White Sox fans: Let's talk about our feelings with 25 games to go

Maybe you're feeling optimistic after the White Sox rallied from a 4-0 deficit to defeat the Seattle Mariners, 9-6, on Wednesday. If so, that's cool.

Or maybe you're feeling pessimistic because, after all, the Sox are only one game over .500 (69-68) on Sept. 7, and they haven't looked like a playoff team all season. If so, that's also fine.

You can be whatever kind of fan you want to be. But me personally, my tendency is to look at the math and let that inform my view.

With 25 games to go, the White Sox are tied for second place with the Minnesota Twins, two games behind the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central.

Can that deficit be overcome? Of course. Is it a good bet? Ehh, not sure about that.

The Guardians are 70-65 with 27 games left on their schedule. For the sake of argument, let's say they go 14-13 the rest of the way and finish 84-78. Seems like a plausible scenario, right?

Keep in mind that Cleveland leads the season series with the Sox, 9 games to 6, which means the tiebreaker goes to the Guardians. If Cleveland wins 84 games, then the Sox must win 85, or no playoffs.

The Sox are 69-68, so that means they would have to go 16-9 in their remaining 25 games to reach 85 wins. Mathematically possible? You bet, but it will require the Sox to sustain a stretch of winning baseball over a period of weeks -- something they've had trouble doing all year. They've had good weeks here and there, but they've been alternating winning and losing months and haven't had much consistency.

And that's assuming Cleveland doesn't do better than 14-13. They could do better; they could do worse. I'm just taking a reasonable guess.

Playoff odds have been on my mind today because the Sox have invoiced their fans for postseason tickets. Money is due by Sept. 20, and I find that date interesting -- it's the first day of a three-game series against the Guardians. That series will be the final matchup between Chicago and Cleveland this season, and it could decide the division.

So, Sox brass wants to know whether fans are in or out before we know the results of that critical series. Typical, because the Sox know if they lose that series, nobody will pay the playoff invoice, and then they won't be able to keep our money (without interest) over the offseason. 

For those who are not educated in this process, any money that goes toward playoff games that don't happen gets credited toward season tickets for the following season. If you demand a refund, you lose your seat location for next year.

Yeah, it's a dirty trick, so that makes this decision about whether to pay the invoice an important one.

Right now, my thought is that I'm not going to pay unless the Sox are either tied or ahead in the division by Sept. 20. That will require a hot streak over the next two weeks. So, this team needs to put up or shut up now. The schedule is favorable -- four at Oakland, two vs. Colorado, a makeup game at Cleveland and three at Detroit -- leading into Sept. 20.

The Sox probably need to win seven or eight of those 10. The margin for error is slim. Those are my feelings right now.

Justin Verlander: Are his best days behind him?

To this point in the season, most observers are assuming the Detroit Tigers will win the AL Central Division for the fourth consecutive year.

There are a lot of reasons to believe that assumption is correct. After all, the Tigers have the second-best record in the American League (28-19) entering Tuesday's action, and they possess a five-game lead in the division.

No other AL Central team is above .500. The White Sox (26-27) enter Tuesday in second place, but they are closer to last place than first. Chicago, Kansas City (24-26), Minnesota (23-25) and Cleveland (24-28) are separated in the standings by just 1.5 games.

Is there any reason at all to believe the Tigers can be had this year? Well, you have to look pretty hard, but here's one thing Detroit should be concerned about: Veteran ace Justin Verlander is no longer pitching like a Cy Young award candidate.

The 31-year-old is 5-4 with 4.04 ERA in 11 starts this year. Those numbers are ordinary to say the least, and his peripherals are also not impressive. Verlander's 1.514 WHIP is well above his career mark of 1.203, and above the career-worst 1.403 he posted during his struggling 2008 season.

Moreover, Verlander's K rate has fallen off a cliff. He has fanned just 50 batters in 71.1 IP this year. That's not good for a pitcher who has averaged roughly one strikeout per inning in every season since 2009.

Verlander's month of May has been terrible. He's 2-3 with a 6.03 ERA in his last five starts, and he has surrendered five earned runs or more in each of his last three outings. That's not like Justin Verlander.

Maybe this is a just a slump, but Verlander was coming off a "down" 2013 by his standards, in which he went 13-12 with a 3.46 ERA. In fact, if you look at the last five years you can see that Verlander is on a decline since his 2011 peak:

2010	18-9, 3.37 ERA	219 Ks in 224.1 IP	1.163 WHIP
2011	24-5, 2.40 ERA	251Ks in 251 IP	0.920 WHIP
2012	17-8, 2.64 ERA	239 Ks in 238.1 IP	1.057 WHIP
2013	13-12, 3.46 ERA	217 Ks in 218.1 IP	1.315 WHIP
2014	5-4, 4.04 ERA	50 Ks in 71.1 IP	1.514 WHIP

From these numbers, we can't say Verlander is bad now.  However,  he's starting to profile more as a No. 3 starter than the ace he has been in the past. There's really not much question Max Scherzer has overtaken him as the Tigers' best pitcher.

