The St. Louis Cardinals were officially mathematically eliminated last night when they lost to the Chicago Cubs, 2 - 1 in 11 innings.

One thing I noticed with mathematics and baseball:

A .642 winning average wouldn't be a passing grade in my schooling.

Neither would .300 and that's a Hall of Fame average.
Cubs cheated.
They always do.

Well, because all the actual playoff teams have been selected no new posters can win, but I think it will be either the Cleveland Indians or Houston Astros this year.

I just hope we get to see some great starting pitcher matchups this postseason.

Zach Greinke (2009 Cy Youing winner, runner-up last year, having another great year this year) of the Diamondbacks vs Clayton Kershaw (3-time Cy Young winner and most likely winner again this year) of the Dodgers. Could you imagine if Greinke was still with the Dodgers? Seriously that is a 1-2 you can ride to a title like the Diamondbacks did with Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling.

Corey Kluber (will win the AL Cy Young this year) of the Indians vs Justin Verlander (2011 Cy Young winner and MVP and Cy runner-up last year) of the Astros would be awesome fun to watch. Verlander is on fire right now. he has lowered his ERA to fifth best in the AL and now has 15 wins and has won 6 straight starts and is 7-0 in his past 8 starts - only one no decision.

Kershaw vs Max Scherzer (2-time Cy Young winner and defending Cy winner) of the Washington Nationals. He along with Gaylord Perry, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay as the only five pitchers to win the Cy Young in both leagues. Stephen Strasburg of the Nats is having a great year, too - maybe the best 1-2 in the playoffs this year. Could the Nats ride them like the D-backs rode Johnson and Schilling?

Chicks may dig the long ball, but the starting pitching rotations - and especially the Aces this year are off the chart - and pitching wins championships.

Or loses them.

Remember that, but Eck was a reliever at that point in his career, I am talking about the starting pitchers.

The Red Sox have Chris Sale, too so the Aces this year are, maybe, the best ever. And David Price - another Cy Young winner - just came back a couple of weeks ago. If he is healthy along with Sale the BoSox are super dangerous, too.

I also remember Tom Cheek's call for Joe Carter

Jose Mesa unable to hold it against the Marlins in Game 7 of the 1997 World Series and Mariano Rivera coughing it up against the Diamondbacks in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. Byun Yung Kim giving it up twice in the same series, seriously, that 2001 Series - 3 Blown Saves in the ninth or later in one World Series.

Last night the Colorado Rockies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 9-1 to reduce their magic number to ONE to claim the 10th and final playoff spot. The Milwaukee Brewers defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 5-3 to keep their very slim hopes alive. With games today and tomorrow, all the Rockies have to do is win ONE of them OR have the Brewers lose ONE. Should the Rockies lose both of their games today and tomorrow AND the Brewers win both of theirs, they would end the regular season tied and the regular season would be extended one game for them as they would play in a one game tie-breaker to see who claims the 10th and final playoff spot.

Yay! I was counting on that. ;)

Someone should probably have a word with Jesus though. I bet he licked the balls.

The Milwaukee Brewers started fast last night and built up a 6-0 lead (a huge lead in baseball) but the St. Louis Cardinals mounted a furious comeback, took the lead late, and won 7-6. This clinched the fifth and final NL playoff tournament spot for the Colorado Rockies, despite them losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-3.

SO THE POST SEASON FIELD IS ALL SET, INCLUDING SEEDINGS. I will make up a little spreadsheet and take a screenshot later to show (hopefully) the tournament details and three rounds in each league. But to summarize, the 5 teams in each league that are IN are listed below, in order of seedings. The first three seeds in each league are Division Winners, and this is important because it gives them a bye in the first round, and they automatically move to the second round (the Division Series Round).

