I Bring Nothing to the Table

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ‘em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.

Listening to the Baseball Today podcast, it becomes very apparent that half of this World Series matchup doesn’t make sense. TV execs were hoping, nay, wishing for a Dodgers/Red Sox World Series. Torre vs. Francona. New Manny vs. Manny’s old team. Two huge market teams going at it for all the glory. Heck, they would have even settled for a Phillies/Red Sox series, with all those big names and big guns on both sides. Not to mention a Cubs appearance on their lucky 100th year of losing.

Instead they’ve got the Phils and the Rays. The losingest team in baseball (Philadelphia) against a team that has sucked every season of its existence until this year. Will ratings be low again for this World Series? It’s likely, what with the baseball audience mostly dwindling and since football season is in full swing. Will it be more exciting than the Sox? Most definitely. In fact, it’d be best if the series went the distance. A seven game series would do wonders for an event that has sorely lacked drama in recent history.

Speaking of drama…

Why does the BCS have Ohio State ranked above UF again? Two weeks of byes and all of a sudden we’ve forgotten how good UF is? A few games against mediocre teams and we forget how traditionally OSU is overrated? This should hopefully be resolved this weekend with the Kansas game.

The Rays have finally gone and done it. In order to make the series more interesting, they let the Sox tie it up at three games a piece, but in Game 7, Matt Garza and the Rays showed the world that they were capable of going to the series and beating Boston in their 25th showdown this year.

It started out looking a bit rough for the Rays with a Dustin Pedroia homer that put the Sox up, but it started to turn around with an RBI double by Longoria, RBI single by Baldelli, and a homer by Willy Aybar, putting the Rays up 3-1. There was also that dicey moment where the relief squad kept the Rays safe in a bases loaded situation, all combining to bring the Rays their first world series berth ever.

Now it’s up to them to take down the hated Phillies in a matchup for the history books! No Florida team has ever lost in a post season they attended and no Florida team has ever lost in a World Series. Will Tampa Bay be able to keep it up?

How the Rays managed to lose a 7-0 lead to lose the game on Thursday against the Sox, I do not know. It’s really a shame that they couldn’t hold on for the pennant. Now it comes down to the game tonight (or the next game).

In better news, Longoria smashed another one out of the park. He’s unstoppable.

Well, they’ve done it for the first time since 1993. The Phils have won the NL pennant. Their victory came at the expense of sloppy play by Rafael Furcal and the Dodgers in general. In the end, it didn’t matter that Manny Ramirez was batting .500 coming into the last game. It didn’t matter that the Dodgers had Joe Torre manning their ball club. It just mattered that the Phils wanted it more, were a more solid team, and took it in five.

Speaking of a team that wants it, the Rays will have a chance to take the AL pennant tonight as they face off once again in Boston. Let’s all hope that Longoria belts in another few homers.

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ‘em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.

13-4. I don’t think anyone expected that at all. Tim Wakefield used to be dominant against the Rays. Now, in the past two games, he’s been hammered. Evan Longoria set himself a rookie record by smashing in five homeruns in the post season. The Rays are now 3-1 over the Red Sox. It’s only a matter of one game. Could be over as early as Thursday when Daisuke will try to stun the Rays again like he did in Game 1.

Tonight could be the end of the NLCS, when the Dodgers and Phillies go at it in their series. There’s tons of pressure on the Dodgers, but I think they can turn it around for a great upset. Torre’s done it before.

It’s been a wild few games in the League Championship Series as Tampa moves ahead 2-1 and the Phillies come back in a ridiculous game to bring their series to 3-1.

After suffering from a mini-slump, it seems that Evan Longoria is definitely back. He’s homered in both of the last two games helping to propel the Rays to a 9-8 win in Game 2 and a 9-1 win in Game 3. Why these games have turned into such slugfests despite the excellent pitching on both sides of the plate baffles me, but there’s no reason to complain about excellent TB performance. Game 4 will begin tonight at 2007.

