“Friday, Friday–Cards Win, Rangers Lose”

All four division series are set after another Friday, in which the St. Louis Cardinals won a game facing elimination and the likely, “never to be” Texas Rangers were eliminated from the baseball “tournament.” Recall, the Cardinals game seven win on a Friday to win last year’s World Series. As was the case to end the 2011 World Series, Texas outfielder David Murphy flew out to left field ending the Rangers’ season. Both one game playoff winners yesterday were pretty big underdogs so you know it was another good day for the Las Vegas “houses” and I do not mean “The Canyon Ranch” and those  kind of “houses.”  Simply put, PT Barnum underestimated when he said there was “a sucker born every minute.” Each hour, multitudes of people, thinking they know better, lose their money with their flawed opinions and perceptions of “games.”

In those games which set up Baltimore Orioles vs New York Yankees and St.Louis Cardinals vs Washington Nationals’ division series, the Cardinals, who trailed (2-0) won (6-3) at Atlanta. Meanwhile the Orioles won (5-1) at Texas. The Cardinals have now thrice won post season entities from the Braves without losing a game. St.”Loo” swept Joe Torre’s Braves in a best of five NLCS in 1982 and won three straight from Atlanta in the 2000 division series. The lone Braves’ series win from the Cardinals went the maximum seven games in the 1996 NLCS. The Braves then lost to Joe Torre’s Yankees in the World Series. This one game playoff was made official only after Joe Torre, now working for Major League Baseball did not uphold the Braves’ protest of an umpire’s call. The Braves have but one World Title to show for their 16 division titles and two wild card playoff appearances.

The other division series begin today with the Detroit Tigers hosting the Oakland A’s while the Cincinnati Reds visit the San Francisco Giants. Last week I predicted a Yankees/Jays split and was correct. I was slightly off saying the O’s would win just 2 of 3 vs Boston (they swept) and saying Boston would win one vs the Yankees (they were swept). However, I did warn that the Yankees had a better chance to be the AL “one seed” than to not win the division. The Yankees are the AL “one seed.” Another prediction: The A’s will win their series vs the Tigers. The A’s are the series underdog.