I’m still not sure if I’m a fan of these one game wild card playoffs. I’m also still not sure if I want to do predictions posts through the whole post season. It couldn’t hurt though, right? If I decide to not do it in the future then it’s no big deal.
For now though, here are my wild card playoff predictions…
Oakland at Kansas City: It figures, two teams I like are facing each other and they only get one game. What a bummer. I’ve quietly been a Royals fan ever since George Brett hit .390 in 1980, although I rooted against them in the World Series that year. I was nine years old and I played on the Phillies in little league. There was no way I was rooting against the Phils in the World Series.
I have been a quiet Oakland fan for a while too. It took a while to get over the Red Sox losing to them in both the 1988 and 1990 AL championship round, but I did get over it while watching their great pitching staffs in the early 2000s. Was Moneyball a factor for me? Not consciously, although I did like the way they were always competitive even though they seemed to have a mediocre line up.
Today though, who do I root for? Who do I pick in tonight’s game?
Oakland. Why? Two words: Jon Effin’ Lester.
Lester is clutch. Lester is twice a World Series hero. One does not simply bet against Lester in a one game playoff. Also, selfishly, there is the whole fact that the Red Sox suckitude was unparallelled this year and seeing one of our guys succeed in the post season would be a nice rubbing of salt into the wound for the team’s management.
I’m going with Oakland tonight.
San Francisco at Pittsburgh: I really don’t have a clue on this one. The Red Sox disaster (worst to first to worst) sucked a lot of my baseball interest away from me this year, and as little as I followed the AL, I followed the NL significantly less. So who do I pick? If I go with the Pirates I can justify it by saying it levels out my utter hatred of Pittsburgh in the NHL. It also lets me root against a former New York team. Yeah. Screw New York! I’m going with the Pirates tomorrow night.
There you have it. My predictions for the two wild card games.
Let’s go A’s!
Inside the Red Head's Head 