After Friday's loss to Bruce Chen and the Royals, the White Sox are now 24-33 at home and 34-27 on the road. I decided to take a look into the home and road splits to see if I found anything really out of whack, which would explain this teams better play on the road. I was pretty surprised to see what I found. The group with the biggest difference between their performance at home and away is the bullpen.
- Sergio Santos 0.00 0.63 5.87 1.39
- Matt Thornton 2.79 1.34 4.12 1.83
- Jesse Crain 1.25 1.15 3.60 1.10
- Chris Sale 1.57 0.94 3.96 1.36
- Will Ohman 5.65 1.46 3.04 1.14
- Carlos Quentin - Away: .294/.372/.616 17 HR 49 RBI Home: .223/.315/.402 7 HR 23 RBI
- Juan Pierre - 13/16 in stolen bases away. 6/16 in stolen bases at home.
- Adam Dunn - 8 of 11 HRs have come at home. Slash line "better" away. .142/.255/.296 Home. .180/.330/.297 Away
- Alex Rios - Home: .259/.305/.374. Away: .183/.220/.270
- Alexei Ramirez - Home: .277/.347/.426 Away: .256/.313/.388
- Paul Konerko and A.J. Pierzynski are marginally better at home, while Gordon Beckham and Brent Morel are slightly better away.
According to baseball history, their playoff chances are slim to none and slim is heading for the door. There has only been one team since 1995* to get into the post season with a losing record at home. That team was the 2001 Atlanta Braves, who went 40-41 at home and 48-33 on the road to win the NL East. Those Braves went on to lose in the NLCS to the eventual champion Diamondbacks.
That is 1 out of 128 playoff teams since 1995 to finish with a losing home record, and they only missed by one game. The White Sox have 24 remaining home dates on the calendar. They have to go 17-7 to get themselves a winning home record. Here are the remaining home games: