So yeah. That happened. To cap off a great first round of postseason play, the Cardinals shock the Phillies, as Carpenter out-dueled Roy Halladay. The Phillies were my World Series pick, and statistically they were picked to win this series. The pitching match-ups were so stacked toward the Phillies. However, statistics are averages, and Cliff Lee pitched terrible, Roy Oswalt pitched terrible, and Edwin Jackson pitched amazingly. The Law of averages said this probably wouldn't happen, but the very unlikely happened. There really isn't any other way to explain it. The Phillies hitters were really unimpressive, and didn't successfully work counts and take pitches (only 3.5 pitches per plate appearances in game 5 with no walks). When you do that, you lose virtually every time. Ryan Howard did nothing in the last 3 games, and Pence, Polanco, Ibanez, and Ruiz all underperformed (and Ruiz and Ibanez were rated really low, not much were expected from them). The Cardinals bullpen, once considered a problem, performed very solid. Despite battling injuries Schumaker proved to be one of the best hitters in the series, and was pretty lowly rated. Just a goofy series, and it proved just about anything can happen in a 5 game series.
Pre-Statistics picks: 3-1
Statistic Picks: 0-4
Teams with higher payroll: 2-2
Interesting note: none of the top 9 payroll teams made it past the first round. The Tigers, 10th highest payroll, have the highest payroll out of teams remaining.
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