Who Cards Fans Should Root for This Postseason
For the first time in five years, the MLB Postseason will begin without the presence of the St. Louis Cardinals. This leaves us Cardinal fans with an odd predicament, who do we root for this October? If you are so frustrated you refuse to watch anymore baseball this year, that is completely acceptable, but, if not, I will give you some ideas about who to pull for.
First, I will set the field. Tonight, the American League Wild Card game will be played by the Baltimore Orioles and the Toronto Blue Jays. The winner of tonight’s game will move on to Texas, where they will face the AL best Rangers. On the other side of the AL, the Boston Red Sox will face the Cleveland Indians.
As for the National League, most of you probably know, the San Francisco Giants will play the New York Mets tomorrow night, in the NL Wild Card game. The winner of that game will go on to play the Chicago Cubs, who, as we all know by now, have the best record in baseball. In the other National League Division Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers will play the Washington Nationals.
Now that you have the whole picture, I can eliminate a few teams right off the bat. No self-respecting Cardinal fan will be rooting for the Cubs this postseason, so they are automatically off the list. Also, staying along those lines, the Washington Nationals are managed by Dusty Baker, who is a familiar foe for St. Louis fans, from his days with Chicago and Cincinnati. That takes two teams off the list right away.
Since I have already eliminated two National League teams, I will go ahead and round out the senior circuit participants. In the wild card game, I think we all agree that we want to see the San Francisco Giants get rolled by the Mets. They have now eliminated us from the postseason in three of the last five years, and of course, they kept us out this season. So that leaves us pulling for the Mets in tomorrow’s game. After that, since we already eliminated the Cubs, for obvious reasons, we will again be rooting for the Mets to sweep the Cubbies, just like they did in last year’s National League Championship Series. I will also say that it is incredibly hard to root for the Dodgers, even though they cannot beat us when it counts. So, the best we can hope for in that NLDS, is that the Nationals and Dodgers go seven games, Bryce Harper has more hit by pitches than hits, Yasiel Puig strikes out every plate appearance, and Clayton Kershaw gets blasted in his starts. All that leads us to the Mets, who really have never done anything to make us hate them, except maybe sign Tim Tebow. The most recent time we faced them in the postseason was 2006, when we beat them in seven games, on our way to the World Series Championship.
Now for the American League side. All Cards fans remember what the Boston Red Sox have done to our team in 2004 and 2013, and that is embarrass them, in two World Series appearances. So they are off the list. For the rest of the AL, I am really indifferent. The Rangers, Orioles, and Blue Jays are teams the Cardinals do not have much history with, though, we did beat the Rangers in the 2011 World Series, but we all remember that. The Indians, in my mind, are a good team to root for, mostly because of the movie Major League, but they would also be a good story.
Now that I have narrowed the National League down to the Mets, ruled out the Red Sox, and decided the Indians are my American League pick, I will add one more thing. I would rather a National League team win the World Series. I think the National League is a better league, simply because there is still managerial strategy, with no DH, and there seems to be a lot more defense and good pitching in the NL. So, that leaves me hoping that the New York Mets win it all this year. But, you can go ahead and pull for any team you so choose, as long as it is not the Chicago Cubs.
