Post Season Check

The job hunt becomes a real pain in the ass when one wants to do nothing but write a baseball blog. I refrained from posting this summer, because as a White Sox fan….Jesus H. Christ. It was either totally agony or total ecstasy. Mostly agony. Another year, another ball-kicking in August by the Twins (more on them later).
Looking back at my preseason predictions, I was actually pretty good. San Francisco proved me right, as did Philly, Minnesota, New York and Tampa Bay. I want credit for the Reds, because they did win despite their manager (and really, he’s an idiot), but deserve a firm rock kicking for my embrace of the Angels. Oh well. Good for Texas. They’re much easier to root for now that they aren’t chalk full of raging steroid monsters.
The Rangers have continued this impressive year by going in to the ALDS matchup with the aforementioned Rays and beating them. Soundly. And repeatedly. Tampa looks flat out over-matched, which is very difficult to do. The Rays, after all, won more games than any other team this year, in the hardest division in baseball, with no payroll and while being no hit twice. Yes, twice. And three times over the past calendar year (shout out to Mark Buerhle of the White Sox!!!!) I’m very impressed with the Rangers this year, but doubt they will be able to replicate this feat next year. Cliff Lee (acquired in a mid-season deal with the Mariners [YEESH!!!!]) is going to leave for a multi-year deal in free agency this October (first demand of his deal will be a no-trade clause), and over the past decade, there a ton of one team wonders (’01 Dbacks, ’02 Angels/Giants, ’03 Marlins, ’05 Astros, ’06 Tigers
Roy Halladay continues to just destroy the National League, as evidence by his no-hitter in Game 1 of the ALDS against Cincinnati (and really, Philly fans….I don’t know what good karma you put out there…but good God the last 4 years have just been unreal). Lincecum (Tim, The Freak) of the Giants was almost as good against the Atlanta Braves the other night, going the full nine and giving up just 2 hits. Unreal. I’d put my money on a Phillies-Giants NLCS, with the Phillies wining in 6 games, because the Braves just can’t hit and are giving up a hit too many.
I’m still LOL’ing at the Minnesota Twins inability to play the New York Yankees. Guess what, Twins fans? This is exactly what White Sox fans go through every August. Maybe you should try designing your team for October baseball and not just April-September baseball. I wish I could be a bigger man, but I just love the smell of Twins failure.
All in all, not a bad season of prediction by myself. I’ll take a Rangers birth in the WS this year, going up against the Phillies. I say…..Phillies pull it out in 6 games.