Picks You Should Ignore

Based on my picks for this baseball season so far, you should resolutely ignore everything that follows.

I've been wrong—and consistently wrong—from the start.  In spring training, I had the Yanks missing the playoffs and finishing with only 84 wins, while the Cubs bested the Red Sox in the World Series.

NOT EVEN CLOSE!

And ever since then, I have regularly predicted the demise of your New York Yankees.

But learning nothing from history, I am willing to stick my neck out again in boldly (some might say foolhardily) predicting the playoffs.

Here goes:

NL:

Washington over Milwaukee.  The Nats just have too many weapons for the gutsy but beat-up Brewers.

Atlanta over St. Louis, 3-2.  Two pretty anonymous teams, at least for us back here on the oblivious East Coast.  The Cards are a perennial contender, the Braves have more young talent.

Los Angeles over Washington, 3-2.  The Nats are the one NL team with the starting pitching needed to oust the Dodgers.  But Washington's inadequate bullpen, headed by Sean "Talk to the Animals" Doolittle let the team to repeated meltdowns against the Mets.  When you're losing bullpen battles to the Mets, you ain't gonna take the Bums.

Los Angeles over Atlanta, 4-2.  Braves will give it a good fight.  But the Dodgers will become the first NL team to win at least 3 straight pennants in 75 years.


AL:

Tampa Bay over Oakland.  Should be a fun game, but I think Charlie Morton—yet another pitcher Coops might have picked up for us—should be able to carry TB through.  The Lungers have identical, 48-33 records at home and away.

Minnesota over your New York Yankees, 3-0.  As explained at length yesterday, the Yanks just don't have most of the team that brung 'em, and Ma and Coops will refuse to play those they should.  The Twins play very well on the road, and will be well ahead by the time Five Times Pettitte retires for the season with his Carl Pavano Memorial Buttocks Injury after an inning or so in Game 1.

A betting interest in this dismal ALDS?  The over-under on strikeouts for our boys.  I'm putting it at 45 for the three games—and going with the over.

Houston over Tampa Bay, 3-0.

Houston over Minnesota, 4-1.  The battling Twins will bang one out at home against Miley Cyrus, Houston's slumping fourth starter.  Other than that, this won't be close.


World Series:

Houston over Los Angeles, 4-1.  Again, the Dodgers will win the Miley Cyrus game at home.  But they will follow their historic 3 pennants in a row by becoming the first team since the 1907-09 Detroit Tigers to lose 3 World Series in a row.

Houston, on the other hand, is just getting started.  Now that Boston seems to be signaling that it will take a HAL-like rest on its laurels and lapse into semi-competitive mode for some years, MLB is Houston's for the taking.

This is the dynasty that will emerge, instead of the Yankees hegemony that should have been.  The Astros have the youth, the pitching, and above all the front office to keep going for some time.

Sure, in our brave new world where one-third of the teams make the playoffs, they will get upset sometimes in October.  But overall, we can probably count on a good five-years' worth of continued dominance from them, which in today's baseball is practically an age.