King Kaufman's Sports Daily
New, improved baseball playoff preview. Now with random factoids! Can Red Sox repeat?
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Oct. 4, 2005 | The baseball playoffs open Tuesday with a triple-header. The first team to take its cuts will be the San Diego Padres, losingest bunch in the history of the postseason, having had to win five of their last six to avoid becoming the first team to ever make it this far with a losing record.
The bad news for San Diego is that it has to play the St. Louis Cardinals, the only club to win 100 games this year. The good news is that the Padres have transformed over the course of a few days.
Just last week, baseball purists were concocting arguments for why the rules should change to keep the likes of the Padres, then with a losing record, out of the playoffs. A few wins and an off day later, the Padres are ... plucky underdogs! They're Cleveland State, Valparaiso. It's October Madness!
Tuesday's action starts with the Padres at the St. Louis Cardinals on ESPN at 1 p.m. EDT, followed by the Boston Red Sox at the Chicago White Sox at 4 on ESPN and the New York Yankees at the Los Angeles Angels at 8 on Fox. The Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves get underway in Atlanta on Wednesday.
In honor of the sleek redesign Salon is rolling out this week, this column is proud to drop its former patented rambly playoff preview format in favor of a new, modern, quick-hitting, dynamic and, if I may say so, downright snazzy boldface-item gambit -- just like most of the other playoff previews out there.
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NATIONAL LEAGUE
San Diego Padres vs. St. Louis Cardinals [PERMALINK]
Credentials: The Padres won the N.L. West with the poorest record of any playoff team in history, 82-80, a half-game worse than the 1973 New York Mets. The Cardinals had the best record in baseball for the second straight year, lapping the Central Division.
The Padres will win 'cause: Their best pitcher, Jake Peavy, outpitches Cy Young candidate Chris Carpenter twice, and San Diego is able to steal one of the other games. Carpenter, who threw 241 and two-thirds innings, 26 more than his previous career high, hit a wall in September and was terrible down the stretch. And hey, those '73 Mets beat the best team in baseball, the Cincinnati Reds, in the playoffs.
The Cards will win 'cause: They're the vastly superior team, even if Carpenter is terrible. They still have a tremendous lineup, even without injured Scott Rolen and usually injured Larry Walker. The rest of their pitching staff is pretty good too -- the Cardinals led the league in earned-run average -- even after losing reliever Al Reyes on the season's final day. They can even catch the ball. Just about everywhere you look, including uniform design, the Cardinals are superior. If they don't win this series, it'll be one of the biggest playoff upsets in history.
Unlikely heroes: Woody Williams, San Diego. Mark Grudzielanek, St. Louis.
Random boldface factoid: On Aug. 17, 1976, in St. Louis, the Cardinals scored three runs in the first inning and went on to beat the Padres 9-4. Both teams were hopelessly out of it at the time and would each finish fifth in their six-team divisions, and the game had no historical significance at all.
Prediction: Cardinals in four
Next page: Astros vs. Braves. Plus, White Sox, Angels try to end ALCS run for Red Sox and Yankees
