Now we've got both pairings...the NLCS starts Thursday and the ALCS starts Friday.

Okay...I'm going with Phillies in 7 and Red Sox in 6. Why? Why not?

Phillies - Red Sox? You may wind up with a bear sleeping on your couch during the games in Philly.

Not that I don't like bears, but if there is a Phillies-Red Sox series, there's no way I'd aid and abet the enemy that way.

Don't worry Joe, I'll just take up residence in the basement of The Bike Stop, but can I keep my toofbrush at your place?

That would still fall under the category of "aid and abet the enemy," so no.

wow, how much better are those 2 AL teams than the NL teams? (yes, anything can happen in a World Series, but seldom does these days.)

Rooting Dodgers and Rays, I'll say both in 6. Though I'm fine with the Evil Empire Jr advancing if Manny wins the WS in Game 7 at Fenway with a bomb off Papelfrat.

Being the homer that I am, I'll take the Phillies in 6 and the RedSox in 6.

A blog at Philly.com contained a summary of a lot of national "experts" picks on the NLCS:

ESPN
Rob Neyer: Phillies, 4-3
Jayson Stark: Dodgers, 4-3
Tim Kurjian: Dodgers, 4-3
Steve Phillips: Dodgers, 4-3
Jim Caple: Dodgers, 4-1

Fox Sports
Ken Rosenthal: Dodgers, 4-3

Yahoo
Tim Brown: Dodgers, 4-2
Jeff Passan: Dodgers, 4-2
Steve Henson: Dodgers, 4-1
Gordon Edes: Dodgers, 4-3

The Sporting News
Matt Lutvosky: Dodgers, 4-2
Justin McGuire: Phillies, 4-2
Brad Pinkerton: Dodgers, 4-3
Chris Bahr: Phillies, 4-3

CBS Sportsline
Danny Knobler: Dodgers, 4-3
Eric Mack: Dodgers, 4-3
Scott Miller: Dodgers, 4-2
Mark Rosen: Dodgers, 4-2

Clearly the national media desperately wants Manny going back to Boston.

Well, the Dodgers have their work cut out for them if these two bozos' guesses are going to be completely correct. 1-0 Phils lead! Hamels wasn't quite spectacular like last week but he got the job done, thanks to Utley and Burrell's homers (about time for Utley, three HR in two games for Burrell).

The Phillies take game two against the Dodgers in the most improbable way with a Brett Myers offensive show. I thought it was just a fluke when Myers took Sabbathia to the limit just to get him out in the NLDS series. But tonight Brett had three hits and three RBI, more RGI than he had all year. He is the eighth pitcher to get 3 hits in a postseason game. He needed all of them because he only lasted 5 innings giving up 5 runs. He held Manny in check until his third time up and then gave up a 3 run bomb.

The Phillies bulpen has been impressive giving up nothing in two games. Shane Victorino continues with the offense and his glove robbing the Dodgers of an extrabase hit. Hopefully the Phillies can keep riding this karma now that the teams are off to LaLa land.

Dice-K taking a no hitter into the 7th, that was cool!

Beckett starts tonight....I'm a little ascared and nervous, but I'll keep mafingers crossed.

And David Archuleta sang God Bless America he did pretty darn good!

Is it possible we'll get a 6 or 7-game series in both leagues? That would be a switch.

Fernando Perez, the speedster who scored the Rays' winning run in Saturday night's marathon, is a Columbia grad who majored in American Studies. Nice to see as ballplayer with brains succeed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/sports/b...ll/05perez.html


How many folks are muting Buck and McCarver?

I muted them after about an inning during game 1. I wasn't home to watch during games 2 and 3. Last night Pedro Feliz hit a hard ground foul down the third base line. It was low and away from Feliz enough that he was obviously reaching for it. McCarver kept talking about how it was "hanging." What, hanging low like Kellen Winslow's...never mind.

Oh wow! All we hear is how great Lester is, especially at Fenway. I guess everyone has a bad night here and there! Red Sox fans booing, how sweet a sound.

Let's keep it up! Let's go Rays!

Yup, the Sox certainly got spanked tonight. And yes Kenny, Lester is an excellent pitcher, him having an off night combined with the Rays not losing any steam makes a bad combo (for us anyway).

And booing? Are you sure that wasn't just the chant for Youkilis? It is done whenever he comes up to bat, or makes a good play ("Yooooooooooooouk!")

Nice win for the Rays. They've been doing this all year, tho: Coming up with big wins after a possible deflating loss....Would love to see them in the Series...

The lightning bolt from Shane Victorino. Then the BOMB from Matt Stairs. (Matt Stairs! Thank you Toronto!) Cole Hamels can pitch the Phillies into the World Series on Wednesday!

After the Dodgers took that 5-3 lead I thought the Phillies would never dent their bullpen, but I guess their human afterall.

So it bring on Hamels,

Go Phillies

Yeah I know the Youk sound, but this is straight out of the Boston Globe today...

The Rays completely took the crowd out of the game. The Fenway unfaithful booed captain Varitek when he popped up to end the fourth, but for most of the night the ancient yard sounded like the quiet car on the Acela. In the ninth, Fenway looked like Gillette Stadium three weeks ago when the Dolphins went ahead, 38-13. Talk about your alternative universes.

I didn't hear the boos, thank god I missed it.....Tek is frustrating at times, so I can totally see him getting booed. His offense hasn't been great.

Varitek is a lousy bat in the lineup. But hey, he can HANDLE PITCHERS! Really that rare a skill?

