What a waste. One of the great pitching seasons of the past 20 years blown on a team that lost 97 games and had to rally in September to earn a tie for last place. Worse, they were so bad that they’ve put what should be a shoe-in Cy Young award for Zack Greinke in danger by their inability to hit or field the ball. Not exactly the progress I and other Royals fans were looking for last spring. At least Billy Butler had a breakout season. Two fun things out of the entire season.
So, needless to say, I’m a little less enthused about the baseball playoffs than I was about Opening Day back in April. Not that I expected the Royals to be playing. But I also did not expect them to be so bad that they turned me off of baseball back in July. The Yankees being about as close to a lock as we’ve seen in recent years to win the World Series does not help.
But I do have a tradition of making playoff picks here, so here goes.<!–more–>ALDS:
Yankees over Twins: How do the Twins have to play a tie breaker on Tuesday then fly to play the #1 seed Wednesday afternoon? And how bad was Chip Caray Tuesday?
Angels over Red Sox: I made this pick last year and the Sox rolled over the Angels. The Sox have the better pitching, but I’m stubborn. Plus, I do not want another Yanks-Sox ALCS.*
(Yes, the 2003 and 2004 ALCSes were two of the great playoff series ever. I probably had a bigger emotional investment in those series than of any other that did not involve a team I was a fan of. But we’ve been there, done that. I still much prefer the Sox to the Yankees, and want them to do well just to be the foil to the Evil Empire. However, the current Red Sox roster lacks the personality of the ’03-04 squads. Manny is gone. Papi is washed up. Plus the Sox play in a second tier all to themselves, looking up only at the Yankees when it comes to finances. Other than hating the Yankees, it is a much less compelling argument to pull for the Sox now.)
NLDS:
Phillies over Rockies: As I told my brother-in-law who lives in Denver, I’m not sure why I didn’t pick the Rockies as my adopted team for the summer. They would have been fun to watch. Too bad their run ends here.
Cardinals over Dodgers: Back in June, the Dodgers seemed unstoppable. In August it was the Cardinals who were world beaters. Both have tailed off from their hottest play. I take the Cards here just because of their pitching and Pujols-Holliday combo.
ALCS:
Yankees over Angels: Man I wish the Angels had the pitching to pull this off. Maybe they can wear down the Yankees’ pitching and stay in this, but I fear it will be over quickly.
NLCS:
Phillies over Cardinals: Depending on how the DLSes go, there could be some epic pitching match ups in this series. I think the Phillies don’t get much respect, and since teams love to play that card, that will put them over the top. I hope we see a Pujols-Lidge battle in a ninth inning, though.
World Series:
Yankees over Phillies: Fuck. Hopefully A-Rod will have a shitty series so I can salvage something from this. Damn Yankees.