I think I'll go for a walk! I feel fine! I feel happy! Yes, that's right, this blog isn't dead yet. It might be a little zombified like our uncertain friend over on the right, but it'l thaw out soon enough. So what of the little hiatus? Well, not too much to tell. We've been short-staffed at work, which means I've been terribly busy, which also takes away the time I usually use to write this blog. Add that to trying to take care of the wedding and honeymoon, and this blog just wasn't much fun. Since I'm not getting paid to do this, and my readership, while not non-existent, is not anything to write home about, I must be doing this for my own entertainment. Which also means that if it's not entertaining, then why am I doing it? I couldn't find an answer, and so, the (unannounced) hiatus commenced. Now, the wedding is over, the honeymoon has ended, and work is back to a much more even flow. I'd had the itch to get back to this blog, but it sure wasn't going to happen last week with work as crazy as it was. What has changed since I last wrote in the world of baseball? Since, you know, that is still the title of the blog. It looks like the playoffs are very close to set. I think we can be pretty sure of the National League consisting of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Arizona, and Atlanta.* Not terribly surprising, other than maybe Arizona. I knew the D-Backs had some very, very good young players, but I thought they were at least a year if not two or three away. Smart money would say Philly wins the pennant, but clearly I'm not about smart money, so my pick is Milwaukee. I know I only gave them the wild card to start with, but I've really been on their bandwagon all year, ever since they got serious about pitching. Shorten that rotation, and they're only going to get stronger. Congratulations Zack Greinke, you're finally going to get that playoff shot (with a very potent offense) you've been looking for. *Atlanta is up 4.5 in the Wild Card, which isn't huge, but the Cardinals haven't given me any real reason for optimism, and time is running out. In the American League, things are not quite as settled, but it's getting close. It looks like the Yankees will take the East, Detroit has managed to throttle the Central.* The Rangers have a fairly thin (2.5 games) grasp on the West, though I think they will hold off the Angels. Boston is up 3.5 on Tampa for the Wild Card, which you might feel okay about with two weeks to go, but they are slumping at the wrong time. And the Rays are surging. Usually I would say ESPN headlines tend to hit the panic button way too early for the sake of publicity, but I would agree that it looks like the Rays will take the wild card and leave on the the World Leader's favorites out of October. *Sorry, Cleveland. I really thought you'd hang around. If I'm doing my pairings right based on those predictions,* that would pit Philly against Arizona and Milwaukee against Atlanta in the NL, and the Yankees taking on Detroit and Texas facing off with Boston/Tampa. Now, let me be the first to say I would be super, super pumped to watch all those series and probably won't be leaving home much in October. I'll also have to cocoon myself during the afternoons so I can watch the recorded games or something. When the dust settles, I say it will come down to Philly and Milwaukee for the NL, and I'm going to go out on a limb here (sorry if my Yankee-hate is showing) and say Detroit against Texas. I'll call a Tigers-Brewers World Series. Who wouldn't be just giddy to watch Verlander take on that loaded Brewers line-up three times? I know I would be. And I would say the series goes seven games for the Detroit win, with Verlander winning three games and somebody else squeaking one out. *"Prediction" being used very loosely here. And there's no guarantee in that sentence,** either. **Okay, fine, that was a clause, not a sentence. Sorry. Now that I've written if, of course it will never happen. It'll probably be te Comments are closed.
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