Despite having a strong lead early in Game 4, the Dodgers managed to drop another to the Phillies to lose 5-7 by allowing four runs in the 8th. As the series begins to look more desperate for Torre and his Dodgers, we’ve just gotta hope that Manny keeps being Manny and propels this team ahead tomorrow night to avoid elimination. Good luck Dodgers!

I skipped a day, but we’re here: The League Championship Series. Even though we’ve already had two days of competition, the ALCS has only played one game while the Phillies and Dodgers are two into the NLCS.

Philadelphia finds itself two games ahead after winning 8-5 last night and 3-2 on Thursday. I must admit, this series has been a little less close than I expected it to be. We’ll see what happens on Sunday when the series moves to LA. Will the Dodgers be able to pull a win in sunny LA instead of cool Philadelphia? We’ll find out in a few days.

On a sadder note, Daisuke Matsuzaka pulled some of his road magic on the Rays last night as the Red Sox shut out the Rays 2-0. I’m really hoping this isn’t just Red Sox postseason magic and just some solid pitching that held them down. The Rays play again tonight and should hopefully win.

You’ve probably heard the saying that hindsight is 20/20 on Monday morning, so just imagine how well I can call ‘em two days later on Wednesday. That’s right, it’s time for Wednesday Morning Quarterback, your weekly sports round-up.

So it seems that I was half wrong about at least the NLCS, since the Cubs managed to not save their collapse for maximal disappointment. Instead we have the Philadelphia Phillies going up against the Los Angeles Dodgers. This one is a bit tougher of a prediction. It’s going to be a tough and exciting series, but I hope the Phillies lose for the drama.

The big, main event for me is the Red Sox/Rays series. ESPN is already hyping the rivalry between the Rays and Sox as the most exciting in current baseball, citing several different events: sliding into second spikes first, beaning Coco Crisp, and the fight that followed the beaning. One thing can’t be debated though, this will be a rough, close, well-played series that will make for absolutely stupendous baseball. None of the opening pitchers have been announced yet for the series, but we will definitely see some good matchups.

I can’t wait.

We’ve finally reached the resolution of the ALDS series with victories by both Boston and Tampa Bay. As me move toward the ALCS and NLCS, the ability to predict the outcome becomes way less possible.

Take the Phillies and Dodgers series: The Dodgers steamrolled the Cubs where no one expected them to to get them to this point against the Phillies. Philadephia, on the other hand, has solid pitching and defense and their lineup can hit the long ball all day long. L.A. has got Manny. The Phillies have Ryan Howard. The Dodgers have had an epic second half with a strong postseason manager. Philadelphia has had a solid team all year and wants to make it to the World Series for the first time since 1993. I have no idea what will happen, but I think it will be closer than the NLDS. Let’s go with the Dodgers (I hate the Phillies) in 6.

Tampa Bay and the Red Sox have had a bitter rivalry all year long. There was even a brawl at one point in the season between them. It seems like the edge might go to the Rays with their home field advantage and the fact that they edged out the Sox in their regular season schedule, but the Sox are dominant in the postseason and will give the Rays a run for their money. Rays in 7, to make it interesting. More realistically, let’s predict Rays in 5.

I really thought by this point we’d be completely done with the Division Series games, but now we’ve still got another day, at the very least, for the ALDS series.

Philadelphia finally turned in its win and gave us what we expected. They beat the Brew Crew 6-2 and now don’t have any games until Thursday when they will be starting their NLCS series against the Dodgers at home.

Josh Beckett remarkably managed to not put together as solid an outing as he usually does, so the 11-game win postseason win streak against the Angels ended as LA put up a 5-4 win in the 12th. They play again tonight to see if they can lock it down. Lester gets the nod for pitching and he’s been doing well so far.

The White Sox managed to hold onto the series by not allowing the Rays to win with a 5-3 victory. It’s disappointing, but the Boston loss should also help the Rays maintain even momentum against the Red Sox once they win tonight.

Let’s see if we’ll find resolution tonight.