MLB and More CFB Randomness

The MLB playoffs started today, as the A's, Cardinals, and Yankees all took 1-0 leads in their respectives series. I was mostly impressed by the Yankees, because that lineup will mash even respectable MLB pitching. I think the Yankees take their series in 4 against the Tigers.
I see the A's taking their series against Minnesota now. Johan Santana was decent today, but by taking Game One in Minnesota today the A's have taken a huge adavantage. The Twins will take it to 5, but the A's played pretty inspiring ball today and I'm thinking they'll win with Haren on the mound in Game 5.
The Cards looked good today as well, but I'm not sold on them being a title contender yet. Their staff is pretty weak, but they'll get by San Diego. I also thought it was pretty funny that on ESPN the on field reporter, Duke Castiglione, was mentioning how passionate the San Diego crowd was. When Joy and I went out in early May for our Honeymoon and saw them play 2 games against the Cubs, there were more Cubs fans there than Pads fans. The way their fans acted it seemed like the Padre fans viewed baseball more as a social event than actually going to a baseball game. While we were impressed with the stadium and the tour of Petco we took, we weren't impressed with San Diegans as baseball fans.
I'll also take the Dodgers over the Mets. I don't see the Mets having the pitching to hang with the Dodgers, even with the Top 5 in the Met batting order being all All-Stars.
So I'll take the Dodgers over the Cardinals in the NLCS, and I think that one will go 6. The Yankees will play the A's, and I see the Yankees sweeping that series. A well rested Yankees team will play the Dodgers, and just to go against the grain I'll take the Dodgers in 7. The Dodgers should get some pretty good pitching from Brad Penny, Greg Maddux, Hong Chih-Kuo, and Derek Lowe and I think they can score enough runs to hang with the Yankees. However, if the Yankees average 7 runs a game in the playoffs I won't be suprised.

CFB Randomness
I have been doing some good college football ponderance, and the more I think about it, the more I like the team that Michigan has. I still think that OSU is a clear cut No. 1, but Michigan is my number two right now. I think that if Auburn was fully healthy they'd be my number 2, but they've got a couple defensive starters out along with their center. They will all get healthy over the next month, so it could get interesting as we head into the last 3 weeks of CFB.

As for Michigan, that team is scary. They've got what could be the best offensive line in the country and Michael Hart is healthy and running strong. Mario Manningham is one of the top 3 WR in the Big Ten (along with Ted Ginn and Anthony Gonzalez), and teaming him with Adrian Arrington and Steve Breaston gives them a WR corps that is just as good as OSU's. Michigan's run defense is awesome, and their defense as a whole is vastly underrated right now.

It's pretty eerie how both OSU and Michigan are pretty close to the same team right now. Both teams can run the ball very well (Mich might be a touch better), both have awesome WR corps, both have good O-Lines (Michigan again a notch better), but OSU definitely has the better QB. Both D-Lines are very good, and Mich. has a little more experience at LB. Both secondary's are getting better with experience, but the matchup on November 19th will be one for the ages. I see Michigan getting up to number three in the polls by the time we play them, and I already think they are better than Florida, West Virginia, and USC. The jury is still out if UM is better than Auburn right now, and but we'll learn alot about Auburn over the next few weeks as they run the SEC gauntlet over the next month . This will be one awesome CFB season to watch mature as we head towards November 19th.