Baseball's final four

Now starts the fun part.

The League Championship Series begins tonight in the National League, with the American League jumping in tomorrow. Totally whiffed on the NLDS, while we hit both ALDS square, so we went 2-2 in the first round. Let's do better.

NLCS: Los Angeles vs. St. Louis: The Cardinals are one of two teams in the final four for the 3rd year in a row. It's been an eternity, it seems, since the Dodgers had gotten this far. Managers Mike Metheny & Don Mattingly should be in the conversation for Manager of the Year, and right now, even though the voting ended when the regular season did nearly 2 weeks ago, you wonder if Mattingly might finally get his just due. As we noted a week ago, it's been 25 years since the Dodgers upset Oakland to win their last World Series. The Dodgers have had a few days to rest since ousting Atlanta, and tonight's pitching matchup favors LA, with Zack Greinke facing St. Louis' Joe Kelly. Overall, the pitching favors LA, the offensive lineups are a wash. We like the Dodgers in six.

ALCS: Detroit vs. Boston: The Tigers are back for a 3rd year. They're looking to make it two World Series in a row, and 3 in the last 8. However, Game 1 starter Anibal Sanchez looked positively mortal vs. Oakland in game 3 of the ALDS. Not a good place to be facing the Red Sox, who won't see the Tigers' two best, Max Scherzer & Justin Verlander, right away. Verlander won the ALDS finale last night, so he'd be ready for game 3 on Tuesday. Boston skipper John Farrell, in this writer's opinion, has locked up AL Manager of the Year. Some jabroni on Yahoo! called for Detroit manager Jim Leyland to be fired if Max Scherzer didn't start game 4 of the ALDS. Well, Scherzer ended up pitching out of the bullpen, and helped the Tigers turn the series around. In this series, everything seems even. Detroit won the regular season series, 4-3. However, this series goes the other way, with Boston winning in 7 boring, turtle paced games that would have to be sponsored by Sominex just by default.

Of course, I could be wrong.