WORLD SERIES CONFIDENTIAL
DETROIT – Jeff Weaver faces Kenny Rogers tonight in World Series Game 2 and it is possible to forecast a pitchers’ duel.
You know why? Because this has been the month when it has been impossible to pick anything.
Conventional wisdom went on vacation at about the same time the Red Sox did. The regular season ended and so did common sense and any chance of making a prediction based on history or logic.
Weaver and Rogers were two of the worst pitchers in postseason history. Now look at them. It’s as if Ed Whitson showed up as the ghost of Yankees past and started putting up ghost eggs; Rogers has 15 shutout innings this postseason, Weaver has a 2.16 ERA in three starts.
So the notion that Weaver and Rogers can’t handle the postseason is the No. 1 myth busted this October. Here is the rest of the top 10:
2. Go with the hot teams entering the playoffs – that would have been the Twins and Padres, who were eliminated in three and four games, respectively.
3. Avoid the cold teams – the Cardinals just avoided the worst September collapse in MLB history. The Tigers had the worst final 50 games (19-31) to ever make the playoffs. By the way, the World Series is Cardinals vs. Tigers.
4. You can’t stop the Yankees offense – Murderers’ Row plus Cano scored a total of six runs in the three-game losing streak that ended their season.
5. You can’t stop the Mets offense – in their final three NLCS losses, the Mets scored three runs.
6. The Cardinals can’t win without a big series from Chris Carpenter – in two NLCS starts, Carpenter was 0-1 with a 5.73 ERA.
7. The Cards can’t win without a big series from Albert Pujols – in the NLCS, Pujols was outhomered by Yadier Molina (2-1) and had the same number of RBIs (1) as Jeff Suppan.
8. The Mets will be fine if they just get to their bullpen – the flip side of that was how much trouble they were going to be in when John Maine and Oliver Perez started. But it was the Mets pen that blew Game 2, nearly blew Game 6, and lost Game 7.
9. The Twins always win at home when Johan Santana starts – at least they had for 23 straight games, dating to Aug. 1, 2005. Then Santana lost AL Division Series Game 1, triggering more myth-busting, that the Billy Beane/Moneyball A’s never advance in the playoffs.
10. Experience matters in the playoffs – did we mention the Tigers are in the World Series with, among others, previous postseason virgins Jeremy Bonderman, Curtis Granderson, Brandon Inge, Justin Verlander and Joel Zumaya playing huge parts?
Now we are up to the next sure thing: The AL never loses in the World Series. I guess we always can cling to the old standby: Alex Rodriguez will stink in October.