We are in the middle of October, which means we are in the midst of some of the most exciting times of the baseball season. We already saw the do or die for the wild card games, which were between the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland Athletics on the American League side, and the San Francisco Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates on the National League side.
The two wild card teams that prevailed, the SF Giants and the Royals are now in the middle of the NLCS (National League Championship Series) and the ALCS (American League Championship Series), which will determine who goes on to play in the fall classic.
On the National league side, there’s an excellent rematch of the 2012 NLCS. The Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals are going at it again. This brings back the memory of the Giants being down 3 games to 1, and coming back to oust the Cards and later go on to be world champions. The fact that both these teams won back-to-back titles (SF 2010, St. Louis 2011, and SF 2012) and are meeting again means that both teams have a good amount of post-season experience. This will be a close series, and one that could easily go all the way to 7 games again considering each game has been close or won by a walk-off so far.
On the American League side there’s the Kansas City Royals and the Baltimore Orioles. These are two teams that few saw making it deep into the post season given that neither of the franchises had made it into the postseason for 30+ years. This ALCS was one to watch. The Royals won four games straight to advance into the World Series, which was surprising given they were the wildcard team. Kansas paved their way to the World Series as they won the ALCS on Wednesday night.
Also playing on Wednesday night is St. Louis and San Francisco, where the Giants have the upper hand given their 2-1 lead. San Francisco is known for their amazing pitching staff and their postseason collective ERA of 1.33 speaks highly to the praise (ESPN.com). The Cardinals have a collective team ERA of 3.86 (ESPN.com), so even with a lackluster offense, such as the Giants have, it’ll be easier to score runs off the Cards, which has proven true so far given that Tuesday night’s game the Giants scored four runs in the first inning.
As the NLCS comes to a close and the World Series approaches with the Royals representing the American League, it’s clear as of now that due to most experience in the post-season, which is key, the national league team will take the title. It comes down to who will crack under the postseason pressure, the time when experience is key and can make or break a team.
In this fall classic, the American league team is the underdog, but as we all know, sometimes the underdog comes out on top, just like the Giants did in 2010 when they captured their first title in 50 years.