Houston in 4 over Atlanta
St. Louis in 5 over Los Angeles
Anaheim in 4 over Boston
NY Yankees in 5 over Minnesota

I hope you're right on that first one. We've never won a postseason series and have been sent home by the Braves so many times.

And sportsoutdoors is living in enemy territory. Must be painful.

I think the Houston-Atlanta series has the ability to go 5 games.

St Louie will roll LA.

I'm liking Boston to get over the 1st round hurdle.

And of course, I'm hard pressed against picking against those damned Shmankees.

Atlanta in 5 over Houston
St Louis in 4 over LA
Anaheim in 5 over Boston
Minnesota in 4 over the Yankees wink

~Adam

New York over Minnesota
Boston over Anaheim
Los Angeles over St Louis
Houston over Atlanta

(then Boston in the ALCS over New York, and also in the Series over Houston)

New York over Minnesota in 4
Anaheim over the A.L. Wild Card in 5
St. Louis over Los Angeles in 3
Atlanta over Houston in 5

Twins beat Yanks
Sox beat Angels
Cards beat Bums
Astros beat Braves

Yankees over Twins in 4
Angels over AL East 2nd place team in 4
Cardinals over Dodgers in 3
Astros over Braves in 4

Yankees over the Twinks in 4
Angels over TTTSNBN (*) in 5
Cardinals over Dodgers in 4
Braves over Astros in 5


(*) The Team That Shall Not Be Named wink

Atlanta vs. Houston is a toss-up, but let me just say ...

GO BRAVES!! :cool:

Somebody needs to start a poll for this thread... it's too complicated for me to do, though. But I just predicted (to Marc from Calgary) an Anaheim-Houston World Series, with Anaheim winning. Are you happy Jim Allen?

[ October 04, 2004, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: canmark ]

Okay, I did. You can vote here.

I know the real reason for having a poll: you just want to make anonymous picks so that no one sees how wrong you are.

Here's something that's pathetic, though. The Braves have a ticket deal -- buy two tickets for NLDS game one and get...two free tickets for game two!

I took advantage of it this morning, Joe.

Okay, I'll take a shot:

Yankees in 4
Angels in 5
Cardinals in 4
Braves in 4

But I'm rarely right with my predictions. I've said all season, however, that I'd be surprised if the Yankees even make the WS, much less win, so I hope I'm wrong with that. Wouldn't a New York/St. Louis Series be the most exciting? Have they ever met in October before? They must have, they've both been around forever.

The last time they met was in 1964. But the wrong team won in 7.

The Astros are the team of destiny this year (not unlike Anaheim in '02 and the Marlins last year)....not to get too far ahead of myself but I think a St. Louis-Houston NLCS would make for a terrific series with the 'Stros prevailing thanks to their superb pitching depth.

In my mind, the A.L. is a virtual crapshoot and I can realistically see any of the 4 teams making it all the way to the Fall Classic....having said that, here are my picks for the Division Series':

ASTROS IN 3
CARDINALS IN 4
ANGELS IN 5
TWINS IN 4 -- this is contingent upon Santana winning 2 games....if Mussina and the Yanks are able to prevail in game 1 tomorrow night (which I do not think will happen), then Torre's bunch will advance.

~Joe

[ October 04, 2004, 03:07 PM: Message edited by: gamecock ]

Houston in 5 over Atlanta
St. Louis in 4 over Los Angeles
Boston in 5 over Anaheim
NY Yankees in 4 over Minnesota

Our own Anton wrote a terrific preview for us. Check it out.

Yankees in 4
Sox in 4
Cards in 3
Braves in 4

That's an excellent preview. I really enjoyed it.

Glad you liked it. :cool:

Cards in 3
Astros in 4
Red Sox in 4
Yankees in 5

I think the closest series will be between the yankees and twins. New York's pitching hasn't been as good as in the past and the twins may get two wins from santana alone.

I agree. Very good preview, BPT, although I question some of your picks.

Do you recall this post from the Blue Jays thread?

Yeah, you know how to pick 'em!

Nope, never saw that quote in my life. Damn dirty lies if you ask me.

OK, so some of my former predictions didn't work out. Please don't look in the Baseball Predictions 2004 thread. eek! I'm not Madame Nostradamus you know!

But hey, I did come closest to predicting the final seat totals for the Canadian Election (just messed up the Bloc share of seats in Quebec) Beat that Gerbil too. wink

Glad you enjoyed the preview. :cool:

How about those Twins? Personally I'd like the franchise contracted and Torii Hunter assigned to the Phillies. wink

Despite Santana not having his best stuff, the Twins D really came through. The relief pitchers (Rincon and Nathan) also show why they were among the most effective 1-2 relief punch in MLB this past year.

A satisfying win, but obviously there is work to do. As pointed out, the Yanks have lost game one ten times, but come back to win 7 of those series.

What was that error by Odalis Perez in the 2nd inning of the Dodger/Card game??? He had Edgar Renteria dead to rights, caught off second base, but as Perez got ready to make the pickoff toss, the ball fell out of his hands!! Spike Jones' music should have playing in the background!

The Cards 5 (count 'em, 5) home runs were the major blows, but that particular error buried the Dodgers.

~Adam, whose number of posts now matches the final four digits of my phone number--it's the little things that really bring contentment.

