Ok so I don’t quite know how to post a blog and I don’t know how to bash Brett Favre like I planned to today after that impressive performance Monday night. What I will do is change it up a bit. It's October people. Let's talk baseball.
The Tigers and Twins are about to get underway and the Metrodome will be about as loud as it was after Greg Lewis' great catch to beat the 49ers. Oh yeah, decent pass too. While I am excited as can be right now to watch a single baseball game that will decide a division championship, the two teams the baseball world will be focusing on this afternoon will not be around much longer. The Tigers can maybe get two wins a series from Justin Verlander, but where are the other two going to come from? The lineup of Granderson, Polanco, Cabrera (who is havin’ some trouble with the wifey), Inge, and Ordonez, while dangerous, will not score six or seven runs a game against postseason pitching. Not to mention Carlos Guillen is having one of the worst seasons in his career and is no longer a threat. The Twins, while they have depth, do not have that horse you need at the front of the rotation during October. Also, the Twins will not continue to be this hot without the former AL MVP Justin Morneau in the lineup. How they won sixteen of twenty down the stretch without that guy I have no idea.
The two teams that will be battling it out this year in October, and maybe even November because of the WBC, will be the Yankees and the Cardinals. It kills me to say that I think this is the Yankees year but look what those guys have done. The Yankees lead of all of Major League Baseball in practically every offensive category. The Yankees are twelfth in the MLB in pitching, but that is in front of the Angels, Red Sox, Tigers, and Twins. All of the teams they would be facing in the AL playoffs. Also, the Yankees have two out of the only three candidates for AL MVP on their team in Derek Jeter and Mark Texiera; Joe Mauer being the third. Even if A-Fraud has his usual postseason, this team is still going to mash the baseball considering they have homefield throughout, and that short porch in right field which has made the new Yankee Stadium a launching pad for sluggers.
While the end of the rotation is a little suspect for New York, the new additions of A.J. Burnett and C.C. Sabathia teamed up with an experienced, postseason pitcher in Andy Pettite should be enough pitching for this great lineup. Even if Joba cannot get past the third inning, in what will likely be his only start of at least the first series, the bullpen of Coke, Robertson, that Rivera guy, and even an appearance or two by Phil Hughes, should be enough pitching for one bad outing by Joba.
The team that I think will knock the Phillies off the National League pedestal is the St. Louis Cardinals. I never thought the Cardinals had the lineup to do anything in the postseason. Even when they won the World Series in ’06, after having the second worst record ever for a league champion in 83-78, I was not impressed with that lineup. But now, with the addition of Matt Holliday and players like Ryan Ludwick and Yodier Molina, this team has the sticks to get it done. This will be the first postseason where pitchers, besides Brad Lidge, have to pitch to Pujols. With Holliday, Ludwick, and Molina batting 4,5, and 6, no way can a pitcher put Pujols on first with anything less than two outs.
The only question the Cardinals really have is will Adam Wainwright continue his brilliant season into the postseason. We all know Chris Carpenter will be fine. If the Cardinals can get the same out of Wainwright as they did in the regular season, the Cardinals have the best 1-2 punch in the National League and are the favorites to win the pennant.
I have been waiting all year for Cole Hamels to show that same form he showed against the Dodgers and the Rays last October, but that has not happened. If he can pitch similar to last postseason, him, Cliff Lee, and the best lineup in the National League have a chance. If he cannot, he will leave during the fifth inning to watch that now questionable Phillies bullpen try to stop the bleeding.
So there’s your fall classic ladies and gents. The two most popular teams in baseball (shutup Cubs and Red Sox fans) will meet in late October to determine it all. I expect the Cards to get one win from each of Carpenter, Wainwright, and my main man Smoltzy but I see Sabathia taking down Carpenter in game 7 in the chilly Bronx. The only question left is what will Joe Girardi’s number be next year? 28? I believe so.
-scf
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