Did I miss the season? What did I miss? What, you said the Tampa Bay Ray's beat the New York Yankees in 5? Then the Houston Astro's bested the Oakland A's in 4 and flat out dominated them?
I know its been since game 20 of the regular season since I have been back with you. I must say it is good to be back around. In case you haven't seen it yet, we got a website for the blog. Please go check it out at theballboyblog.com and jump into the forums, and let's talk!
How did we end up here? Houston Astro's and Tampa Rays in the ALCS, wow who would have guessed. Not me, and that's for sure. The two teams I had at this point were the Yankee's and Angels as my early prediction. When the playoffs came around, I thought we would see the Yankee's and A's getting ready to square off.
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It's time for us to go into what got these two teams here, to begin with. Hard work and determination, of course, right? That isn't all for the Ray's who were lead here by their pitching. After tearing through all competition out east to end with a 40-20 record. They were only second best to the Dodgers at 43-17 in all of baseball. The Ray's beat division rival Toronto(Buffalo) Blue Jays to advance in 2 games in the ALWC.
The Ray's were everything I had hoped for them from the beginnings. I knew this would be a playoff team with a lot of potential and talent that I didn't think had the talent to beat out the Yankee's of all groups, but they did it. With just outstanding production from Glasnow and Snell down to Randy Arozarena and the offense, Ray's look to be ready to keep going.
Tampa is a team without holes on the roster and is tough as nails up and down the roster. The only weakness I can see either club having is the fatigue starts to set in if the series goes more than five games. This is where Ray's more experienced and better bullpen will give them an advantage.
Time to swing over to the dugout of the Houston Astros'. After one heck of an offseason and all the changes and the microscope they have been under, I am amazed they are here.
This Astros' team started the season with a bullpen that didn't look like they ever played MLB baseball. That was honestly because they hadn't Looking at the ALDS roster; only a few have any postseason experience beyond this year. The bullpen is where we will run into trouble in the ALCS- No JV, Grienke has some lingering arm soreness, and we have a very inexperienced staff going against the second-best team in baseball. Mind you, neither of these teams played any regular-season games because of the divisional and schedule structure.
We saw the offense carry the Astros' against the A's, putting up 35 runs and only allowing 24, which is still a lot. The offense will not be able to do that to a locked-in Tampa staff.
Overall, we have a great matchup here coming. I think we have the best pitching(Tampa) going against the best offense(Houston) in the AL, and it should be a fun one!
Final Prediction- Tampa in 6