The first round consists of the the two "wild card" (non-division winners) playing each other, with the winner moving on to the Division Series Round and the loser eliminated. This first "round" is really one game (whereas all of the other rounds are a "best of" series) but if you win this one game and move on, you are considered to have won a Playoff Series. And as I've said before, there are 30 Major League Baseball teams, with long and rich traditions. At some point in their history, all 30 have made the Playoffs. But there is only ONE of the 30 that has NEVER, EVER won a single Playoff Series.... my beloved Washington Nationals. And in keeping true to form, yesterday their number one pitcher (Max Scherzer), who was certainly going to start Game 1 of their Division Series against the Chicago Cubs, injured his hamstring... sigh.

Anyway, here are the 10 Playoff Tournament Teams:

American League
1) Cleveland Indians (No. 1 seed in AL, home field advantage throughout AL playoffs)
2) Houston Astros
3) Boston Red Sox
Those are the three Division winners who receive a bye through the first round and move directly to the Divisional Series. The two AL wild card teams are:
4)New York Yankees (as the higher Wild Card Seed will have home field advantage in the Wild Card game)
5)Minnesota Twins

THe American League Wild Card game is scheduled for Tuesday, October 3 in New York.

National League
1)Los Angeles Dodgers (No 1 seed in all of MLB, home field advantage throughout all the playoffs)
2)Washington Nationals
3)Chicago Cubs
Those are the three Division winners who receive a bye through the first round and move directly to the Divisional Series. The two NL wild card teams are:
4) Arizona Diamondbacks (as the higher Wild Card Seed will have home field advantage in the Wild Card game)
5) Colorado Rockies

The National League Wild Card game is scheduled for Wednesday, October 4 in Arizona.

ADDED IN EDIT: MLB.com has a nice little post season page showing the three rounds in each league (the AL moves from the left side of the page to the right, while the NL moves from the right side of the page to the left) but it only shows team logos and some here may not recognize team logos. I'm still going to make my spreadsheet, but it will be very similar to this, and instead of team logos will show "Team" names, meaning the GoG member owner of each team in the brackets.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/postseason-picture/

And here is the entire Post Season schedule (though there are still a lot of times TBD (to be determined) and a lot of starting pitchers TBD.

http://m.mlb.com/postseason-schedule

Price won't start - the Sox have been using him as a late inning reliever since he came back. It's awesome - he's a $200 million one or two inning wonder that doesn't even close.

I remember laughing my ass off a few years ago when Toronto was doing everything possible to get this guy to skip his starts in the Postseason (I'd literally have my mouth drop when they'd bring him in in like the 6th or 7th inning of a game they were up by like 4 or 5 runs when he was supposed to start the next day).

Now it's not so funny. I really liked the guy in Tampa, when the Sox signed him I knew they *had* to do it but man was I glad when I saw the opt-out - I figured the Sox could get the best 3 or 4 years out of the guy and then someone else could overpay for the back end after he opts out. Now I rock back and forth waiting for the lost Tommy John year+, knowing that the Sox are going to have a 35-36 year old post surgery "power" pitcher making a ton of money eating up resources. Sucks.

That sucks that Scherzer is hurt. But that Nats still have Strasburg and Gio as the 1-2. I really wanted to see him go against Kershaw (may still happen) but Stras and Gio are having Cy quality seasons, too.

Also, how did the Nats become Beloved for you? They were the Expos for three decades and are only fairly recently the Nationals.

I always thought they should have kept the Expos colour. er, color scheme of red, white and blue moving to DC and kept the same logo just turning the "M" upside down so it was now a "W" - A red, white and blue W for Washington DC the nation's capitol (and technically I know the nation's capitol is actually the Capitol Building).

I live on the east coast of Florida and the Nationals were my spring training team before the franchise moved locations - again. As were the Expos before them and the Marlins before that. So who did you follow before the Nats moved to DC? were you an Orioles fan, or did you like the old Washington Senators and could not stand the idea of taking up with the Orioles and stuck with the franchise when they became the Minnesota Twins?

Yes, I was a Washington Senators fan before they moved to become the Minnesota Twins, and I was a Washington Senators fan with the expansion Senators that replaced them until they moved to Texas and became the Rangers (that one I literally cried... remember that day like it was yesterday). And then for over 30 years I was just basically a baseball fan with no real team. Living in the burbs of Washington, they tried to push the Orioles as "our" team, but I would have none of that. The Orioles were our (the Senators) hated rivals in the American League. No way was I going to be an Orioles fan.