On a side note, who was the guy who sang "God Bless America" during last night's Yanks-Twins game? No offense but he was pretty dreadful. Plus he didn't know the lyrics!

I thought it was dreadful, too, but I didn't want to sound like I was complaining (à la Ron Gardenhire, ALDS, 2003) .

[ October 06, 2004, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: Cattledog ]

OK, what is Brad Ausmus doing hitting a home run?!? Now that he's struck out twice in a row, maybe the universe has returned to normal. wink

~Adam

I don't knwo about that Adam, but if Carlos Beltran needs someone to massage his pec that got beaned this inning.... I'm available! Brad who??

WTF? A note on Yahoo.com's boxscore of the Astros-Braves game: "The Atlanta Braves are playing the game under protest due to the reported Houston bullpen phone not working." :confused:

(edit to add) Never mind--the Braves won anyway, thanks to the judge who refused to throw parole-violating Rafael Furcal in jail until after the playoffs. wink

[ October 07, 2004, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: Joe in Philly ]

I was listening to the game on the radio and when I heard the Braves were playing under protest for a malfunctioning phone in the Houston bullpen, I immediately wondered if the Braves could do that...in their own home park!! I had hoped the Astros would prevail if only to see how that particular grievance would play out.

The Braves deserved this win, outhitting the Astros by about a dozen, and just playing smarter ball.

~Adam

As my brother said this evening: Yesterday the Astros looked like the "new guard" had shaken off the ghosts of the past for the club; today the Astros looked like every single playoff game the Astros had previously played vs. the Braves. If they play in the same manner on Saturday, the series is over.

I'm not a big statistics guy, but this one from the Cardinal's 8-3 victory over the Dodgers really stood out: 7 of the 8 Cardinal's runs came when they already had two outs in an inning. The Dodgers just couldn't get the third outs.

~Adam

Silva goes for the Twins tonight. He's pitched pretty well down the stretch, though not as consistently as I would like. I just hope the Yankee comeback in Game 2 doesn't break the Twins spirits. They need to jump on Kevin Brown early and often and get a little cushion for Silva to work with.

Now that the Angels have been swept, the Dodgers have to win Saturday, if for no other reason than southern California pride. Well, that and the fact I picked the Cards to take the series in 4, not three.

~Adam

It's LIMA time!!!

To celebrate, I'm having some sambuca.

Buca! Buca! Buca! :cool:

Too bad we didn't get to see Lima's wife's rack! wink

Lima is awesome. Perhaps the best team player in all of sports.

Who ARE you? wink

[ October 09, 2004, 10:38 PM: Message edited by: Joe in Philly ]

What is it with so-called "aces" who are taken out after 5 innings? First it was Santana last night for the Twins. Today it's Clemens for the Astros. Look what happened to both teams. Unbelievable.

What a classy act! Just like in the Stanley Cup playoffs and finals, the Dodgers and Cardinals did the team line of handshakes following the the Cards' victory, all to Randy Newman's "I Love LA." Very nice!

~Adam

Clemens was taken out after five, Joe, because he was pitching on three days' rest. I know there's been a lot of second-guessing on this one, but he apparently was running on fumes when he completed the fifth.

Cybil.

I agree Adam, that was a nice touch. But you know, both the Dodgers and Cardinals are a pretty class act. I don't think you'd see that from the Red Sox. [[batboy ducks!]]

By the way, I know Lima is all great and an ace pitcher and all, but I have to say his over-the-top celebrations over each strike out was getting annoying. Getting too cocky there Lima. See what happens. As Karamo says in the REal World Philadelphia: "Karma's a bitch."

This week's Red Sox-Yankees games will again be the highlight of this postseason, me thinks.

My predictions for the World Series is Yankees vs. Cardinals, the two biggest winners of this past season. And of course, Yankees on top after 7 games.

For some reason, I think this is the Red Sox's year. Am I CRAZZZZY???? :confused:

Then they shouldn't have started him. And the Twins shouldn't have started Santana on Saturday with three days' rest. Five innings from a starter in a playoff game just doesn't cut it.

Add me to the list of people who thought 40-something years old + 3 days rest = huh?

A guy in his 20's going on 3-days rest I could understand, if he's a finesse pitcher. But Rocket's always been more of the flame-thrower variety.

It makes me wonder about what's going on inside Gardner's mind. I have to wonder if the implications of going back to ATL for game 5 caused him unnecessary concern. Did he feel some desperation that they had to close the series out in Houston?

If Atlanta does win tonight, I think that the Clemens start last night will be circled as the second-guess decision that determined the series.

As a side note, they may not even play this thing tonight. 40% chance of showers at last check.

It all has to do with the Astros' starting pitching outside of Clemens and Oswalt. That's why Clemens threw yesterday and Oswalt is throwing tonight -- both on three days' rest. Contrary to the column that everyone's reading on espn.com, I still believe it was the right decision. Houston did not want to go back to Turner Field if they could avoid doing so, and I can understand why Garner would have more confidence in a less-rested Clemens than Munro for getting that done. Pettitte and Miller haven't been options. If Qualls doesn't give up a three-run home run from the pen, we're not even having this discussion. Who knows whether Munro could've gotten us even through five in as good of a standing as we had with Clemens.