Baseball! An ALCS/NLCS Preview

Certain times of the year always stick out. New Years, April Fools Day, July 4th, September 21st, and Christmas are a couple of days in the year that define seasons. However, every October, on no specific date, the greatest season of all begins: the MLB Postseason.

We’ve gotten some pretty solid showings so far from the magical world of baseball. We had the AL Wild Card Game, the insane Astros-White Sox game three, and the thriller that was Dodgers-Giants. In the Championship Series? MLB might’ve saved their best for last. 

American League

Red Sox vs Astros

Well, well, well. Who would’ve thought we’d be back here? In a rematch of the 2018 ALCS, these two teams are viewed very differently than they were just three years ago. Both have ties to the same cheating scandal, both are vilified outside of their home cities, and both teams look different on the diamond. The Red Sox, expected to tank, are on some kind of run and are probably the hottest team in the majors. For the Astros, they’re the villains. They want to rip out everyone’s hearts and show the sports world that cheating has no consequences and that in just a few years, the same core can reach the top of the mountain again. 

With regards to this series, I’ll be blunt. I’m taking the Sox. Baseball isn’t basketball and it isn’t football. What I mean by that is that baseball is often rewarding to the team with the hot hitters and shifty pitchers. Although there are an abundance of those in this series, the Red Sox might just have more.

Regular season domination doesn’t scare me as much as it would in other American sports. The Yankees had previously dominated the Red Sox in the second half, yet, they got crushed in the Wild Card. The Rays were the best team in the AL and they lost three straight to get bounced in the AL Divisional Series. What I’m trying to say is that the last four or five games are a bigger indication of the series to come than the seven or eight head to head matchups or the 162 games played in the regular season.

For Game One, we get a matchup of two aces. Sale and Valdez are almost polar opposites, with Sale being a veteran coming off an injury and Valdez being a relatively young pitcher. Playing on the road is tough, but a lot of the current Red Sox have played in World Series games on the road, let alone the ALCS. Some of these current Sox have even won big playoff games in Houston, so this is nothing new to them. Valdez’s last two home appearances have yielded four earned runs each, with Valdez going five innings or less in each outing. Sale hasn’t been much better, allowing five and two runs respectively in his last two outings. Two earned runs isn’t bad, but in that game he only pitched 2 ⅓ innings. In his last outing, he gave up five and got pulled after one inning. The Sox won both of those games, but they’ll need the Chris Sale that we saw immediately after his return in order to win Game One. 

This game and series as a whole is an opportunity for both teams to redeem themselves. For Houston, it’s to show the baseball world that they can win without cheating. They cheated in 2017 and won, cheated against Boston who were warned about their cheating in 2018 and lost, and cheated in 2019 against Washington and got destroyed. 2021 gives Houston a chance to get a pure, clean, respectable championship. For Boston, it’s about proving the organization right. That’s why a Sox-Dodgers rematch seems so exciting. If Boston were to even reach the World Series, hell, even them just reaching this series, shows that the Mookie Betts trade didn’t completely tear down the franchise foundations. An ALCS victory would serve as indisputable proof that although the Betts trade might not have been a triumph or even the right decision*, they are still savvy, still effective, and still a player in the American League.

This series will likely be long and likely be dominated by offense. The Astros are your typical elite team full of stars. The Red Sox are the underdogs that nobody expected to even crack a .500 winning percentage this year. Outside of Boston and Houston, and especially in New York, people just want this series to wither away. Whoever makes it out of this series will be rooted against nationally in the World Series and that’s a good thing. Baseball is always better with a historic and toxic fanbase on top (I am from Boston).

*Financially speaking, the trade was actually necessary based on current luxury tax trends. If they didn’t trade Betts and Price, the Sox would’ve been mediocre and in dead money hell for another decade.

National League

Dodgers vs Braves

How many 100+ win teams have had to play a road game to start a series in the playoffs? Well, by the time this series is over, the 106-win Dodgers will have played at least five road games in their first two series. That weird fact just shows how competitive the NL West was this year. The Padres had an MVP candidate and All-Stars everywhere, but due to their schedule and the brutality of the NL West, they missed the playoffs. The Dodgers and Giants led the Major Leagues in wins, with 106 and 107 respectively. Although I won’t touch on the messes that are the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, the message is that this division is good.

The Dodgers are loaded, simple as that. The Braves are riding high after a somewhat messy series against Milwaukee. Look, I’m not gonna get too complicated. This isn’t an even matchup like the AL. The Dodgers will win and they’ll win handily.  

Takeaways

Overall, we should get two pretty good CSes, with the AL being more entertaining, as usual. A 2018 World Series rematch would be enticing, but a 2017 rematch wouldn’t be too shabby either. However, I’m hoping for chaos. We need Sox-Braves, for fun and for baseball.

Written by Adam Zimmerman-Diaz

IG: @adam.zd