Warning: Cramer is not a National League specialist. He is far from it.
Two posts in two days? A rarity for Zeus of Sport as of late, but it's necessary. Why? Because the Rockies (and snow), couldn't prolong the Phillies vs. Rockies NLDS match-up. The Phills won 5-4, taking the series 3-1. But it wasn't easy for them, so how will they fare against the Dodgers?
I don't know. I've been wrong about the National League all year. First I had the Cubs winning the Central (ha). Then I had the Giants winning the Wild Card (ha, again). Then finally I had the Cardinals winning the pennant (one more, giant ha).
That said, I still haven't been a believer in the Dodgers all season long. They started out hot, and regardless of what their record was in the second half of the season (I'm not going to look it up for fear of finding out that they actually played good baseball), I felt like they were maybe the 3rd best team in the National League.
The Phillies on the other hand, I've always believed in. A quick glance at their offensive numbers in the Rockies series indicates they'll do just fine the rest of the way. Almost everyone is hitting over .350, with 2 at .500 or better. I got to watch them play a little (confession: I didn't see one second of the Dodgers series), and was very impressed.
Phillies have a better offense (most runs in the NL, and an absurd amount of home-runs), a good enough pitching staff (6th best ERA, and they only had Cliff Lee for about a third of the season)... but hold on just a second...
The Dodgers had the best ERA, the best batting average, the 4th most runs... what do all these stats mean!?
Nothing to me. So instead of throwing a stupid prediction out there based on fire and flare (both of which the Phillies have, and in my eyes, the Dodgers don't), I took a glance at their regular season match-ups to decide a series I really don't know enough about to make an educated guess about.
And... unless I missed some games (which I probably didn't, but call me out if I did, please) the Dodgers won 4 of 7. It's a 7 game series. Perfect.
Dodgers in 7
It's as good a pick as any.
ReplyDeleteI think it's going to be Dodgers - Yankees, and we are then going to be subjected to endless analysis of what it means to Joe Torre to play and win or lose against the Yankees.