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| The Indians progressed pretty well over the last month and a half of the season. |
Howdy doody! 'Tis I, Joey Beartran, your fearless forecaster of all things playoffs. And today I'm going to share my opinions on which teams will advance to the League Championship Series. There are seven great teams to choose from (and the Yankees), but only four will advance (not the Yankees).
In the American League, we have the matchup that could have been a rematch of the 1986 World Series had Mike Scott gotten a chance to pitch in a Game Seven in the NLCS. We also have the Cleveland Indians and their quest to repeat as league champions for the first time in franchise history.
In the N.L., the Chicago Cubs, who kept the Indians from winning their first title since Scott Atchison was in grade school, will be trying to repeat as world champions. To do so, they'll have to get through Daniel Murphy, Bryce Harper, 'Ol Two Eyes (Max Scherzer) and the rest of the Washington Nationals. And the Dodgers will be looking to inch one step closer to their first World Series berth since Mike Scioscia, Kirk Gibson and Orel Hershiser got in the Mets' way of what should have been their pennant.
Who will advance? Who will go home? (Spoiler alert: The Yankees) And how many former members of the 2017 Mets will still be playing when I do my ALCS and NLCS predictions? Enough with the questions! On with the predictions!
American League Division Series
Boston Red Sox vs. Houston Astros
The Red Sox have made the playoffs 15 times in the last 32 seasons, yet this is the first time in over a century that they finished the regular season in first place in consecutive campaigns. (They last accomplished this feat in 1915 and 1916, winning the World Series in both seasons.) Meanwhile, this is just the Astros' second trip to the postseason in the last 12 years and their 11th overall.
All the experience goes to the Red Sox in this series, and they also have an ace starter (Chris Sale) and a game-over closer in Craig Kimbrel, who allowed 33 hits in 69 innings this season, or about the same number of hits Hansel Robles would give up in a week.
There's only one problem here. After Sale, Boston's best starter is Drew Pomeranz, who somehow went 17-6 despite averaging barely over 5⅓ innings per start (32 starts, 173⅔ IP). And manager John Farrell allowed last year's Cy Young Award winner, Rick Porcello, to throw over 200 innings despite the fact that he led the league in hits allowed and home runs given up, not to mention losses. Since Sale can't pitch more than two games in the series, all Houston has to do is win the games not started by the 300-K southpaw. You know, like the Mets had to do in '86 when the Astros had Mike Scott.
Challenge accepted.
Houston led the majors in batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, OPS and runs scored. Only the Yankees hit more home runs than the Astros, but no team struck out fewer times than the A.L. West champions. The Astros will batter the not-so-killer Ps (Pomeranz, Porcello and playoff pariah David Price) and may even steal a win when Sale starts.
And on a personal note, I'm stoked to see Justin Verlander start against Sale in Game One, especially since I flew to Chicago in 2012 to see then-Tiger Verlander face then-White Sox pitcher Sale, only to have that game rained out. The Red Sox will be praying for rainouts of their own once the Astros start pummeling their pitchers.
Prediction: Astros in 5.
New York Yankees vs. Cleveland Indians
The Yankees won their first playoff game in five years on Tuesday. The Cleveland Indians are a team on a mission, winning an American League record 22 straight games last month. When the Yankees won four World Series titles in five seasons from 1996 to 2000, the only team to defeat them in the postseason was the Indians.
Those Yankee teams were far better than this year's model. And this Indians club is looking World Serious.
Prediction: Indians in 3.
National League Division Series
Chicago Cubs vs. Washington Nationals
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| Daniel Murphy will pay homage to Leon Durham at some point. (Jonathan Newton/Washington Post/Getty Images) |
The Cubs finally ended their two-thousand year old championship drought (give or take a couple of years) in 2016, then remained hung over for the first half of the 2017 campaign. Meanwhile, the Nationals had no real competition in the N.L. East and won the division title by 20 games over the Marlins.
Washington is counting on the three-headed pitching monster of Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Gio Gonzalez to lead the team past the defending champions. However, Scherzer tweaked his hamstring in his final tuneup last week, Strasburg has pitched all of five postseason innings in his career and Gonzalez has not fared well in four playoff starts, pitching just 18⅓ innings over the mostly abbreviated outings. (Gio has not thrown a postseason pitch after the fifth inning in any of his four starts.) If Washington's starters can't go deep in games, the team could be in trouble. The combined ERAs of all Nationals pitchers not named Scherzer, Strasburg and Gonzalez was a bloated 4.69.
Meanwhile, the Cubs' starters (Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, John Lackey, Kyle Hendricks) were mostly pedestrian this year, but their bullpen was absolutely stellar, with Pedro Strop, Brian Duensing, Carl Edwards and closer Wade Davis combining to produce a 2.73 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and just under 11 strikeouts per nine innings.
The Nationals need to keep their starters on the mound to have a chance to win the series. The Cubs need to keep games close so that their lockdown bullpen can take over. But of course, the only thing that matters is that by the time this series is over, the Expos will still be the owners of the sole playoff series victory in Montreal/Washington franchise history.
Prediction: Cubs in 4.
Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers went through a stretch during the summer when people were talking about them winning more games than any team in major league history. Then they lost 12 straight games. It got to the point where Los Angeles actually had to pay attention to what Arizona was doing because the D-Backs had cut their once insurmountable lead in the division to single digit games. In fact, Arizona won 11 games against L.A. in 2017; the most of any team in the majors. Included in their season-series victory was a three-game sweep in September in which the Diamondbacks outscored the Dodgers, 19-2.
Los Angeles hit 221 home runs during the regular season, but who didn't? What didn't impress me was their .249 team batting average, and the only reason it was that high is because Justin Turner batted .322.
Despite making just 27 starts in 2017, Clayton Kershaw allowed a career-high 23 homers. Now the southpaw has to face the right-handed hitting Paul Goldschmidt (36 HR, 120 RBI) and J.D. Martinez (29 HR, 65 RBI in 62 games with Arizona) in the division series. And let's just say they're not .249 hitters like Kershaw's teammates on the Dodgers are. Then there's the matter of that 4-7 record and 4.55 ERA in the postseason for the three-time Cy Young Award winner.
So you have a team that went 26-12 over the last six weeks of the season against a team that was 13-25 over the same time period. I don't know about you, but I can't go with the team that recently lost a dozen consecutive games. That 91-36 start seems like a long time ago for the Dodgers.
Prediction: Diamondbacks in 5.
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| Tom Lasorda might not want to watch what Arizona is going to do to his beloved Dodgers. (Fox Sports South screen grab) |
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