And That Will Happen ...

See? They were plotting.

Okay, so I'm still thinking of a better title for this. For today, I'll settle with a rip-off of Shysterball. Anyway, last night the Rays continued to kick the crap out of the Red Sox. Who would have thought the Rays would hit so many home runs? I thought the main thing coming in was that they didn't have that much power? I guess this is what happens when Upton's shoulder seems to be healed and adding him to Peña and Longoria, who are just ridiculous. The nice thing for the Red Sox is that they're throwing Kazmir out there tomorrow night, so that should make give them at least another game to play. I have no idea what the heck Maddon is thinking. He thinks out of the box, and I love him for it. But, seriously, Kazmir? Are you trying to lose? Dice-K has been good (at getting out of trouble), and Kazmir has been ... unpredictable. Is Maddon trying to win this series in front of the home crowd? I imagine this played out last night:

Maddon: Woo hoo! We won again!

Friedman: Who would have thought we'd take the first two from the Red Sox at Fenway?

Maddon: I didn't. We could win the series at Fenway!

Friedman: Oh ... Actually, could we win at the Trop?

Maddon: Why?

Friedman: Well, it's just that we never get this many people in our stadium, so we have to try to take advantage of this as much as possible. If we could go home for one more game ... or even two ...

Maddon: Are you serious? Well, okay. I guess that means Kazmir can start Thursday.

Friedman: Why would you do that?

Maddon: I'm thinking "outside-of-the-box". Go with me on this. We'll just say that Shields "pitches better at home". That way, we lose tomorrow night, and we still have Shields, who is pitching better anyway, against Beckett for Game 6.

Friedman: Good idea. But do you think you could start Edwin Jackson for Game 6 and Shields for Game 7?

Now as for what will happen.

Billingsley vs. Hamels
It's a match-up of two bright young pitchers. One is brighter than the other considering he doesn't blame his teammates for him losing. Anyway, Hamels has the distinct edge in this one. He's pitched great, and his change-up should keep hitters off-balance. Billingsley will have to recover from his miserable Game 2 outing. Considering neither of the teams I predicted to win are the ones up 3-1, I'll go with the Phillies, but that just means the Dodgers will win.

BTW (I hate initials like this, so I only use them when I'm feeling frisky or in that sort of mood), I won't be predicting games next year. I only do it now because it is the playoffs, so it won't get old (actually, it probably has, but please just let me have my delusions). Next year, I plan to tell you what games are playing, what time, who the pitchers are, and whether or not you should use your MLB.TV to watch it. If you don't have MLB.TV, you should probably get it for next year. I watched almost half the Braves games this year until they just started sucking it up really bad. Then, I just watched some of the good match-ups. I'll tell you what those are so you don't have to look them up.