Neyer stands corrected!

Good job, bbg!

Inconsistent due to injuries

This is a team that's 23-9 since the ASB, and has a 10-game win streak, but has also gone through huge fallow periods.  Just look at Thomas, Swisher, and Chavez as microcosms, and you see guys that have been alternately really good or really bad due to their health.  Their numbers don't impress because when they've been bad, they've been so very bad.  But if you've watched the whole year, you know how good they are when they're right.

All the "experts" picked us to win the division (and some, even the World Series) for a reason--when this team is healthy, it can be really good.  I hope all the pundits keep chocking up the recent success to luck, instead of resurgent health, because when we get to the playoffs (barring more injuries, of course), nobody is going to know what hit them.

Thanks, BBG, for helping Rob set himself straight

"I was more about making the point that our run differential as a whole better reflects the team we've been playing as for most of the season, a mediocre, hurt, underperforming team, worthy of a .500ish record. I think with guys like Bradley, Loaiza, and perhaps Chavez healthy, and better performances starting to show from Ellis, Swisher, Scutaro, Blanton, and perhaps even a guy like Harden returning indicate to me, at least, that we should expect to outperform the standard RD we've estbalished for this season, thus rendering any analysis of our current RD in an analysis of our current team and it's future expectation sorta pointless.

Basically my point, without all the convolutedness, is if the Royals had a disgustingly bad run differential and were 30-60 or something, but then all of a sudden were given Albert Pujols, David Ortiz, Miguel Cabrera, Johan Santana, Justin Verlander, and other stars, and then played a few games where they won (let's say 35-60 now) because they're obviously now a much better team, but their run differential still sucked, you wouldn't take that run differential as a basis of your expectation for the team's play the rest of the way, would you?

I'm not advocating removing outliers from RD or anything of that like, just illustrating that it should be evident that our RD is a poor indicator of the team we're actually now fielding out there."

Again, my point is basically that I think it's pointless to use RD as a basis to predict future success with if a team has largely changed, especially within a season where one flukey week can GREATLY skew an RD. And I think the 06 A's certainly apply if this is really the case.