Playoffs Tonight... Not that we care.

The much anticipated Fall Ball playoffs are tonight...unfortunatly the most dominate team down the stretch will not be participating.  Nevertheless... the event is worthy of a slightly sarcastic blog post.

How it will go down:

The first game will be #1 Dead Money vs #4 JJ's Orange.  At first glance, you might say that Dead Money is a lock to advance, however there are some red flags....  JJ's beat Dead Money once already,  Dead Money struggled down the stretch, JJ's has stepped up and won some big games (including a must win last week against the Donkey Mob which determined whether or not they made the playoffs).  On the other hand, JJ's has also lost a few head scratchers...and I am not quite sure they are prepared for the post-season atmosphere...the question is, what type of Line-Up will Dead Money bring to the game.   Will they try to field the most dominant squad possible, or will they play with the unproven guys??  My guess is that Dead Money brings out the big dogs and JJ's folds like a cheap set of lawn chairs.

Prediciton:  Dead Money 12, JJ's Orange 3

The second game is #3 Doublewide vs #2 PT General Mortgage.   This is a rematch from last week that few of us unfortunatly had the displeasure of watching.  Doublewide seemed to have the game under control, but inexpicably fell apart down the stretch, limping themselves into the playoffs.  It seemed to us that the 5 man umbrella infield wasn't working against PT, and the inability to make the adjustment, or atleast tighten up the defense cost Doublewide.  There is no question that the offense can come to play, scoring the most run's in the leauge...however, can they hit in the clutch?  They couldn't hit in finals during the summer league, and they couldn't hit down the stretch last week in a important game.  PT has also shown that dispite thier age and girth, they do have the ability to play defense....surrending the fewest runs in the league.  If I was putting money on this game (and I am, its on the book at Mystic) I would say that  this is a lower scoring affair than last week.  I am guessing that down the stretch PT takes away some extra base hits from Doublewides better hitters, and shuts down the bottom half of thier lineup. PT will come out ahead in the HR battle, and as long as they have guys on base, they will will win by 3 or more.

Prediciton:  PT General Mortgage 11, Doublewide 7

Championship Game.  Dead Money vs PT General Mortgage.  These teams met in week 6...with Dead Money pulling it out at the end 16-15.  This game will be very similar, or it could be totally different...  Predicting this game is like predicting whether or not I would update the stats promptly after having a bad game.  Like predicting whether or not Nelly would throw his bat after popping up, or whether or not fosmo would come to another game after getting the lead in the batting race... actually, those things aren't that hard to predict... this game shouldn't be either.  Dead Money will be happy just making it to the championship during a season in which they know they didn't exactly earn it in a very convincing fashion... Don't believe me? They are 8-2 dispite giving up 5 more runs than they scored throughout the year. 

PT is a team full of seasoned... cagey veterans. Alot of them can't run, but they can hit. The guys that can't hit can play defense... and most importantly, they have been in games like this countless times before. (FYI, we have not played PT all year so I really have no idea what I am talking about...anyway) Dead Moneys comeback during the summer playoffs will benefit them mentally...but by the time this game is over thier warm weather championship will be a distant memory. The cagey veterans pull this one off....shutting down Dead Money during the late innings after thier homers are used up.
Prediciton: PT General Mortgage 15, Dead Money 10

Its been a bad couple of years for the mortgage industry...maybe this will help turn things around.