Displaced Cleveland Fan

The 2009 Major League Baseball postseason began with the Twins beating the Tigers in extra innings to claim first place in the AL Central. The Divisional series begin Wednesday night. These are the matchups:

AL: Minnesota Twins vs. New York Yankees / Boston Red Sox vs. Los Angelas Angels

NL: Colorado Rockies vs. Philadelphia Phillies / St. Louis Cardinals vs. Los Angelas Dodgers

If you look at the eight playoff teams, the list is dominated by big market clubs. For the 2009 season, nine teams had a payroll over $100 million. Of these nine teams, five made the playoffs (55.5%) - Yankees (#1), Red Sox (#4), Angels (#6), Phillies (#7), and Dodgers (#9).
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Just looking at the wins & losses, the Indians and Yankees looked like they came out even in the four-game series the two teams just wrapped up. That may be true, but here are three reasons why the Tribe had the better series:

#1 - The Yankees’ first game in their brand new $1.5 billion stadium was an 8-run loss. Not only that, but Cleveland’s reigning Cy Young award winner Cliff Lee got the win. Former Indian and 2007 Cy Young award winner CC Sabathia, despite a new $161 million contract, could not beat his former team. He didn’t pitch bad. But he had to give it up to the bullpen which blew the game by allowing a 9-run 7th inning.
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It’s playoff time for Major League Baseball. The Indians are out, but that doesn’t mean we have no interest in what happens. (OK. Maybe some of you have no interest. But I do.) So who’s going to win the World Series this year? Here are my playoff predictions:
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And so ends the 2008 season.

The good news: The Tribe managed to finish with a .500 record. A few months ago, I didn’t think that would be possible.

The bad news: The Tribe’s season is over. They went from being a game away from the World Series last year to fighting with the Royals for 4th place for part of the year this year. Injuries really hurt the team. Imagine what they would have done without losing some key players.

Maybe next year…