2009 Postseason

Baseball playoffs start tonight. Some would argue that they started last night, but that was technically a play-in game. Minnesota defeated Detroit 6-5 in 12 innings to capture the Central Division crown. It was quite a good game. Some bad plays were made and it would be hard to argue whether it was truly a Minnesota win or a Detroit loss. Still it made for a compelling game and it’s just one more reason we all will miss the Metrodome once they tear it down at the end of the Twin’s season.

My original assumption was that since the play-in game had to be pushed back to Tuesday (due to the Vikings using the Metrodome on Monday), that the winner would play the Yankees on Thursday (both NL games are played today but only one AL game). However, the rules of baseball apparently state that the team with the best record get’s to choose if there is an option. So the Yankees were given the option of playing today or tomorrow and of course they chose to play today to try and take advantage of an exhausted Twins team. So Boston and Anaheim won’t play until tomorrow.

It’s hard to say how each match-up will go. The Yankees beat the Twins every time they played this year and the Yankees are rested while Minnesota is tired and emotionally drained. One would expect a sweep, but I could see the Twins making a series out of it. Likewise Anaheim is a very good team, but they can’t seem to be able to beat Boston; both in the regular season and in the playoffs. That would make it seem logical to immediately jump to a Boston-New York ALCS. I’d rather see a Minnesota-Boston ALCS, but that’s just my own personal preference.

On the National League side, things are a little more muddled. St. Louis plays the Dodgers while Colorado takes on the Phillies. St. Louis had the edge on Los Angeles during the regular season and the Dodgers were playing .500 ball at best during the last month of the season. Still, there is a scrappiness about the Dodgers that I can’t quite shake. The Cardinals may win, but I think it would be a very hard-fought win. On the other side of the coin, I have no idea who will win between Colorado and Philadelphia. Both teams come in playing well and both teams have a knack for finding ways to win. If forced to guess, I would lean toward Philadelphia just because of the experience. Colorado was in the World Series only two years ago, but the fact that the Phillies are defending champions gives them just a bit more of an edge in my mind. That would give us a St. Louis-Philadelphia NLCS and that would be fine with me.

Three years ago I went 0-7 in predicting the series outcomes. Let’s see how bad I do this year.