So the playoffs are under way and we were having so much fun in Tucson that we forgot to do our playoff predictions. Well, never fear dear readers, this might be late, but it’s here:

Sarah’s Picks:
ALDS: Red Sox over Angels in 4, Yankees over Twins in 3
ALCS: Red Sox over Yankees in 7 games
NLDS: Phillies over Rockies in 4, Dodgers over Cardinals in 5
NLCS: Dodgers over Phillies in 6
World Series: Red Sox over Dodgers in 6

Paul’’s Picks:
ALDS: Red Sox over Angels in 4, Yankees over Twins in 4
ALCS: Yankees over Red Sox in 7 games
NLDS: Phillies over Rockies in 4, Cardinals over Dodgers in 5
NLCS: Phillies over Cardinals in 6
World Series: Yankees over Phillies in 6

Alejandro’s Picks:
ALDS: Red Sox over Angels in 5, Yankees over Twins in 5
ALCS: Yankees over Red Sox in 7 games
NLDS: Phillies over Rockies in 5, Cardinals over Dodgers in 5
NLCS: Cardinals over Phillies in 7
World Series: Cardinals over Yankees in 7

Zvee’s Picks:
ALDS: Phils over Rocks (3-1)
ALCDS: Yanks over Twins (3-0)
NLDS: Cards over Dodgers (3-2)
ALDS: Angels over Sox (3-2)
NCLS: Cards over Phils (4-2)
ALCS: Yanks over Angels (4-1)
World Series: Cards over Yanks (4-2)

Coley’s picks:

What ha happened...?

MLB.tv began its post-season broadcast with tonight’s one-game playoff between the Twins and Tigers and it featured the nifty multi-angle broadcast layout we saw during the all-star game.

The draw is in the ability for you to click on up to 10 different camera angles from across the stadium (or four simultaneously), and at first it seems like a cool way to watch the game. However, after a while, or after settling down in front of your laptop (some of us don’t have a TV hooked up), the whole thing turns the experience into a cumbersome mess.

Zoom zoom

Because you’re fixed on one camera angle, you’ll have to imagine what happens on the field when the ball is in play, if say you’re watching the center field camera (see top screen-grab). It doesn’t shift to a different angle that follows the action as you’ve been trained by a professionally-produced broadcast.

Also, you’ll have to endure the zoom adjustments done by the camera operator (remember, you’re stuck on his/her view), meaning you’ll get taken for quite a ride if you’re on the high home plate camera, which zooms in as the player hits a ball in play, and then back out once the play is dead.

Although the announcers could be heard on a few camera angles during the All-Star game, I actually heard both dudes during last night’s game on all angles, but I get the impression that sound is also fixed. Crowd noise is more pronounced, even causing the speakers to “pop” when it climbs above the 0 db level, which makes me think that you’re also locked into the camera’s microphone.

Again, I think it’s a cool way to watch the game for a few innings, and MLBAM itself is calling the service (dubbed Postseason.tv) as a “complementary” broadcast if you’ve got the game on your TV, but they should also offer users a choice for a single stream that emulates the main broadcast.

If you’re a regular subscriber to MLB.tv, you can simply login using your credentials. Otherwise you can pay $9.95 for the Postseason.tv online package.

IPhone or iPoud Touch users who have the At Bat application can also choose among the different camera angles, or watch four simultaneous feeds.

Now, 8=2. Or 9=2. Or 2+2=5. Whatever. The point is, there are only two teams left: the NL Champion Philadelphia Phillies and the AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays. Who do you think will win the World Series?

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TBS is showing a re-run of the Steve Harvey Show. I don’t even know what that is. My boyfriend had to spell it for me.

WHERE IS MY BASEBALL? WHERE IS MY BECKETT? WHERE IS TROPICANA FIELD?

Right about now, those mowhawked, blue-haired, cowbell-ringin’ Rays fans are standing and screaming, “NOT IN OUR HOUSE, MUTHAF*CKAS!”

Right about now, the Red Sox are slappin’ some extra pine tar on their helmets and spittin’ their chaw on the dugout steps.

But I am watching a man with a mustache crack jokes to a laugh track due to “technical difficulties.”

“Please stand by,” they’re telling me.  And I’m telling them, “THERE’S ONLY ONE OCTOBER, A**HOLES!”

Mr. Hyde receives counsel from Jason Varitek and John Farrell

The big game is less than an hour away and the big question is, undoubtedly: which Josh Beckett will show up tonight?

As this NYT article points out, his fastball velocity is dangerously down:

His fastball averaged 93.9 miles an hour in 2008, but it decreased to 92.4 against the Angels and just 91.1 against the Rays, according to the Inside Edge scouting service. (In three postseason starts last year, he averaged 95.3.)

And as Tony Massarotti noted, putting his finger right on the crux of the issue after Beckett’s Game 2 start, this is making him entirely too hittable:

The most disturbing statistic from this game was that Beckett threw 93 pitches and managed just four swings-and-misses, only one of them coming on a fastball.

Let’s say that again.

Beckett threw 93 pitches and got one fastball by a Tampa hitter – a swinging strike by B.J. Upton in the first inning. Every other fastball was either put in play or fouled off.

The other swings-and-misses? Two were on curveballs, one on a cutter. And this was against a Tampa team that struck 1,224 times during the regular season, more than any AL club but the Oakland A’s (1,226).

And keep in mind that the A’s have Jack Cust.

