Braun:
I’m one of those sports fans who knows when his team has absolutely no shot at winning a series. I think I proved that last week when I picked the Cardinals to win the World Series.
Somehow, both teams Bleach and I picked to win the World Series wound up winning a total of zero games in the division series. The Yankees proved the Metrodome wasn’t a magical baseball haven (sorry Bleach) and the Dodgers showed that Albert Pujols isn’t actually a machine.
But the most surprising victory had to be the Dodgers over the Cardinals. Since its acquisition of Matt Holliday, St. Louis was flat out ridiculous. With the pitching tandem of Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright — both of whom are among the top choices for the Cy Young award — the Cardinals had only lost back-to-back games started by Carpenter and Wainwright only once all season.
But then the Dodgers showed up, and that was the biggest surprise of the division series.
Manny Ramirez hit .308 in the series and drove in a few runs, Andre Ethier and Rafael Furcal each hit .500 (6-for-12) and Los Angeles bullpen continued its dominant form from the regular season.
While the Angels may have outplayed the Red Sox in the ALDS, they didn’t have to face the two best pitchers in the league and the best hitter in all of baseball. Now that they’re facing the Yankees, their chances at a ring have all but dwindled. But boy would a Freeway Series be fun.
Bleach:
Jonah, since the Brewers made me tear up like an 8-year-old at the dentist every time I watched them in 2009, I am not the best analyst of baseball.
Still, if I’m not mistaken, didn’t the Dodgers have the best record in the entire NL?
How can the most surprising team be the one with the most wins and the best team ERA?
The Angels on the other hand, won merely two more games then the Red Sox and also play in the AL West, so in reality, they had a worse record.
Besides, it’s the “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.” They don’t even know what city they are from!
Seriously though, the LAAA were going up against a team that had knocked them out of the playoffs two years in a row and had suffered through the challenges of the impossible AL East. I didn’t even think the Red Sox had to play in the ALDS anymore, I thought they were just given a pass to the next round.
Since winning the World Series in 2002, the Angels have been synonymous with playoff failure. Their ace, John Lackey, had his worst season since 2004 and the face of the franchise, Vladimir Guerrero, suffered a power outage driving in only 50 RBIs with 15 home runs this season for Anaheim.
There have been 100-loss Cubs teams with a better ace and star player than that.
The most surprising part, though, was how the Angels swept the BoSox with relative ease. When overcoming your nemesis it should be a battle to the death (or with L.A. traffic), not like beating up on the Royals.
