ALCS Toronto Blue Jays Vs. Cleveland Indians

What makes Baseball so interesting is that any team could make a championship run. Nobody expected the Indians and Blue Jays to be the last remaining teams in the American League. For this series I got the Indians winning and advancing on to the World Series? Why? They swept and shut down the best offensive team in baseball in the Boston Red Sox. No D.J Carrasco, no Danny Salazar, so in comes Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin. They did their job, they didn’t give up a lot of runs, and they kept the Indians in the game. Also, you can’t forget about the bullpen which was really good too. In their three games against the Red Sox, the Indians bullpen gave up only two runs, two runs to a team that led baseball in numerous offensive categories. And last, the Indians lineup. They beat Rick Porcello, who is the favorite to win the Cy Young award, and David Price who although isn’t as good in the postseason, isn’t someone you take lightly. I feel that can quiet the Blue Jays bats down. The Blue Jays beat up a Texas Rangers team that showed in the division series and in the regular season, that their pitching just wasn’t that good especially against that Blue Jays lineup. Besides J.A. Happ, I feel that you don’t really know what you’re going to get from the starting pitching. Marcus Stroman had a great Wild Card performance, and Marco Estrada also had a great performance in his start but, they’ve been up and down this year. Aaron Sanchez is a great young pitcher who had a great season, but he had a bad start in his last outing in game three against the Rangers. In the end, I think this series will come down to the pitching of both teams, the Blue Jays biggest strength is their power bats in Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and Troy Tulowitzki. If the Indians can limit those the Blue those players like the limited the Red Sox, they’ll win this series.

NLCS Los Angeles Dodgers Vs. Chicago Cubs

I got the Cubs advancing to World Series for the first time in over 70 years. The Dodgers just got out of a grueling series against the Washington Nationals in which they had to use Kenley Jansen for 50 pitches in relief in game 5 of the division series, two days before the championship series starts against the Cubs. Clayton Kershaw, had to come in and pitch on one day rest after throwing 100 pitches in game 4, so neither of the Dodgers' best pitchers are going to be available in game 1 and possibly for game 2. On the other side, the Cubs’ elite pitching rotation with Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Jake Arrieta, and John Lackey will be rested to face that Dodger lineup. The other major thing is the Cubs lineup versus the Dodgers bullpen. We all know that the Cubs lineup is one of the best in baseball with Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Addison Russell, and Ben Zobrist. You don’t know what you are going to get from the Dodgers bullpen especially when you don’t have Jansen, your closer because he had to work three innings to get the job done against the Nationals. If the Dodgers were fully rested, it would be more interesting but, because they won’t be fully rested against a rested Cubs team that is the odds on favorite to win it all, I think the Dodgers won’t have enough to beat the Cubs.