Than in 2005, after several broken hearts and disappointments through 3 different expansions (late 70's, early 90's, late 90's) that saw DC get rejected, the Expos moved here and I had a team again. A team that finished last every year for the first 4 or 5 years they were here, but hey, that was ok. After all, that's basically what the Senators did most years. LOL

NOTE: I literally cried again when they made the playoffs for the first time. I had just lost my father in 2009 who took me to so many Senators games as a kid, and finally, for the first time in my life, a Washington baseball team was a winner. It was such an emotional blast of joy of finally seeing that and sorrow that my father missed it. But they've made twice more since then (this year makes it 3 more since) and have, to date, lost in their very first round every time. Maybe some day I'll see them win at least one post season series LOL.

http://m.nationals.mlb.com/news/article/256910710/max-scherzer-exits-with-hamstring-cramp/

ADDED: Oh, and here's a link to the status of Scherzer. They are going on as though he should be ok to pitch, but might have to be moved back a day. I just don't see it. These games are all going to be night games in October, which means cool weather, which is... well... not the best for working through hamstring injuries. I think their best shot would be to shut him down this series, hope to finally win a series for a change, and then have him back 100% for the next one. Unfortunately though if they do that they could be shutting him down for the season LOL. I just don't know about them beating the Cubs....

ALSO ADDED: Just noticed.. today the last day of the regular season all 15 Major League games are starting at the 3:00 PM EDT hour (some at the top of the hour and a few at 3:15). That's pretty neat, not sure I remember them doing that before. If there were still races to be decided having them all be playing at the same time would be neat.

I think the Nationals are going to beat down the Cubs. If Scherzer didn't get injured, and maybe he makes it back, I thought it was a lock. The Nats 1-2-3 is tops this year and the Cubs really have three offensive drivers, the rest of the order is really weak and three aces can work around three good/great hitters and dominate the rest of the lineup. Hell, three aces can of course go toe-to-toe with any hitter.

My predictions:

AL
Wild Card
Yankees beat Twins
ALDS
Indians beat Yankees
Astros beat Red Sox

ALCS
Indians beat Astros
NL
Wild Card
Diamondbacks beat Rockies

NLDS
Nationals beat Cubs
Diamondbacks beat Dodgers (The upset, playoff baseball has a reduced pitching roster and If Greinke and Kershaw split their starts, or break even against each other, I like the D-backs pitching depth and batting depth more).

NLCS
Nationals beat Diamondbacks: Nats 1-2-3 (assuming Scherzer is back) and hitting depth wins out.

World Series
Indians edge Nationals (but this can go either way and be as close as last year's World Series was). I love the Nats 1-2-3, but the Indians are just deep everywhere. First in ERA, 2ndi n WHIP, 5th in batting avg and runs scored. They hit and pitch so well - as do the Nats - but after last year's experience I give the Indians a slight edge.

Playoffs start tomorrow.

Things are all set, 10 gog members are in the tournament to win! 6 of the gog members (the three division winners in each leagu) get a bye in the first round and automatically move to the second round. They are:

1)gogtrial34987 Indians
2)BenKii Astros
3)VampiroAlhazred Red Sox
4)zeogold Dodgers
5)ariaspi Nationals
6)scryba Cubs

CONGRATULATIONS. You six are in the second round.

The other four GOG members will square off against each other for the right to advance to the next round and make it 8 teams total in the second round.

The first of these is scheduled for tomorrow night at 8:00 EDT in New York (I say scheduled because baseball isn't played in rain). It is a ONE GAME, WINNER MOVES ON TO 2nd ROUND, LOSER IS ELIMINATED. And it is between:

truhlik Twins vs drmike Yankees. GOOD LUCK!

Then on Wednesday night at 8:00PM EDT, the other winner take all game is scheduled. And it is between:

01Kipper Rockies vs adaliabooks Diamondbacks. GOOD LUCK!

The winner of those two contests join the 6 mentioned above in the second round.