Fall Classic

And we're back! I have decided to post now for two reasons. 1. I was going to post a few weeks ago, Danny came up with a post on our NFL picks that I lost when my computer restarted. 2. Because of the classic Game 2 Yankees-Twins game I witnessed last night. So without further ado, here we go:

-As I watched the game and saw Joe Mauer hit a ball down the left field line in the top of the 11th, I feared for the worst. When I saw that it landed fair and was called foul, I cringed thinking, "all my friends will put an asterisk around the victory." Let me just say this, if I were a Twins fan, I would be livid. However, I think it's inaccurate to say that the call cost them the game. The bottom-line is, we can't assume that the following hitters are pitched to the exact same way with a runner on second, that every thing would happen in the exact same order, or what would happen in the bottom of the 11th, who knows? I'm not justifying the bad call by any stretch of the imagination, I'm just saying you can't assume a Twins victory if the call goes the other way. At the very least, if everything played out the same, you have a tie game in the bottom of the 11th after Tex's bomb with A-Rod up and nobody out. Like I said earlier, at this point it is all speculation as to what could have happened, so I will stop the bad call discussion here.

-In reality, there's are two reasons why the Twins lost this game. Timely Yankee hitting and too many Twins mistakes. Here are some examples:

-Carlos Gomez's base running blunder. The Twins had an opportunity to take an early lead in the ballgame. With two outs and a runner coming to the plate, Gomez hesitated as he rounded 2nd and was thrown out before the runner could score, if Gomez just stayed at 2nd, the Twins have runners at 1st and 2nd with two outs and are up one run.

-The Twins left an astonishing 17 runners on base. That's at least 1 baserunner each inning. While A.J. Burnett struck out six last night, he also walked 5 and hit two batters. He GAVE the Twins seven base runners.

-Along the same line, the Twinkies left the bases loaded with no one out. This should never happen. What made it even worse was that Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez both swung at the first pitch, and paid for it.

-Joe Nathan, Joe Nathan, Joe Nathan. I can hear the announcers now comparing him to Rivera (in their defense, they did have similar regular season numbers) when he came into the game. Joe Nathan promptly got behind the first two batters and paid for that dearly when A-Rod took him deep and tied the game up. He got away with botching a pickoff play when he threw the ball into center field, but threw the ball to the wrong side of the bag and left the bases loaded when he left the game. Brett Gardner's base running blunder bailed him out.

Let me just say this. This Twins team is very likable. They play hard, they play the right way, and there are no overbearing personalities on that team. They've come a long way without Justin Morneau, but mistakes like last night are an example of why they will not be going very far this year.

In the NL, the Rockies made things interesting by beating the Philies in Game 2. With that being said, I don't see any way that the Rockies win this series. I like Pedro Martinez in Game 3 to make one more big start and give the Philies a big victory on the road.

I picked the Cards to come out of the NL in May, and realized that my prediction might go awry when Matt Holliday completely missed a fly ball that would have ended the game in Game 2. However, I have them taking Game 3 as I think the Cards will get the better of the Pinero-Padilla matchup. Game 4 will be crucial as no starter has been announced, Smoltz and Lohse are rumored, but MLB.com is reporting that putting Chris Carpenter back out there for Game 4 is an option. While it doesn't look good for the Cardinals, I think they can pull off winning three games in a row. If they can force it to game 5 without having to use Carpenter, you have the possibility of starting Carpenter and having Wainwright come in from the bullpen. I'll stick with my prediction, we'll see how it works out.

That's all I got for now, here's to an Angel's sweep of the Red Sox and the Yankee's taking home a 27th World Championship!