League Division Series, Day 3

Another day of playoff baseball, another day showing why I was never asked to handicap the sport in Las Vegas nor invited to make predictions on ESPN's "Baseball Tonight."

I called the Yankees - Detroit series to be won by New York in 3 games, a sweep. Detroit blew that one for me. I called the Dodgers to beat the Mets in 5, and now it looks like the Mets may (or, less optimistically, WILL) sweep Los Angeles. I picked San Diego to beat the Cardinals in 5, and now it looks like the Padres may (or, as with the Dodgers, you know the deal) only be heading to St. Louis to complete the Cards' sweep. On the bright side (if, as an Angels fan, you can call it anywhere near "bright"), the A's may actually wrap up their series against the Twins tomorrow in Oakland a whole game ahead of my prediction.

So, at best, it looks like (barring miraculous comebacks by San Diego and Los Angeles) I'm going to be 2-2 at predicting the winners of the LDS.

Today's Games

Cardinals: 2 Padres: 0 I could have been more wrong in predicting this series. I could have predicted that both teams would lose their entire rosters to a E. Coli poisoning from tainted spinach, forcing them to field a team made up of 8th graders. But that's about the only way I could have been more wrong. David Wells pitched pretty good for the 3rd oldest pitcher to start a post-season game today, and Jeff Weaver pitched the ugliest, shakiest five innings of two-hit scoreless ball I've seen in quite a while. "Ugly" and "shaky" described his stint with the Angels this season quite well, and though I'm not thrilled that we're paying him $11 million to pitch for the Cards in the post season this year, at least we'll have that money to spend for the next season...

Mets: 4 Dodgers: 1 Looks like that ugly play at the plate last night was indeed a series killer, as the Dodgers looked like the KC Royals tonight. Tom Glavine showed shades of his younger self, giving up 4 hits and no runs in 6 innings. At least the Dodgers will lose this series at home, not having to endure a cross-country flight back to LA after they folded like lawn furniture in the first round.

Tigers: 4 Yankees: 3 I bet Joe Torre wishes they'd played through the rain last night, as the Yanks were truly lackluster today. All three Yankee runs came on a three-run HR by Johnny Damon in the 4th inning, putting the Yanks up 3-1. But the Tigers chipped away, scoring a run in the 5th, 6th, and 7th innings to tie the series up at 1-1 as they head back to Detroit.

Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, and Alex Rodriguez were all 0-4. Jeter was 1-4. Matsui had a decent night, going 3-5 and Damon was 2-5 with the home run. But who got all the press about bad performance and his struggles at the plate? A-Rod, of course. Those prick Yankees fans actually booed him again during his last two at bats. He struck out three times tonight, which is not good by any means, but they showed once again how little they deserve him and how he's such an easy target to be the goat in those pinstripes.

A-Rod watch: 1-4, 3k's today. .125 batting average with 0 HR and 0 RBI in the series, and 4 K's. Are you paying attention, Stoneman? Of course, I'm still very conflicted. I want to see him succeed not only to shut up the New York fans and writers, but also because he's the greatest player I've ever seen and he's a class act and good for the game. But the deeper New York puts him in a hole, the more likely he's gonna want to get out of that cesspool in the Bronx and head for greener pastures where he'll be appreciated.

Like Anaheim!

Well, that's it for tonight. I promise tomorrow there'll be something more to read other than recaps of the day's games. But fear not, even if I am lean on the "me" side of this now, soon the playoffs will be over and I'll have little to write about in actual baseball news, and more time to type about philosophy, ideas, and me. And since I'm the only one I know of who's reading this on a daily basis, I can't think of a topic I'd rather discuss...