good sportsmanship." The first time he made the announcement, he couldn't be heard through the chants of "Bull-shit! Bull-shit." The second time, he was booed. They booed Bob Sheppard! Sheffield popped out to Varitek and the Yankee
fans were fit to be tied. People behind us were hurling unimaginative epithets at the umpires and suggesting that the game was fixed. And those were just the toddlers.

The police came on the field, the top of the 9th passed, and then the police left the field as Keith Foulke entered it. Let me be the first to say this - Keith Foulke should scare the bejeezus out of the fans of whatever team he pitches for. He tends to blow leads in big games, including game 1 of the 2000 ALDS, the game on June 26, 2001 against the Twins, and he blew two leads for Oakland against the Red Sox in the ALDS last year. Keith Foulke is Keith Choulke when it comes to big games. Before the season, I e-mailed all my Boston friends warning them that Foulke would rip their hearts out. True to form, Foulke walked Matsui to start the 9th. He struck out Williams, got Posada on a pop out and then faced Ruben Sierra. Sierra took pitches that appeared to be right down the middle for balls. Foulke was visibly frustrated with the calls, and eventually walked Sierra on a 3-2 pitch, setting up a situation in which Tony Clark could win the game and the ALCS with a home run. Which, of course, is exactly what every Red Sox fan and Yankee fan was expecting him to do. Miraculously, he whiffed and Chad started making plans for Game 7.

It was weird - the Red Sox scored first, held the lead, got all the close calls, and Keith Foulke closed the door - almost like the cosmic roles were reversed for the night.

Another note about the Yankee fans. As a group, their cheering strikes me as violent. They don't want to win games as much as destroy their opponents. They seek out fans of the Red Sox to ridicule them. And, once the Red Sox took the lead, they took to swiping Red Sox caps and throwing them off the upper deck. For the most part, I thought they were boorish. One fan here or there would be kind and engaging, but they were mostly mean. I was disappointed; with 26 championships and 4 in the last 8 years, you would think they would be happier about their team. Instead, they appear to be motivated by anger - upset that the Red Sox would dare disrespect them by trying to win a game in Yankee Stadium - rather than out of love for their own teams. Maybe I came into the game disliking Yankee fans, but they certainly didn't give me any new reasons to like them.

Team of Extremes

One of the major themes many White Sox fans have complained about the team is that they are too inconsistent. And, despite the fact that the Sox put up quite an offensively display this year - they scored 10 or more runs 23 times, which is once every 7 1/2 games or so - they also failed to score 3 runs 45 times. In those 45 contests, the Sox were 1-44.

So let's put it all together. When scoring more than 7 runs (an arbitrary cut off, I admit), the Sox were 35-6. When scoring fewer than 3 runs, thus Sox were 1-44. That's a total of 85 contests in which the outcome was largely decided by the Sox' offense.

Let's see how that compares to the best teams in the league.

Minnesota - fewer than 3 runs 37 times (4-33 record), more than 7 runs 30 times (27-3) - 67 total games

Anaheim - fewer than 3 runs 41 times (6-35), more than 7 runs 35 times (34-1) - 76 total games

Boston - fewer than 3 runs 24 times (4-20), more than 7 runs 45 times (45-0!) - 69 total games

New York - fewer than 3 runs 34 times (5-29), more than 7 runs 42 times (37-5) - 76 total games

Note that all of the playoff teams had fewer games in which they scored fewer than 3 runs. That is true despite the fact that the Sox scored more runs than Minnesota or Anaheim. They also all had higher winning percentages in those games. All the teams had higher winning percentage in the games in which they scored 7 or more runs, too.

Was the Sox's pitching equally erratic? They allowed fewer than 3 runs 35 times, with a 32-3 record in those games. They allowed more than 7 runs 35 times, with a 9-26 record in those games. There were thus only 70 games in which the Sox pitching won or lost the game - compared to 85 games for the offense. Now let's compare that to the AL playoff teams again.

Minnesota - fewer than 3 runs 51 times (45-6 record), more than 7 runs 26 times (0-26) - 77 total games
Anaheim - fewer than 3 runs 46 times (40-6), more than 7 runs 24 times (4-20) - 70 total games
Boston - fewer than 3 runs 45 times (43-2), more than 7 runs 33 times (4-29) - 78 total games
New York - fewer than 3 runs 41 times (39-2), more than 7 runs 31 times (5-26) - 72 total games

Here, the difference are not so much in the total number of games won or lost by the pitching staffs, but in the number of games in which the playoff teams allowed fewer than 3 runs. They all allowed fewer than 3 runs more times than the Sox (they all allowed more than 8 runs fewer times than the Sox, too).

