The other half of the Wild Card matchups has finalized, as the Tampa Bay Rays cruised to a 5-1 victory against Oakland Athletics. Their prize? The best team in all of the Majors, the Houston Astros, whom are also the prohibited favorite to win it all for the second time in three seasons.
Check out the bullet points and text below to see whom I picked to win that series, as well as the other American League Divisional Series matchup:
- Tampa Bay Rays Vs. Houston Astros-The Rays have been a nice story in 2019 under manager Kevin Cash, as he guided them to 96 wins during the regular season, along with their first postseason win since 2013. However, it’s going to end there, as I see the Astros sweeping their way into the ALCS. I just can’t see the Rays beating the three-headed monster of Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and Zach Greinke in a five-game series.
- Minnesota Twins Vs. New York Yankees-After years of getting pushed around by the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Indians, the Twins won the American League Central for the first time since 2010. However, they can never seem to avoid the Yankees in this round, as this series marks the fifth time since 2003 that both of these two teams face each other in this round. Plus, they also met in the 2017 American League Wild Card Play-In Game. Since 2003, the Twins are 2-13 against the Yankees in the postseason, with both those wins coming courtesy of Johan Santana. Santana isn’t walking through that door but neither is Yankees pitcher Domingo German, a starter whom boasted an 18-4 record before being suspended for the rest of this season. The absence of German gives the Twins a little more hope than in previous series’ against the Yankees. However, I still think growing pains will abound for them, thus why I’m taking the Yankees in this series. But the Twins won’t go down without a fight, which is why I have this series going the full five games.
Well, those are my predictions for the 2019 American League Divisional Series round.
Tune in about a week’s time to my predictions for the entire League Championship Series round.