Baseball Post Season

As the NHL passes another day of crybaby bitchiness, I turn my attention to baseball.

The post season starts on Thursday.  Three division winners and two wild cards per league.  We won't know the seeding until after Wednesday night's games.  That's pretty fantastic that this new 10 team arrangement keeps so many teams alive for so long.

In the American League, five teams have locked up playoff spots.  Baltimore, New York, Detroit, Texas, and Oakland.  In the National League, four of the five spots have been clinched.  Washington, Atlanta, Cincinnati, and San Francisco.  The fifth team will either be St Louis, or Los Angeles.

As this year will be Red Sox free, I need to pick teams to irrationally root for.  On Thursday I'll make my picks for the wild card play-in games, but this is broader than that.  What teams am I going to root for?

Scratch the Yankees off first.  I hate the Yankees.  Hate them. 

Scratch Texas too.  Two consecutive World Series appearances are enough for now.  Take a year off, Rangers.  The same goes for Washington.  A playoff team has shut down their top starting pitcher in order to save him for next year.  They do not deserve to win the World Series. 

Detroit is an option.  For Miguel Cabrera alone.  He is two days away from winning the first triple crown since my childhood baseball hero, Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967.  I'm selfish.  I don't want Cabrera to get the triple crown.  I want Yaz to still be the last player to do it.  That aside though, watching Cabrera in the post season could be fun.

What about the Orioles?  Not likely.  There is too much American League East hate there.  How about Atlanta?  I've cheered for the Braves in the past, and it might be time to do it again, just to add insult to the injury that was the Red Sox in 2012.  The Braves had an epic collapse in 2011 just like the Sox did.  The Braves, however, did not turn into the laughing stock of the professional athletics community.  They righted their ship and made the playoffs.  Good for them.

Then there's Oakland.  I think they might be the team I follow in the AL.  Why?  I don't know.  Why not, I guess.  I just have a good feeling about the A's.  They can still pull out the AL West too, so they might even get to miss the wild card game.  That would be pretty good for them.

San Francisco... not so much.  Cincinnati, now there's a choice.  There was a time when I was a bit of a Reds fan.  Maybe it's time to come back.  As for the two teams still fighting it out, there is no way in hell I root for a team that has Josh Beckett this year.  Next year, maybe, but not this year.  No way, L.A.  If St Louis gets in they might be my NL team, for the same reason I rooted for them in the World Series last year.  The Yankees have won more World Series titles than any other team.  The Cardinals are a distant second.  If the Cardinals win again, they are that much closer to overtaking the damn Yankees in that category. 

It's too soon to call it now, but how does a St Louis Cardinals vs Oakland A's world series sound to you?