Whether Beckett wants to admit publicly that he’s hurting or not, the radar gun doesn’t lie. Well, sometimes it does…but that’s not the point. The box score doesn’t lie, and last time the Rays managed 9 hits–three of them leaving the ballpark–and 8 runs off of Beckett in four and a third. Though he has struggled to notch first-pitch strikes this postseason (48% of batters, according to the same NYT article), he only walked 1 Ray last time out, while striking out 5. (He walked 4 and struck out 6 against the Angels, and also gave up 9 hits, including two longballs.)

Tonight, Beckett’s first challenge will be to keep the ball inside the ballpark. So far this postseason, he’s given up 5 homers in 9 and a third innings. A home run every other inning? That just won’t do.

The fate of the Rays if Dr. Beckett shows up

His second challenge will be to keep the ball close to, if not actually inside, the strike zone–especially on the first pitch. Throwing the first pitch for a strike will allow him to rely more on his breaking stuff, which he’ll have to do since he clearly can’t blow the heater by these Rays. I say “close to” the strike zone since everything “in” the zone seems to end up soaring into the stands or ricocheting around the outfield.

(Yes, these are basics–but if their offense has caught fire, that’s all Boston needs.)

His third challenge will be beating himself. Look, a big 28-year old Texan used to throwing 95 with movement just isn’t a finesse kind of guy. When he’s behind in the count–heck, when he’s ahead in the count and smelling blood in the water–he’ll want to reach back for the gas. But right now, the tank’s empty. He won’t like it, and he hasn’t had time to learn it, but until that muscle heals he’ll just have to throw something else.

So tonight, Josh Beckett, the Boston Red Sox, and nervous Fenway Faithful everywhere are all hoping the same thing: please, hardball gods, let Jason Varitek have a plan.

I noticed a subtlety in Jerry Crasnick’s write-up of last night’s absolutely inSANE game between the Red Sox and Rays—Game 2, in which the Rays tied the series 1-1 after pulling off a walk-off win in the 11th against Mike Timlin. (Why does Terry Francona bring in Timlin in extra innings anymore?? As soon as he comes in, I just know the game is over. I just know it. And the frat guys who live upstairs know it. And the waitress at Kelly’s Diner on the corner knows it. That guy from Sullivan Tire knows it. Mayor Menino knows it. My dog knows it. And, in fact, I suspect Mike Timlin knows it. Because all across New England, EVERYONE KNOWS THE GAME IS OVER WHEN MIKE TIMLIN COMES IN. I know he’s a lovely human being, and I know Terry Francona wants to show faith in his players, but come on. He’s shot. It’s over. Hand the ball to someone else. ANYONE ELSE. Even Paul Byrd! Even Tim Wakefield! At least with Wake, you have a 50-50 chance the pitch could float in for a strike.)

Writes Crasnick:

J.D. Drew, who had been plunked on his throwing shoulder by a 95 mph Grant Balfour fastball in the series opener, uncorked a weak throw up the third base line, and Perez scored easily to send the Rays into a celebratory frenzy.

“As soon as I drew my arm back to throw and follow through, I got that good charley horse from where I got drilled in the shoulder last night,” Drew said. “I didn’t have the best grip on the ball, so it kind of sailed a little bit to the right. I knew I had to be perfect. And when I released it, I knew it wasn’t.”

Drew normally has an enviable throwing arm, but the ball bounced twice on its way in. Still, Drew’s explanation can’t help but contrast starkly with this quote from Josh Beckett:

Beckett obliged reporters and answered questions at his locker after the game, but he was cryptic and tight-lipped about his performance and his health status. While the oblique injury appears to have transformed him from John Smoltz version 2.0 to Mr. Rocked-tober, he’s not about to use health problems as an excuse. And he still sounds like a guy who plans to pitch when his turn in the rotation comes around again in Game 6.

“I’m fine,” Beckett said at least four times during a two-minute interview. “It’s just frustrating when your team scores eight runs and you can’t win the [bleeping] game.”

I dunno, JD. Beckett’s badassery sounds pretty, well, badass, compared to your “explanation.” And Dustin MVPedroia played last October with a cracked hamate and we didn’t even know about it until later. And yet you’re blaming your weak-ass two-hopper on an HBP? That’s a thing that makes me go “hmm.”

But here, in the Boston Globe, is this conflicting report: “Drew didn’t make any excuses and didn’t lean on a recurring back problem or the throwing shoulder that got drilled by Grant Balfour in Game 1.”

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

A friend of mine–a Red Sox fan friend–just texted me from the Sox-Angels game in Anaheim. How did he score tickets to ALDS Game 1, you might ask yourself? Good question.

Well, it turns out that he walked up to the ticket window….

And paid them 40 bucks….

Two hours before game time.

Bite me.

And as you may have heard, there is only one October. There is also only one postseason, and unless we are sorely mistaken, the Fall Classic is equally singular. And folks, it starts today. Thus, in today’s Boston Metro column, I (naturally) pick the Red Sox to win the 2007 World Series.

I had originally set out to do the kind of point-by-point comparison I’d done before: Rox versus Sox in the various categories of pitching, defense, baserunning, and offense. But I was stymied at every turn once I tried to get beyond the barest of bones. The NL and the AL have so diverged, it’s hard to make any meaningful comparisons between them with traditional stats. And when you’re also trying to take into account the park factor with Coors Field and Fenway Park, well, it’s was an exercise in futility.

I guess we’ll just have to let baseball decide. May the best team win!