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KenWo's Corner- Road Warriors

By KenWo4LiFe

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.

 


  Player            Road E.R.A.    Road WHIP    Home ERA     Home WHIP
  • 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
Only Will Ohman has performed better in Chicago.  That home bullpen work is part of a reason why the Sox are 1-5 in extra inning games at the Cell.  

As far as the starting rotation goes, Mark Buehrle, Edwin Jackson and John Danks all are better in the Cell than away from it.  Philip Humber is about even.  Jake Peavy has been slightly better on the road (4.00 ERA away, 5.12 home).  Only Gavin Floyd has been a lot better on the road.  Floyd sports a hefty 7.06 ERA at the Cell and a nifty 3.13 out of town.  

Here are the offensive highlights of my search after the jump:

  • 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: 

 

There have been 20/128 playoff teams to finish with a better record on the road.  Surprisingly enough, 2 of the 3 White Sox playoff teams were on that list.  The 2000 Sox went 46-35 at home and 49-32 on the road before getting swept by the Mariners.  The 2005 World Champs went 47-34 at home and 52-29 on the road, and then proceeded to clinch the division and win every playoff series away from home.

30 teams finished under .500 on the road and still made it to October.  The worst road team to make the playoffs was the 2006 Cardinals, who finished 34-47 on the road.  The 2008 White Sox are the 2nd worst road team to make the playoffs, as they went 35-46 away from the Cell.  That year, they used the launching pad of the Cell to their advantage as they went 54-28 at home.  That club smashed 143 home runs at home, and only 92 on the road.   

* I used 1995 as a jumping point since that was the first year of the current playoff format.  


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