Talkin' Baseball

Baseball's regular season ended today. Thirty teams have battled daily since early April, and now eight teams are still standing in the quest for a World Series championship. I will make my annual predictions in a moment, but first we should review how I did in my preseason predictions. You can check out the full story from my post in April; I was correct on 4 out of 8 playoff teams (Yankees, Rays, Twins and Phillies). My original World Series prediction had the Yankees beating the Rockies; I can still be half right about that :-)

Here are the playoff teams in order that I would like to see them win:
1. Yankees. Can they win back-to-back titles?
2. Giants. They haven't won the World Series since 1954, when they were still playing in New York.
3. Twins. They just seem very likable. This is their first year back in an open air stadium - could there be snow at the Fall Classic?
4. Rangers. For the past couple of months I've had a feeling that the Rangers could be tough in the playoffs.
5. Reds. I don't think I've seen them play all year, but I've heard good things about them.
6. Rays. I guess I'm supposed to hate the Rays since they're in the same division as the Yankees, but I just can't.
7. Phillies. The Yanks taught them a lesson this time last year.
8. Braves. My dislike for the Braves goes back to the early 1990's. Even though all of those players are gone, I still don't like that team.

The above is my order of preference. Below are my actual predictions, one of which might be surprising. (A disclaimer - I'm often wrong, so don't make wagers based on these):

Division Series
Rangers over Rays in 4
Twins over Yankees in 5 (every Yanks starter except CC makes me nervous lately)
Giants over Braves in 5
Phillies over Reds in 4

League Championships
Rangers over Twins in 7
Phillies over Giants in 5

World Series
Phillies over Rangers in 6

I think the Phillies starting pitching is going to prove to be too much for everyone.

Enjoy the baseball, everyone. We'll come back in a few weeks to laugh at my awful predictions.