Tampa in 7. Here is my justification:
1) I believe that Tampa is slightly better on offense even though Philly might have the best three offensive players (Howard, Rollins, Utley) if that makes any sense. Both teams rely almost exclusively on home runs, although Tampa has a slight edge in speed.
2) I think Tampa has a rather large advantage in starting pitching, even though Philly has the best starter (Hamels).
3) Philly has a much better closer (Lidge), and is solid at set-up (Madson). Tampa has like 19 7th inning guys that are all solid, but nobody lock-down at the end.
4)Defensively, I don't think either team is great, although Tampa seems to make more errors.
5) Manager-wise, I really like Joe Maddon's "rayhawk" and glasses, and he seems to do goofy shit that is a little unconventional. Manuel has the classic managerial gut, but is pretty goddamn boring.
6) I think the "Trop" is more of a home field advantage than Citizen's Bank because of the cowbells, the weird fake grass, the awkward roof with all of the catwalks knocking down fly balls and the possibility that a live sting ray will jump out of the giant tank in center field and put a barb through Shane Victorino's eye. Philly has "better" fans, and by that I simply mean that they've been going to games for a long time and probably more "passionate", which doesn't take much because as far as I know, Tampa didn't have a baseball team until about 5 minutes ago, and they were playing in front of crowds of 600 until September. However, Philly fans are gigantic assholes and will probably be throwing cups of feces at Ryan Howard when he strikes out with the bases loaded in Game 3.
All of this equals a 7 gamer for Tampa. I think Philly wins games 1, 4 and 5. Two Hamels starts and a random other start.
2 comments:
I believe those rays have had their stingers removed, so that theory would be impossible. Also, Rays in 5.
Sources close to the team tell me that there is a sleeper in there, and it stings about one out of 1,000 kids. Most of which die and are fed to the remaining stingrays.
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