So… ummm… The Giants won.  In four games.  Two of them were shutouts.  The Yankees couldn’t score in the AL championship series and the Tiggers beat them soundly.  Then the Tiggers turned into the Yankees and couldn’t score in the World Series and the Giants beat them soundly.

It was over so fast that I missed it.  I caught about three innings of game three on the radio.  That was it.  It was over before I knew it.

So the question then is, did I get the pick right or not?  I picked the Tiggers, but when I did I guaranteed a Giants victory.  Naw, I can’t fudge the numbers that way.  I picked the Tiggers, the Tiggers lost.  I went four out of nine in my post season predictions.  That’s probably the worst I’ve ever done in any sport.

Can we just put this pathetic baseball season behind us and get back to what’s important… bashing the NHL for their unimaginable lock out stupidity?  Word on the street is that the Winter Classic will be cancelled tomorrow.  GOOD!  The NHL does not deserve a feel good (ie, money machine) event like the Winter Classic.  They only deserve one thing and that it to cease to exist so a real top level professional hockey league can be created to replace them.

(Oh, and I am aware that I misspelled the name of the American League Champions.  I did it on purpose.  Learn your Winnie the Pooh.)

Well, my playoff predictions have continued to suck.  So much so that I am kinda losing interest.  I mean, every time I decide to back a team they lose like douchey chumps.  The Red Sox, the A’s, and now the Cardinals.  It’s almost like any team I pick to win is guaranteed to lose.

So here’s my World Series pick!

It’s Detroit against San Francisco.  I think it’s going to be Detroit.  Their pitching is freakin’ out of this world.  Now, assuming they haven’t all spent their huge amount of downtime drinking beer and eating chicken, they should be enough to put down the Giants.

So after going two for two in the play ins, one for four in the division series, and one for two in the league championship series, I am four out of eight.  If the Tigers win, I finish the playoffs above .500.  If the Giants win I end up under .500.  But given that I picked them, there is no way for them to win.

Is it April yet?

Way to go Cardinals! Way to bail me out!

Three series had finished last night and my pick had lost all of them. The Reds lost to the Giants, the A’s lost to the Tigers, and the Orioles lost to the friggin’ Yankees.

I was heading to bed (we got a new mattress yesterday, can you say comfy?) and trying to decide if I wanted to use my iPad as a radio and listen to the Cardinals vs Nationals game, or use it as a TV and watch another episode of The Walking Dead on the Netflix app.

The score made the decision for me. The Cardinals were down… Way down. I watched some Zombie.

When I got up today I saw a tweet from 98.5FM’s John Wallach that mentioned something about Davey Johnson and karmic payback for 1986. I checked the score and…

The Cardinals were down two runs with two outs in the top of the ninth and scored four runs and won the game and the series.

Didn’t they do that to the Rangers last year too?

So I was 2/2 in the play ins, and 1/4 in the division series. That’s 3/6. Yes, I suck, but at least it didn’t get shut out on a round.

Now for my League Championship predictions, like anyone really cares.

The Tigers and the Evil Empire known as the Yankees. Guess who I pick here. Yes, Robbie gets to root for a triple crown winner. I pick the Tiggers, um the Tigers. I hate the friggin’ Yankees.

The Giants and the Cardinals. Again, guess. The Cardinals made me look good last year, and they continue to do so this year. I pick the Cardinals again.

So lets root for a Tigers vs Cardinals World Series.

I was right, the Cardinals and Orioles both won. Two for two kiddos!

I have to make the division predictions fast because I’m on vacation and using my phone while the family sleeps.

Orioles and Yankees. My heart wants the O’s. My brain knows it won’t happen. The Yankees will win, but it should take all five games.

The A’s and the Tigers. The A’s are my team now. No offense to the new triple crown winner, but the are going to lose to the on-fire-A’s.

Cardinals and Nationals. Even though I’m in DC as I write this, I cannot pick a team that shut down its healthy best pitcher prior to the playoffs. They aren’t trying their hardest if they don’t play their best people. Cardinals win.