Starting pitching is the edge Detroit enjoys over the rest of the division, but that advantage becomes a little less if Verlander's day to pitch becomes more of a coin toss than a likely Detroit victory. That's where things stand now. It remains to be seen whether Verlander can regain his ace form. The Tigers need him to if they want to make it back to the World Series and win it.

But, even if Verlander is no longer an ace, it remains a open question whether the other teams in the AL Central, all of which have significant warts, will play well enough to take advantage anyway.

Twins trying to tackle pitching problems

The Twins were arguably a worse team than the White Sox last season despite finishing a few games ahead in the standings. Minnesota scored 16 more runs than the Sox, but with the help of maybe the worst rotation in baseball, the Twins yielded 65 more runs.

With a lack of pitching prospects in the pipeline, Minnesota has committed most of its resources this offseason to make its rotation less-bad. They gave journeyman Ricky Nolasco a four-year, $49 million contract, invested three years and $24 million in former Yankee Phil Hughes, and brought Mike Pelfrey back for two years and $11 million.

The Twins might not be done yet as they've been linked to free agent Matt Garza. Even if they don't hand out another big contract, they'll likely look at the free agent leftovers come January or February to see if they can add additional depth.

How far have the Twins come so far? Here's last year's top five starters by games started and their ERAs, and the projected top five for 2014, with their ages and career ERAs:

Kevin Correia (32)	4.18 (31 GS)	Correia (33)	(4.49 career)
Pelfrey (29)	5.19 (29 GS)	Nolasco (31)	3.70 (4.37 career)
Scott Diamond (26)	5.43 (24 GS)	Hughes (28)	5.19 (4.54 career)
Sam Deduno (29)	3.38 (18 GS)	Pelfrey (30)	(4.48 career)
Pedro Hernandez (24)	6.83 (14 GS)	Deduno (30)	(4.06 career)

Andrew Albers, Kyle Gibson and Vance Worley each made 10 starts for Minnesota last year with collectively awful results.

Even with $84 million invested, the Twins look like they have to cross their fingers here.

It's conceivable that Nolasco figured something out last year. It's also possible that he and Hughes, who is coming off a rough season by his standards, will both be helped by Target Field, which dampens the bats of left-handed hitters. Both have had a harder time against lefties in their careers. Hughes in particular may have been hurt by the short porch in right field at Yankee Stadium.

It's also possible that Pelfrey, another year removed from the elbow surgery he had in 2012, will get closer to his career ERA than the mark he posted last year. And the offseason is still young, so maybe they'll find a better option for the fifth spot than Deduno and the others.

That's a lot of stuff that has to break right for the Twins. That's a lot of wish-casting on pitchers who have never been considered above-average, much less elite, and are entering the age at which players exit the prime of their careers.

Give Minnesota credit for attempting to be more competitive. They went out and invested in guys who fit their philosophy of throwing strikes, who might be a good fit in their park, and acquired them the most expedient way possible by dipping into the free agent pool.

I'm still skeptical that this set of gambles will work out in a way that is a net positive for the Twins. Not when they could have done some more bargain shopping. Jake Westbrook and Bronson Arroyo are two guys who also could have been helped by Target Field. Because they are older, and in Westbrook's case coming off an injury, they would have commanded much less money than Nolasco.

Ervin Santana, Ubaldo Jimenez and Garza -- all still free agents -- might not command much more than $50 million, despite having much more impressive resumes, which makes me wonder why the Twins felt the need to strike so early on Nolasco.

With Nolasco, Pelfry, Hughes and Correia locked into four rotation spots, the Twins have less room to take a flier on other rehab, change-of-scenery, journeyman-filler or last-hurrah projects like Johan Santana, Roy Oswalt, Clayton Richard or Chris Capuano.

A veteran on a shorter deal might also be easier to flip for younger talent at the trade deadline if that's the position the Twins find themselves come July. The current pitching additions won't prevent that.

They will make Minnesota marginally better, and with MLB teams flush with money, none of these contracts will hamstring the team going forward, even if all of them are colossal failures.

Still, I can't help but think the Twins could set themselves up for more long-term value by taking a more creative approach to fixing their pitching.