It’s hard to believe that baseball is playing when the Yankees are not.
For the first time since 1997, the Yankees will not be appearing in the fall classic. The upstart Anahiem Angels fought the Yankees in the American League Division Series, and came out victorious in four games. The Angels—making their first playoff appearance since 1986, when they were known as the California Angels—are looking to advance to the World Series this week for the first time in franchise history.
Minnesota and Oakland were looking to fill the other spot in the American League Champion Series. Oakland took a 2-1 lead in the series and had two games, with one game in Minnesota and one in Oakland to finish off the youthful Twins, but the Twins never gave in, taking games four and five, stunning the heavily favored A’s. Minnesota is making their first playoff appearance since 1991, when they beat out the Atlanta Braves in seven games to win their World Series title.
The San Francisco Giants finally got their revenge on Atlanta for the 1993 campaign. The Braves inched out the Giants by one game to steal the playoff spot from the livid Giants. This year, the Giants took the Braves all the way to game five, and stunned the Atlanta fans by eliminating the Braves from the playoffs, 3-2.
The Cardinals will be meeting the Giants in the National League Division Series, after beating the defending World Series Champion Arizona Diamondbacks in three straight games. The Diamondbacks were heavily favored, going into the postseason with dominant K-men Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, but the Cardinals took both games in Phoenix and finished them off in St. Louis.
All four teams that appeared in the division series last year failed to advance that far this year. The Braves, Yankees, and Diamondbacks all got bounced in the first round of the playoffs, and the Mariners failed to make it to the postseason. The new faces in the playoffs will lead to more interesting plotlines, but TV ratings may fall, due the smaller market teams bouncing the large rmarket teams.
