His stuff has never been the issue.

These next 5 games won't win us a playoff spot, but they sure can end our season. We must win tonight and at least split with Boston. If we win one or two games in the next five that would probably be too much to overcome.

In my "race to get to 90 wins" post, I had us sweeping Minny and splitting the 4 game series with Bahhhston. So, to catch up, we are going to have to take 3 of 4 from the BoSox. Get r done gawdamnit!

I am honestly not that worried about Cleveland and Baltimore. We get to play Cleveland and other than the Twinkies they have a pretty tough August. I tend to view Baltimore the same way. They have a tough August and have only been playing one game above .500 since the All-Star break.

Texas is who I am worried about. They could easily only lose 5 games the rest of the month. They have 7 with the Astros. 6 with the Mariners. 2 with the Brewers and Twinkies and 3 with the White Sox.

Now if somehow Tampa can find a way to lose and come back to the pack in the wildcard race and both spots open up, that would be a huge lifeline.

I think that if we continue to play good and don't screw up this week, that we will be past Cleveland and Baltimore by the end of this month. Then after that, we would just have one more team to track down for that last wildcard spot.

Worried that the Boston series is going to end our hopes. Boston is a legitimate playoff team, and this series can prove whether we belong. Need to start another 9 out of 10 stretch tonight.

I'm in the same boat. Why can't we hit left handers with 85 mph fastballs?

I bet Bruce Chen would no-hit us.

we're not that close to the end of the season. We can't let a fluke start by Shields pop our balloon. We can safely assume that's an outlier.

This. One game isn't going to make or break getting to the playoffs.

You win some and lose some you shouldn't along the way. That's baseball.

Alot of games yet to be played. By the end of the month we will probably know our fate.

Let's not go crazy with saying this was a "fluke" start. He hasn't been particularly sharp the past 2 months, so this ass-beating came as no surprise to me. He was long overdue for one.

Let's just hope he gets it corrected and his pitching starts trending towards his April/May figures

By the way, Santana is our ace. Not Shields.

No doubt in my mind that if we need a stop or somehow reach the wildcard 1-game playoff, I want Magic on the mound, not "Big Game" James

I thought his arm looked a bit tired in the Cleve start right before the end of the year, really laboring with high pitch counts. Then he was sharp again first start after the break vs. White Sox, but back to laboring in 2 vs Minny. Looks tired to me, cannot locate and getting no break on his changeup. Velocity is 90 on those fastballs too, not the 93ish he was working earlier.

Mike Boddicker talked about this on the Border Patrol this morning. He said every pitcher goes through periods in the season where you basically have a dead arm for 2 to 3 starts and you just have to push through.

He also talked about how at the beginning of the season you can pick up a whole gallon of milk, at the all-star break you can only pick up a half gallon, and by the end of the season you can only pick up a pint. Crazy what pitchers put their arm through.

He needs to quit masturbating and get himself a hockey mom stat

Call Shields what you will, but he's the lead dog in multiple ways on that Staff, not Santana. Not to mention, we didn't give up our Franchise RF'r for Santana.