Now, let's put it all together in a handy chart:

Team	Scored <3>	Scored >7	Allowed <3>	Allowed >7
White Sox	1-44	35-6	32-3	9-26
Minnesota	4-33	27-3	45-6	0-26
Anaheim	6-35	34-1	40-6	4-20
Boston	4-20	45-0	43-2	4-29
New York	5-29	37-5	39-2	5-26

Bold totals mean good results. The White Sox had a total of 76 perfomances of scoring more than 7 or allowing fewer than 7 runs (performances, not games - the Sox had several blowouts scoring more than 7 runs and allowing fewer than 3 runs). By comparison, the Twins had 81 such performances, Anaheim 81, Boston 90, and the Yankees 84.

The White Sox had a total of 80 bad performances, while Minnesota had 63, Anaheim 65, Boston 57, and New York 65.

I haven't quite thought through the meaning of all this. Some of it is self-evident; poor teams have more poor performances. But I'm not sure there isn't meaning in the Sox's number of games scoring fewer than 3 runs. Despite scoring a ton of runs, and jacking 242 home runs, they had power outages entirely too often. This is troubling - Texas scored 860 runs, about the same number of runs as the White Sox (865), yet scored fewer than 3 runs only 35 times - 9 fewer than the White Sox.

By the same token, the Sox's pitching staff wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. Sure, they had 35 blow up games, but they won 9 of those games. Moreover, that total was not dramatically higher than Boston or New York. Although the pitching collapsed in August and September, it seems more appropriate to blame the Sox's poor performance on the inconsistentcy of the offense.

Although Ozzie Guillen has put focus on a Marlins-type offense in the latter part of the season and in early off-season comments, I think his criticism of the Sox's offense is misdirected. The problem is not with the manner in which the Sox score runs, but with the consistency in scoring runs. This should be solved by acquiring players whose production is more consistent.

The Stretch Of Meaningless Games Is Over

As I predicted, the Sox finished with a 9-4 record after being eliminated by the Twins, completing the season with a record of 83-79. That means the Sox have had four consecutive seasons of between 81 and 86 wins. Relentlessly consistent mediocrity. Determined mediocrity.

I would not be surprised for the Sox to make major changes in the offseason. I'm not sure they'll make all the right changes, but I think major changes will be coming.

Here are my initial thoughts on what the Sox need:

(1) A top-of-the-rotation starter. As I've written before, Brad Radke would be my number 1 choice, since he would not only make the Sox better, he would make the Twins worse in one fell swoop. Other targets would be Odalis Perez, Carl Pavano, and Matt Clement - roughly in that order.

(2) Two quality relievers. The Sox desparately need an upgrade over Cliff Politte in the 7th inning spot. They need a Tom Gordon type guy who can come in and hold the lead until Marte and Takatsu close out a game. They also need another high quality lefty to help out Marte. In the alternative, they would need a very good 8th inning guy to move Marte into the lefty specialist position.

(3) A high-OBP leadoff guy. Not much explanation necessary here. A guy who will get on base and score runs when the boppers in the order hit what otherwise would be solo home runs.

End Of The 10-Game Segments

The White Sox have completed their last 10-game segment of the year. And, not surprisingly, the segments were as mediocre as the team:

Two 7-3 segments (both were after the Sox were out of contention)
Five 6-4 segments
Three 5-5 segments
Five 4-6 segments
One 3-7 segments

There were no high highs (9-1, 8-2), nor were there low lows (1-9, 2-8). The Five 6-4 segments were cancelled out (mathematically speaking) by the five 4-6 segments. Of course, that's how it has to work out for a .500 team. The good parts are cancelled out by the bad parts.

If you're curious, here's how the Twinkies went this year:

Segment	Record
1	6-4
2	7-3
3	4-6
4	7-3
5	3-7
6	6-4
7	6-4
8	4-6
9	5-5
10	8-2
11	6-4
12	4-6
13	6-4
14	8-2
15	8-2
16	3-7<

That's three 8-2's, two 7-3's, five 6-4's, one 5-5, three 4-6's, and two 3-7's. Roughly speaking, the big difference between the Sox and Twins was that they didn't have the same number of 7-3 and 8-2 stretches. The Twins did, including three 8-2 stretches after game 90 of the season. That's how you win a division, folks.