Yes, it's that time of year again.
On Thursday, the first round of the playoffs begins with the Boston Red Sox traveling to the Lone Star State to face the Houston Astros; while the New York Yankees (winner of the American League wild card game) storm into Northeast Ohio to face the best team in the A.L., the Cleveland Indians, who posted a 102-60 record, second best in franchise history.
On Friday, the world champion Chicago Cubs descend on the nation’s capital to face the Washington Nationals, while the Los Angeles Dodgers (who boast the best record in the majors, 104-58) will host the Arizona Diamondbacks, winner of the N.L. wild card game.
Which two teams will meet in the World Series beginning October 24, is anyone’s guess.
According to FiveThirtyEight , a website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging, the Central Division champion Indians have a 25 percent chance of winning the World Series, ahead of the Dodgers with a 17 percent chance of raising the Commissioner’s Trophy.
The Indians, including their strong legion of fans, are still smarting from the crushing loss to the Cubs in last year’s World Series, extending their championship drought to 68 years, the longest active drought in Major League Baseball. The Indians left Wrigley Field after Game 5 of the 2016 World Series, up 3 games-to-2, only to drop the next two back at Progressive Field in Cleveland.
But the Tribe is back in the postseason with a better record, a more robust lineup (especially with the acquisitions of Edwin Encarnación and Jay Bruce), and a healthy starting rotation, featuring Corey Kluber (18-4), Carlos Carrasco (18-6), Trevor Bauer (17-9), and Josh Tomlin (10-9), while regular season starting pitchers Mike Clevinger (12-6) and Danny Salazar (5-6) will be in the bullpen as reinforcements should any of the starters get the quick hook from manager Terry Francona.
Despite sky high expectations for the Dodgers and Indians, wild card teams can never be overlooked. Six times in MLB history, the wild card team have gone on to win the World Series: Florida Marlins (1997, 2003), Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (2002), Boston Red Sox (2004), St Louis Cardinals (2011), and the San Francisco Giants (2014).
To gain a better insight into how others around the country expect the postseason to shake out, I asked some nationally-based journalists who they feel will win the World Series this year.
What follows are some responses which came back.
- "I'm a D.C native who wisely gave up on my childhood era's hopeless hometown team and instead worshipped the DiMaggio-Mantle Yankees...Today it's all Go Nats.”
--Carl Bernstein, investigative journalist and author.
- "This year belongs to the Washington Nationals."
--Jonathan Karl, Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News in Washington, D.C.
- "My heart belongs to the Yankees"
--Jill Abramson, former Executive Editor of The New York Times, and currently teaching advanced investigative reporting classes in the Department of English at Harvard University.
- "The Nationals, of course! It's our year. We've been waiting since 1924..."
--Peter Baker, Chief White House correspondent for The New York Times
- "The Nationals!"
--Dan Balz, Chief correspondent in Washington, D.C. for the Washington Post
- "Not the Yankees. But they'll live to play another round."
--Jim Dwyer, reporter and columnist for The New York Times
- "Bill, Come on!..The Tribe, of course."
--Walt Bogdanich, investigative reporter for The New York Times
- "Cleveland -- Over the Dodgers, Nationals, or Cubs"
--Dan Shaughnessy, Sports columnist for the Boston Globe
- "I hate predictions. Only Minnesota, Arizona and Colorado can't win."
--Bob Ryan, retired sports columnist for the Boston Globe and a regular panelist on ESPN's Sunday morning roundtable, "The Sports Reporters."
- "Cleveland. But I’ve never seen a year with EIGHT teams with +110 run differentials that could all win-and deserve it. Just hope it’s a post-season worthy of the quality of the field."
--Thomas Boswell, Sports columnist for the Washington Post
- "I like new teams to win it. Houston? Cleveland? I'll go with Cleveland (even though [Terry] Francona was often surly to me in Boston for reasons I could never figure out.) I root for cities....old ones....I love: Pittsburgh and Cincinnati from my Brooklyn youth and from working in Appalachia, living in Louisville -- old river towns, Cleveland would work. Rust Belt over Sunbelt."
--George Vecsey, sports columnist for The New York Times.
- "If I had to make a guess, I’d say Cleveland, but in baseball you never know."
--Ron Blum, Baseball Writer for The Associated Press
2017 Cleveland Indians at a Glance
- Won their second consecutive AL Central Division title in 2017, 9th overall, since 1994.
- Finished the season with 17.0-game lead over the 2nd place Minnesota, the club's largest lead to finish a season since 1999.
- Posted their 5th consecutive winning season.
- Have made 6 World Series appearances, winning in 1920 and 1948, and losing in 1954, 1995, 1997, and 2016.
- Posted the highest run differential in MLB at +254
- Went 55-20 (.733) after the All-Star break.
- Won 22 consecutive games, the 2nd longest in MLB history behind the 1916 New York Giants' 26-game win streak.
- Finished the season 49-32 (.605) at home, 2nd best in the A.L.
- The Indians and the Yankees are set to meet for the 4th time in the postseason. They previously squared off in 1997, 1998, and 2007.
- Cleveland was 5-2 against the Yankees during the regular season.
- When Cleveland scored first during the regular season, they were 78-21.
Source: Major League Baseball
-Bill Lucey
October 4, 2017
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