By Rick Morris
In this, the
first year of the MLB expansion to two wild card teams per league, the Friday
doubleheader promises tremendous action.
In the National League, the two teams battling for the sole wild card
spot a year ago in Atlanta and St. Louis will do battle in the play-in game
that the old system did not allow. In
the American League, the best-balanced team, Texas, will have to host the
ultimate upstart underdogs in Baltimore because the Rangers choked so badly to
the AL’s other huge underdog in Oakland this week.
Baltimore at Texas: Neither team has a classic ace, which
makes the Joe Saunders vs. Yu Darvish matchup a bit more understandable. Yu has been a lot stronger down the stretch,
though. Both teams boast excellent
bullpens, but it’s the difference in the starting lineups that is supremely
pronounced. The Ranger crew is loaded
like few others in the game, anchored by such stars as Josh Hamilton (maybe the
best hitter in the game when healthy) and Adrian Beltre (almost at that level). Baltimore, meanwhile, is as Ragamuffin in
their lineup as they are in their rotation, with megastar Adam Jones and
career-year Chris Davis the exception to the rule. Buck Showalter should be the Manager of the
Millennium for navigating this crew to the postseason. Just a few days ago, this squad was looking
at hosting this game against fellow underdog Oakland. Now, they must travel to the Metroplex to
face the two-time defending pennant winners and probably the most talented team
in the league top-to-bottom, albeit one that is coming off a terrible stretch
in recent days. Chances are that the vastly-superior
Rangers will pull out of it with the help of the home crowd. PICK: Texas.
St. Louis at Atlanta: In a sense, it’s fitting that these
teams inaugurate the new wild card era, because they exemplified like few other
teams the 1995-2011 era in which the Division Series led off the playoffs. They’ve been staples of October in the past
two decades and, as mentioned above, Atlanta’s collapse a year ago paved the
way for the Cards to punk them for the wild card and, improbably, traverse all
the way to a World Series title. A year
later, the Cardinals are in their first postseason anyone can remember without
Albert Pujols and Tony LaRussa and the Braves are getting ready to say goodbye
to Chipper Jones whenever their postseason journey ends. But the real transformation over that period
of time comes in an examination of the top of the rotations. In 2011, ace Adam Wainwright was not
available for St. Louis due to injury, but Chris Carpenter was. This year, Wainwright is back, but not an
ace, Carpenter has just come back from his own long injury hiatus and Kyle
Lohse is improbably having an “ace” season.
He’ll face a dominant force who the Braves have wisely (unlike the
Nationals, right Stephen Strasburg?) brought along slowly in Kris Medlen. As a matter of fact, Medlen is the only
legitimate ace toeing the rubber in either wild card game Friday. Both lineups have holes in them, but Atlanta
has more hitters with holes in their swings.
Both bullpens are pretty sweet, so the team that jumps out to a lead
will probably be able to hold it. Thanks
to Medlen, that will probably be the Braves.
PICK: Atlanta.
DIVISION SERIES
Texas over New
York Yankees in 5
Detroit over
Oakland in 4
Washington over
Atlanta in 4
Cincinnati over
San Francisco in 5
LEAGUE
CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
Texas over
Detroit in 5
Washington over
Cincinnati in 6
WORLD SERIES
Texas over
Washington in 7
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