Joey's Soapbox: My Very Biased Division Series Picks

The 2010 season has mercifully come to an end for the Mets. For the fourth consecutive season, the boys in orange and blue (and sometimes black and sometimes those cream colored uniforms that I wanted but spent my money on chicken nachos instead) failed to make the playoffs.

That's now 42 out of 49 seasons with no postseason baseball to look forward to. So what's a bear to do when there's still baseball, but no Mets?

In honor of the Mets finishing with their second consecutive losing record, I'm proud to share my very biased predictions on who will LOSE each playoff series in the Division Series round. Why pick the winners when I'd much rather pick the losers? And away we go...

American League Division Series

New York Yankees vs. Minnesota Twins

The Yankees have faced the Twins three times in the postseason (2003, 2004, 2009), winning all three times. However, the Twins did not have home-field advantage against the Yankees in either of those series. They will this year, which is to their advantage as their 53-28 record in their home ballpark was the best in the American League.

The Yankees will employ a three-man rotation against the Twins, led by C(onstantly) C(hewing) Sabathia. The hefty lefty lost seven games this season, but five of those losses came on the road. The pivotal Game 1 is at Target Field.

Although the Yankees hit .297 against Minnesota this year, their on-base percentage was only .329. Compare that to the Twins, who only hit .262 against Yankee pitching, but managed a .339 on-base percentage.

One more thing. The Yankees are the wild card team this year. The previous three times they made the playoffs as a second place team (1995, 1997, 2007), they were ousted in the first round. Therefore, the Yankees will lose this series in five games.


Texas Rangers vs. Tampa Bay Rays

This one is quite simple. The Tampa Bay Rays are the beasts of the East. The Texas Rangers are the only franchise in baseball that has never won a playoff series.

From their inaugural season in 1961 as the expansion Washington Senators (a team that had a certain Mr. Gilbert Raymond Hodges as their manager from 1963 to 1967) to their current incarnation as Nolan Ryan's team, the Rangers have only appeared in the postseason three times, losing in 1996, 1998 and 1999 to the New York Yankees. In fact, the franchise has won a total of one playoff game in its fifty seasons.

The Rangers will finally get their second postseason victory, but will eventually lose the series to the Rays in four games.


National League Division Series

Cincinnati Reds vs. Philadelphia Phillies

Let the photo below give you my prediction for me.


The Phillies will lose the series to the Reds in five games, causing all their fans to vomit on each other in disgust.


Atlanta Braves vs. San Francisco Giants

When the Braves made the postseason every season from 1991-2005 (a streak snapped by the Mets in 2006), they made it as the division champion every year. 2010 marks the first time the Braves have entered the playoffs as a wild card winner.

The Giants were actually behind the Mets in the wild card standings at the All-Star Break. Then they took three out of four from New York in the series that changed the seasons for both teams. San Francisco hasn't stopped winning since, taking their first NL West title since Art Howe was the manager of the Mets.

Bobby Cox will end his career getting ejected from the game in which the Braves are eliminated from the postseason. Atlanta will be swept by San Francisco.


So it looks like we'll have a Twins-Rays ALCS and a Reds-Giants NLCS. The small market teams with the sub-$100 million payrolls will be popping champagne corks come this time next week. Let's just hope they have room in their budgets for that bubbly.

Please join me next week when we see that my opinions were not only very biased, but they were also correct. I'll have my League Championship Series predictions ready for you at that time, and oh yes...they will be biased.