Giants and Reds. These are not the same Giants who won it all two years ago. I’m picking the reds.

Once upon a time I was awesome at picking playoff match ups in baseball and kinda crappy at it in hockey.  Now it’s the opposite, although the NHL is dead to me so it doesn’t really matter.

So here are my totally irrational picks for the new first round of the MLB playoffs, the wild car play in games.

The first of the two games is tomorrow at 5:00pm Eastern time.  The St Louis Cardinals play the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta.  My heart wants me to pick the defending World Series Champion Cardinals.  My gut wants me to pick the Braves.  I don’t know what to do.  Really, I don’t know what to do.  Okay… so I will pick… ummm… the Cardinals.  Why?  Because they came through for me last year.  That’s all.  I don’t know enough about either team to chose logically, so I will chose St Louis as a thank you for last year.  Done.

The second game is tomorrow at 8:30pm Eastern time.  Exactly my step son’s bedtime, so I guess he ain’t watching any of this one, eh MLB?  Way to let television eliminate your fan base.  The Baltimore Orioles play the Texas Rangers in Texas.  The Orioles are going to win this one.  I hate the Orioles, but the Rangers are playing like crap (like Red Sox) right now and the O’s will put them out of their misery.

There you have it, my idiotic fanboy based predictions of the Wild Card games.  I will hopefully have another predictions post on Saturday for the four Division series.

Go A’s!

As the NHL passes another day of crybaby bitchiness, I turn my attention to baseball.

The post season starts on Thursday.  Three division winners and two wild cards per league.  We won’t know the seeding until after Wednesday night’s games.  That’s pretty fantastic that this new 10 team arrangement keeps so many teams alive for so long.

In the American League, five teams have locked up playoff spots.  Baltimore, New York, Detroit, Texas, and Oakland.  In the National League, four of the five spots have been clinched.  Washington, Atlanta, Cincinnati, and San Francisco.  The fifth team will either be St Louis, or Los Angeles.

As this year will be Red Sox free, I need to pick teams to irrationally root for.  On Thursday I’ll make my picks for the wild card play-in games, but this is broader than that.  What teams am I going to root for?

Scratch the Yankees off first.  I hate the Yankees.  Hate them. 

Scratch Texas too.  Two consecutive World Series appearances are enough for now.  Take a year off, Rangers.  The same goes for Washington.  A playoff team has shut down their top starting pitcher in order to save him for next year.  They do not deserve to win the World Series. 

Detroit is an option.  For Miguel Cabrera alone.  He is two days away from winning the first triple crown since my childhood baseball hero, Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967.  I’m selfish.  I don’t want Cabrera to get the triple crown.  I want Yaz to still be the last player to do it.  That aside though, watching Cabrera in the post season could be fun.

What about the Orioles?  Not likely.  There is too much American League East hate there.  How about Atlanta?  I’ve cheered for the Braves in the past, and it might be time to do it again, just to add insult to the injury that was the Red Sox in 2012.  The Braves had an epic collapse in 2011 just like the Sox did.  The Braves, however, did not turn into the laughing stock of the professional athletics community.  They righted their ship and made the playoffs.  Good for them.

Then there’s Oakland.  I think they might be the team I follow in the AL.  Why?  I don’t know.  Why not, I guess.  I just have a good feeling about the A’s.  They can still pull out the AL West too, so they might even get to miss the wild card game.  That would be pretty good for them.

San Francisco… not so much.  Cincinnati, now there’s a choice.  There was a time when I was a bit of a Reds fan.  Maybe it’s time to come back.  As for the two teams still fighting it out, there is no way in hell I root for a team that has Josh Beckett this year.  Next year, maybe, but not this year.  No way, L.A.  If St Louis gets in they might be my NL team, for the same reason I rooted for them in the World Series last year.  The Yankees have won more World Series titles than any other team.  The Cardinals are a distant second.  If the Cardinals win again, they are that much closer to overtaking the damn Yankees in that category. 

It’s too soon to call it now, but how does a St Louis Cardinals vs Oakland A’s world series sound to you?