In the past the Rays havent had an answer for the knuckler Wakefield, but this year they have done well against him.

Let's Go Rays!

oh god, here we go again...

Yes, his bat has been AWFUL, that goes without saying. And he can handle pitchers better than any other catcher in both leagues. Can any of them say "Hey, I've called and caught 4 no hitters, it would be five but Curt Schilling shook off my call in the 9th"

Nope, no other catcher can say that.

Charlie Manuel told the local beat writers today that if Brad Lidge hadn't been able to close out the game last night, the next move out of the bullpen would've been none other than Brett Myers. Considering how he enjoyed closing last year and had so much trouble this year going back into the rotation, that would've been wild.

Boy...Tampa Bay really reminds me of the 03 Marlins...

They could be the '06 Tigers, too- we shall see.

Rays have switched to Kazmir for game 5.

Hamels came through, World Series here we come !!

Woo-hoo!!!!!!!

Wow, what a ride it's been, and it's still going on! Four more wins, boys, four more wins!

Not a baseball fan...love going to the games, but don't watch it on tv, and haven't followed the Phillies until the post season. However, THRILLED that Philadelphia's long drought of a major sporting championship may be broken! So for that reason, GO PHILS!!!!

Congrats to all the Phillies' fans on this board!

I hope at least this series put to bed the notion that Joe Torre is a hall of fame manager just because he won a few world series with a billion dollar payroll for a few years.

From what I watched of this series, Torre is a buffoon. Case in point, you have a guy like Blake DeWitt that's left a small village on base this series. He comes up with 2 guys on in the 2nd inning and grounds into a double play.
He comes up again in the 5th with two guys on base in now a 5-0 game. But it's still relatively early and LA should be focusing on chipping away and trying to get 1 or 2 runs at this point. I'm thinking, oh it's DeWitt guy. He's gotta be bunting here. Play for a run or two. No bunt. Not even the notion of the bunt and it's another double play rally killer.

Torre mismanaged his bullpen matchups most of the series.

Face it, he's not a good manager and he never was and he never will be.

I'm certainly not glad that the Phillies are in the world series---I hope they embarrass themselves big time, but I'm thrilled that lame duck Joe Torre proved that he really is a crappy manager.

Congrats to the Philadelphia Phillies, NL champs!

Let's see if you can close the deal this time on the World Series.

Congrats to the Phillies and their fans!

Congrats to the fans? They watched. (They also wanted to dump Rollins, Burrell etc about a month ago.)

Congrats to the Phillies for winning the National League pennant. Someone had to; it's in the rules.

Congratulations to the Phillies, and yes, their fans!

I understand that Torre's gotten some criticism out in Dodgerland, but you don't have DeWitt bunt at that point. Trailing by 5 runs you don't bunt. If you need 1 run at that point, maybe. But not when down by 5. If DeWitt's the problem then you pinch-hit for him or not start him at all.



Since we're in election season, the only truly appropriate reply has to be: well, there you go again.

Boston was down 7-0 going into the bottom of the 7th and they've wiped out the deficit. A Coco Crisp single and a horrible throw from right fielder Gabe Gross got the tying run home in the 8th.

Update: Boston wins in the 9th. That was certainly a surprise. Do the Rays have the mental toughness to overcome this loss?

If the Red Sox come back to win this series it's going to ruin a blog item I'm planning...dammit, Rays, win the game already.

OMG, once again the RedSox use one of their 9 lives. When will they finally use them all up? Coming back from 7-0 late in a must win game has to rank up there with the biggest.

Through the LCS, Tampa has shown the "we're good, and we're gonna win" attitude, and that helped them. And for 7 innings last night, they still showed it, big time. Then, they got sloppy. Instead of keeping a clear head, they figured they had it sewn up by the 7th inning and didn't realize you don't stop until the last out is recorded. And Boston's Kings Of Comebacks made them pay. That is the exact determination that propelled them when they were down in 04 and 07.

Pure sillyness. That would be like asking do the Phillies have enough mental toughness to sit for a week without playing to actually win the World Series. This just reminds me of August 6th being at the Trop!

Let's go Rays!

Bosox got a MAJOR assist from Joe Maddon's dubious bullpen management (not bringing in lefties w/ good histories vs Ortiz to face him).

As far as the Dodgers' demise goes, Joe Torre has always been horrible at bench utilization. This time he didn't have the talent and luck to overcome it.

If I thought for a minute that any of the Phillies players were REGULARS on this board, I'd congratulate them, but since they are not...Congrats to their fans.

Note to Pat Burrell: If you are a regular, PM me......please....

Fortunately the Rays win for half and hour... and they lose for half an hour. Every interview I've seen from today... and those from last night as well... they're just not bothered by this. A big loss, for sure... but if Shields goes out there and puts a 0 up on the board in the first tomorrow night and the Rays can get a run or two, the momentum is all back to Tampa Bay.

I'll be there. Don't let me down, boys.

I thought the Rays needed to win it tonight to win it- I expect Lester to be the better pitcher tomorrow, but maybe Garza can match him.

Dang... this happened and it still didn't matter... here's to later today!

I need a Xanax! lol All comes down to tonight. And thanks to the schedule I will be at the Bucs/Seahawks game while across the bay this game is going on.

Let's Go Rays!

There's a reason Tampa Bay "ain't getting no love" -- because they're choking like dogs! Dammit, I'm so sick of Boston teams. Man up, Rays!