Idiots Write About Sports

Many, many World Series prediction stories floating around out there in cyberspace. Some of the better ones: David Pinto’s preview at Baseball Musings, Dayn Perry’s writeup over at Baseball Prospectus (pay up, deadbeats!), and Buster Olney’s analysis at ESPN.

Might as well throw my hastily-written analysis into the ring (seeing as how I predicted a Yankees-Cubs throwdown at the beginning of the season, and a Minnesota Twins victory parade at the start of the playoffs).

Whatever edge the Red Sox enjoy in starting pitching is mitigated somewhat by Curt Schilling’s injury — the thinking here is that Schilling was throwing on pure adrenaline in the Yankee series and that asking him to throw two similar starts against the Cardinals may be asking too much — and Terry Francona’s decision to reward Derek Lowe for not pitching like Derek Lowe in Game 7 of the ALCS. The Cardinals have the better bullpen, though not as good as it could be if Steve Kline isn’t in the building. In the battle of former A’s closers, I give the edge to Keith Foulke, though I’ve been predicting all year long that has penchant for giving up flyballs (at least during his time in Oakland) would be a bad fit for Fenway. Now’s as good a time as any for that prediction to pan out.

The Sox have a much better bench and probably a better lineup from top to bottom (though it’s hard to give them too much an edge when you’ve got to face Walker, Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds in consecutive at-bats). Watching David Ortiz at first base (look closely at his glove and you can see that it reads “For display purposes only”) should be good for a guilty laugh or two, though not as big a guilty laugh if Kevin Millar should happen to be penciled in to play right field for any of the games at Busch.

So in case you haven’t gathered by now, I like St. Louis in six. I see the two teams splitting the games at Fenway, the Cards taking two of three in St. Louis, and the Redbirds wrapping things up in Game Six, when Schilling’s ankle gives up the ghost.

Now hurry and place your bets on Boston before tonight’s first pitch. Knowing the way Fox times these telecasts, you’ve got until 10 p.m. Eastern to lay those bets down.

Lousy prediction, pal. Sorry.

Are you searching the web looking for old predictions so you can refute them two months later? Jackass.

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