Tigers in 5
The biggest question facing the Detroit Tigers is can they avoid the rust, and swelled heads that an easy win in the ALCS and a week off has given them? While the St. Louis Cardinals come in with their pitching rotation turned around, as a seven game NLCS will force them to use the back end of the rotation first.
In the ALCS the Tigers came in an manhandled an Athletics team that easily beat the Minnesota Twins in the Division Series, combined with their three straight wins against the Yankees, they have won seven in a row, and last year the White Sox showed a team can get hot and win it all. Meanwhile lets face facts the Cardinals are lucky to be standing where they are at the Mets were without two of their top starting pitchers, and Cliff Floyd who was limited to pinch hitting because of an Achilles Injury, and it still took the Cardinals seven nail biting games to squeak by an injury riddled team.
The Tigers have the pitching edge, the bullpen edge, and the lineup edge, not to mention the home field edge, but it’s not impossible that the Cardinals can win. If Albert Pujols has an in-human World Series, and sets records for homers and RBI, If Jeff Weaver and Jeff Suppan can pitch as well as they did in the NLCS, and if Chris Carpenter pitches like he did in the NLDS the Cardinals will win the series.
However, Pujols is not hitting well and they got past the Mets despite just 1 RBI from their MVP, and Suppan has always had the Mets number, I don’t think its possible he will have the Tigers number too, as for Weaver an ex-Tiger may find motivation in beating one of his former teams, it wont be enough as the Tigers are just plain and simply better than the Cardinals.
This is the third time these two teams have met in the Fall Classic both previous meetings went seven games with the Cardinals Gas House Gang winning a Game 7 in Detroit best remembered for the Joe Medwick incident, and the Tigers winning Game 7 in 1968 on the road behind the pitching of Mickey Lolich. This series will not go seven games look for the Tigers to roar and the Cardinals to bee lucky it won’t be in four but in five as Ivan Rodriguez captures the World Series MVP.
Predictions Made 10/20/06 at 4:15 pm EST
