RE: And Then There Were Eight...

What a wild finish!!! Any doubt that the Wild Card Experiment was a bad idea went away last night as four teams had to fight for the right to get the final two spots.  We can talk about chokes, collapses, and conspiracies all year long.  The fact remains that the season is now over for 22 teams and the remaining eight are moving on to the postseason.  There will be a new champion as the defending WS champs are taking the rest of the year off.  But the AL team in last year's World Series is back and can't wait to get started.
 
The Playoff fields are now been set and once again, there will not be a game 163 played.

So for the NL, you have:

• the Philadelphia Phillies, who've won the NL East division for the fifth consecutive year,
• the Milwaukee Brewers, who've won their first NL Central EVER (and their first division crown of any sort since 1982),
• the Arizona Diamondbacks, who've returned to the playoffs after two consecutive fifth place finishes in the NL West, and
• the Wild Card winners, the St. Louis Cardinals, who overcame an 8.5 game deficit in the WC standings to win the right to play in the postseason.

The AL has these four teams going into the postseason:

• the New York Yankees, last year's Wild Card team, now AL East champ,
• the Detroit Tigers, the first team to punch their tickets to the playoffs,
• the Texas Rangers, last year's AL Champions and the team to beat,
• and the Tampa Bay Rays, the AL Wild Card winners, who overcame a 9 game deficit in the WC standings and made it in the most dramatic fashion.

 
May the best team win.

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama