Playoffs

We had an amazing regular season. A lot of surprises, a lot of new faces, and a lot of games. The pitching became better than last year and we saw the batting averages drop a bit which is a classic thing to see. Especially when the MLB goes more towards offense, we go vintage with pitching. Four teams played 40 games, six pitchers with 90 or more innings pitched including three with at least 100, twelve players with at least 10 homers, and 16 players with at least 20 games play. That’s pretty good for us. The Mets in their first season took first place from the Yankees who have been a team that has dominated that spot for more than a decade. The Yankees couldn’t seem to get a handle on them this year and the Mets deserved that first place seeding. But, the playoffs in this league historically, has never been safe for anyone. The longer games, the grind of a long season, day-night games often beat up certain players.

This is our 20th postseason, and we’ve had every event imaginable happen. 3-0 series comebacks, Gibson moments where shoulders were dislocated, popped back in, and were used to hit walk-off world series home runs, Joe Carter moments (’06 WS), and players who end up winning all 5 games of a best of nine for their team. Those who play close to 60 games have a chance to get 70 games or more in for the year. This is why we play.

The LCS Round: (Best of 5)

Rockies vs. Mets:

This is a series that should be interesting. Coming off his best season of pitching, Dakota Jackson comes hobbling into the playoffs as the potential key to beating the Mets. With Jesee Coppolo, this team could have a nice 1-2 punch of pitching if on their game. Pair that with the vet Cory Schoonmaker who has never been a slouch in the postseason with his 15 homers, could be a sleeper team that could wake up in the playoffs. This is their first postseason berth since 2012. They will be matched up though, against the hottest team in the league, the Mets. Led by the possible CY Young winner, Josh Camp who went 16-6 with a 1.38 ERA, it’s going to be hard to get past that. Tom McGuckin led the team with 16 homers and for the longest time was third in the league in batting average. The weapon of choice for the Mets is patience. They had 268 walks in 40 games. That’s almost 7/ game. However, the stat that sticks out the most about their walks is that, in games where they had less than seven walks, they were 3-7 which with good pitching could be phased out but with longer games, walk numbers in the playoffs tend to go up sometimes.  This is going to be a good series but, in the end the pitching of Josh Camp (on paper) is what should win it for the Mets. Or can the Rockies pull an upset??………….

Pirates vs. Yankees:

Well how about this? The two rivals will face off against each other in the postseason, for the first time since the 2015 WS where the Pirates defeated them in six games. They have faced each other seven times in the Postseason in the last 10 seasons. You have a ton of history and numbers between these two teams. Two new twists though….Manny K. will be here for his first postseason since 2009 in which the Dodgers then, won their first and only series. Then you have the 16 year old phenom, Michael Murray II who went 7-2. He will be the ace for the Yankees playing in his first full postseason. The Yankees look to become the first team to go back to back in the WS since the 2008 Yankees. But, with Gadani and Jorge and their experienced bats and arms, it will be an uphill battle. The two combine for a 50-59 record, and 169 home runs. But with Kean and Mike and their experience and numbers (215 homers combined) to match Jorge and Gadani. The keys to the series are Alen Kalic at the plate, Murr on the hill, and KG’s ability for the Pirates to come through with runners on base. With these, it should be a pretty equal series.

All of this commences on Friday, at 6:30PM. We will have this all up on YouTube and Facebook live…..see you there.