By Dave Holcomb
We are at the midway point of the baseball season, sort of. For whatever reason, Major League Baseball has its All-Star game slightly more than halfway. Anyway, with about 95 games in the books, the playoff picture all set right. Well, again not really. It’s still too early to officially predict what teams will be playing in October, but what the heck, predictions are fun, and you have to make fun of me for something.
Here’s what the National League will (maybe) look like:
East
Atlanta Braves: From the very beginning of the season, the Braves looked to be the premiere team in not just the East, but the entire National League with a 13-2 start. But to the surprise of no one, Atlanta was able to maintain that .867 win percentage, and recent injuries to their outfielder, the entire outfielder, has slowed them down. But guys like Freddie Freeman, oh wait, he’s injured too, and Dan Uggla can carry the offense while Jason Heyward and the Upton brothers recover. Ace Tim Hudson has struggled this season, but the team is still second in the NL in ERA, and third in saves with Craig Kimbrel closing games. Washington and Philadelphia are too inconsistent to predict; Atlanta will win the East title.
Central
St. Louis Cardinals: Baseball’s best division, well not counting the AL East, could very easily have three teams in baseball’s playoffs for the first time in league history. Many fans would love to see the Pirates finally win a division title, the last time they did, the Central didn’t exist, and George Bush, the first one, was the President of the United States, but I’m going with the Cardinals. Year in and year out, they are the National League’s most complete team. St. Louis has the third best ERA in the National League with Ace All-Star Adam Wainwright leading the way at 2.45 ERA. Closer Edward Mujica has emerged on the scene and also made the All-Star team. And even in the post-Albert era, the Cardinals have a great one-two-three punch with Yadier Molina, .341 Avg., Carlos Beltran, 19 homers, and Allen Craig, 74 RBI. All three, along with Matt Carpenter made the All-Star team, and don’t forget about Matt Holliday too.
West
Los Angeles Dodgers: If there’s only one division up for grabs in baseball this September, it’s going to be the NL West. The Diamondbacks lead the Dodgers by 2.5 games at the break, and Los Angeles is an even .500. LA is 25th in runs scored and has a run differential of -18. But in a division up for grabs, one has to go with the star power, and the Dodgers have plenty of it. Their lineup includes Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford, Mark Ellis and Juan Uribe who all have higher batting averages after the All-Star break. Not to mention Matt Kemp hasn’t gotten hot yet, and they have some guy named Yasiel Puig. Expect Puig to struggle as teams finally figure out how to pitch to him, but the other guys will pick it up, and this team will sneak into October.
Wild Cards
Pittsburgh Pirates: Just 26 more wins… 26 more. That’s all Pirate fans want. 26 more wins to get to 82, and their first winning season since 1992. But once the club reaches that, and it would cause a huge collapse not to, this team could aspire to do more. With the best ERA in baseball, and the best closer in the National League this season, they will compete with the Cardinals, who I just argued was the best team in the NL. Andrew McCutchen leads the way offensively at .302/10/49 but his buddies are helping him out this season. Pedro Alvarez has developed faster than expected and has hit 24 home runs and 62 RBI. Starling Marte, in his first full season in the bigs, is hitting .291, has 59 runs scored, and is second in the NL with 28 stolen bases. With Jose Tabata back from injury in the two-spot, and Catcher Russell Martin working with the pitching staff, don’t expect the Pirates to collapse this season.
Philadelphia Phillies: Alright, so here is my other wild card team, and when I say wild card, I mean wild card. I pretty much picked all favored teams for each league, so I threw in one wrench. If Philadelphia does not trade away the likes of Cliff Lee, Chase Utley and Michael Young, which I don’t believe they will, this team still has the potential to compete, and their hole to dig out of is not that big. At an even 48-48, they stand 5.5 games behind Cincinnati for the last wild card spot. The Phillies had such a bad start to this season, everyone counted them out, but if play as well after the break as they did last season, they will make the playoffs. Dominic Brown is having a great season with .273/23/67 line and Cliff Lee has won 10 games with a 2.86 ERA. If Kyle Kendrick can continue to pitch around the 3.68 ERA mark, and Cole Hamels can get back on track, an all-Pennsylvania Wild Card game is not out of the question.
So there you have it, playoff predictions for October of 2013. Mark them down. At least half of them might be right.
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