A just pattern of thumb might be that anyone who says they know what's going to find in the National League playoffs doesn't, but here are about things we do know.
The Phillies are the better team in the National League, and on those grounds you would think, the favourite to win the Pennant. However, the Phillies are likewise a squad that can go mysteriously dead at any given time for no special reason: a big team but a flawed team.
So, factoring in the Phillies' unpredictability, there are two reasons to pluck them to win.
The offset is the humility factor.
The Phillies came out of Spring Training knowing they were the squad to get in the National League only to hold the wheels fall off in May.After an improbable series of injuries andslumps left the team adrift in the stagnation of mid season, local sportswriters and fans pretty much wrote off the squad for this year. On July 21, the Phillies, who finished 97-64, were but two games over .500, at 48-46 and in 3rd position behind the Braves and the Mets. And not alone were they in 3rd place but the injuries in detail at that period seemed endemic; Chase Utley, out for seven weeks, Jimmy Rollins missing half the temper with 3 different injuries, Placido Polanco on the disabled list, then coming second and actually playing through a broken elbow. On and on it went.
The cause for the Phillies' humility then is that they pretty much had the arrogance knocked out of them this season. At this period they are happy only to be in the playoffs, and for a team with as much sheer ability as the Phillies, that sort of thirst and center is loss to give them difficult to beat. The former grounds to blame the Phillies over the Cincinnati Reds in the first round has to be The Three Aces.
Philly will give the series with probable National League Cy Young award winner, Big Roy Halladay facing Edinson Volquez, back with the Reds after losing a class and a half to Tommy John surgery.
Game 2 is scheduled to have little Roy, Roy Oswalt, pitching for the Phillies against one-time Boston Red Sox 4th starter, Bronson Arroyo.
The inaugural halt in Cincinnati will feature 2008 World Series hero Young Cole Hamels vs. Johnny Cueto for Reds.
Nothing against any of the three Reds starters: They are all good pitchers, but the Three Aces of the Phillies have the pitching match-up advantage over the Reds in each game of these playoffs.Especially since, if the Series goes to games 4 and 5, the Phillies are leaving to fall second with Halladay in game 4 and Oswalt - the team's best pitcher down the stretch - in game 5.
The Reds' strength is their offense led by potential National League MVP Joey Votto, and they surely make a hitter's chance. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if this Series goes the full five games, but as a Phillies fan, I'm hoping for the Phils in four.
In the former National League first-round series, the Braves vs. the Giants, the Giants should win on their superior offense, especially as it's been bulked up by mid and late season acquisitions such as Pat Burrell, Jose Guillen, Cody Ross, and the very recent issue to work by last year's Rookie sensation, third baseman Pablo "the Panda" Sandoval.
In a poor series, the Braves' starting pitching is at least as hard as the Giants and their bullpen probably better, but on the effectiveness of the Giants' offense as good as home field advantage, gotta read the Giants, in five.
But wish the man said, I don't know nothing.
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