It's Valentine's Day, and Chicago White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper is sending flowers to his top three starting pitchers—Mark Buerhle, Jose Contreras and Javier Vazquez. Cooper said recently he needs 45 wins from the front end of his rotation in order for the pale hose to compete in 2008.
Why 45? It turns out that five teams in 2007 received 45 or more wins from their top three starting pitchers, and all five teams made the playoffs:
Team
| Pitcher #1 | Pitcher #2 | Pitcher #3 |
| Indians (53) | Fausto Carmona (19) | C.C. Sabathia (19) | Paul Byrd (15) |
| BoSox (52) | Josh Beckett (20) | Tim Wakefield (17) | Daisuke Matsuzaka (15) |
| Angels (50) | John Lackey (19) | Kelvim Escobar (18) | Jered Weaver (13) |
| Cubs (45) | Carlos Zambrano (18) | Ted Lilly (15) | Jason Marquis (12) |
| Yanks (45) | Chien-Ming Wang (19) | Andy Pettitte (15) | Mike Mussina (11) |
Copyright © 2008 by John Dewan.
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