This is gonna be great...

There's only one thing missing from this year's Championship Series -- the Braves. That's all the pining I'll do, because we got whooped in Game 5. That said, this should be an interesting pair of seven-game series....

I want to prefeace this by saying I had written everything yesterday morning, and will try not to skew anything based on what happened last night. You can even ask Meagan if you doubt that I thought Hideki Matsui would have a big series. But we'll get to that soon enough...

ALCS

Game 1 should show how great this series is going to be. Schilling doesn't do well, giving up 6 runs, and Mussina pitches 6.1 perfect innings. Despite that, the Yanks only won by 3. Three runs. That's it. You think NY is satisfied with that? I surely hope not, for their sake. This help my prediction of Boston winning, because this shows that they can overcome a DREADFUL start from their pitching and a nearly immacualte start fom NY's pitching and still make a game of it. I predicted yesterday that Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon would play a big role in the series -- Matsui went bonkers while Damon went back to the bench -- look for him to make up for it tonight. I still like Boston to win the series, and I still think they'll do it in 6.

NLCS

I've gotten feedback from Cardinal fans over the past couple days, and I have to think they're gonna be satisfied by the end of the week. Houston is a great team, but the Cards have more rest and better pitching to start the series. Watch out for Houston's Game 1 closer, though, Backe's been great towards the end of this year and exceeded my expectations in the NLDS. Houston's goal was to win a series, while St. Louis set their eyes on the World Series, and I think they'll get there, maybe in a sweep, but I'll officially say in 5 games. No matter how many games, though, congrats again to the Astros for a fantastic season and historic postseason.

This should be a fantastic week, lots of baseball for all to enjoy! Allow me to iterate to anyone hiring in Indianapolis that I still, indeed, do need a job, but if you gave me a few weeks to ride the baseball playoffs out, I wouldn't mind too terribly ;-) Just kidding, hon!