The Baseball Playoff Picks

Yankees vs. Rangers

Here's what awaits the Texas Rangers in their series against the Yankees: unremitting pain. Keening regret. The over-whelming sense that their physical talent somehow now means nothing, and that their considerable advantages all will melt away as they stare with dull horror at those pinstripes. And possibly an iconic play or two that they will be able to see, for the rest of their lives, in their nightmares.

Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for the house at blackjack. And while the house doesn't always win, it's how you bet.

New York has some real problems coming into this series. Their infield defense is shaky now that Derek Jeter is having his salary no drive year. You can steal bases on them with abandon, and as Game Five of the ALDS against Tampa proves, the Rangers aren't above that. They have issues with quality left handers, and that means that CJ Wilson and (especially) Cliff Lee give the Rangers some serious hope. They don't have home field. CC Sabathia hasn't been as good as you'd think, Andy Pettite is usually hittable, A.J. Burnett is flat out terrible and Phil Hughes has never thrown this many innings in a year.

And none of that's going to matter, because the Yankee pen is (much) better, they've got a ridiculous amount of happy time playoff experience, and the Rangers will not win a game in the Bronx unless Lee has Jedi powers that extend to hitting,

So I'd like to tell you Rangers in six. I'd like to imagine Cliff Lee being the absolute beast that he's been all year, and bringing an entirely new fan base into the light. I'd like to dream of the franchise that wins more than any other, the franchise that wins so much their fans don't even particularly enjoy it anymore, at least not as much as the delight they take in the pain of others, going down in a fury of recriminations and finger pointing that winds up costing them their manager and spurring some good old-time Steinbrenner panic free agent buys that doom them.

But well, that's not how you bet. Yankees in six.

Phillies vs. Giants

Let's get this out of the way right now: some part of me kind of hates pitcher's duels.

The idea that you are going to watch some four hours of baseball so that a single play decides things? Unacceptable. A distillation of talent to random chance. An overwhelming amount of time spent on something that could be summarized in a 30-second highlight reel. Hours of my life spent in tense (or not so tense, really) boredom, narrated by loathsome people.

Really, I know that we've into the new era of responsible behavior, hidden (if any) PED use, lower carbon footprints, economic malaise, failing digestive systems and more and more exercise just to stay absolutely still on the super slide of age and death. (Whoops, shared a little too much with you there. Moving on.) But do we have to pretend that tofu tastes like beef? That safe sex feels as good as au natural? That Auto-Tune singing by prefabricated pretty people is as good as the work of tortured and ugly drug users?

No, no, no, absolutely not and go pound sand.

I like offense. I like frozen ropes to the gap where the runner is moving with the pitch. I like towering fly balls to the power alleys that may or may not go, that you need to scream at your television to make sure they get over the wall. I like laser shots up the middle that put the fear of trouser failure into that smug pitcher. I like ripped ground balls that hug the bag and get into the corner, with the hitter going balls-out to get into second ahead of the throw.

And this does not make me stupid, or uncultured, or unappreciative of the finer subtleties of the tension involved in your 2-1 barn burner where the pitching coach comes out 15 times and eight different one-out relievers all do their super-specialized jobs.

Which is all a long way to say that I'm not really looking forward to this Giants-Phillies series, because while the Phillies' rotation is fun and the Giants' rotation has freaky cool things to watch as well, it's still going to make me want to chew nails. Luckily for me, the Giants have enough beer league rejects on defense to give away runs in a cheerfully goofy fashion, and the Phillies have enough guys on the roster who are still gauche enough to reach the seats. And the sooner, the better.

Phillies in five