Joining the Show

Welcome to J Peck's Sports Blog. My name is Justin Peck. I am an avid sports fan who sports of interest includes baseball, football (both the pigskin and the round type), and ice hockey. The goal of this blog is to post at least a weekly recap of events that happened in these major fields of sports.

September is my favorite time of the year for sports, because both college football and professional football is just starting out and Major League Baseball is entering the final month of the regular season, where we finally find out who is going to the post-season.

Baseball:
As of today, August 4th, if the playoffs were to start today the following teams would make the playoffs. For the American League: The Boston Red Soxs, The Cleveland Indians, The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and The New York Yankees as the Wild Card. For the National League: The New York Mets, The Chicago Cubs, the San Diego Padres, and the Arizona Diamondbacks as the Wild Card. So the playoff match-ups would be Cleveland v. Boston, NYY v. Anaheim, NYM v. Arizona, and Chicago v. San Diego. These would be great series to watch because each series has a bit of a sub-plot to them.
The first series would feature a re-match of the 1998 ALDS in which Cleveland won three games to one. This would also be the first time Cleveland has made the post season since 2001. The second series would feature one of the few teams in the past quarter century to have a winning record against the New York Yankees in the Anaheim Angels. The third series would be all about the Mets and their quest at revenge from last year's surprising exit from the playoffs at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals. The last series would focus on the Cubs and whether or not they can get into the World Series and win and break their "curse". If this were to be the actual playoff scenario for next month, I would place the New York Mets after beating the Cubs in 6 game series against the LA Angels after a 7 game series with the Red Soxs. In the end, the Mets would win the World Series in a great 7 game series. But before that scenario happens, the rest of the month has to play out, so that is not my official prediction.

While surfing through ESPN.com, I found an interesting article written by Jonah Keri intitled, Anything and everything that will determine the playoffs. My problem I found with this article was his second point on momentum. Keri seemed to miss the whole idea about momentum and the post-season. What is important about momentum is how your team is playing the last few weeks of the regular season, especially this season. For some reason, no team is really pushing head of the pack and stating that they are the team to beat. The key is when your team has the late surge of momentum. If your team is going forward, meaning having a good string of wins and playing well, your teams has a really good shot of keeping that momentum and riding it all the way to the World Series, i.e. the Cardinals last year. This concept doesn't guarantee success, but is usually a good indicate of things to come. On the other side of the equation, if your team limps into the playoffs, chances are your team is not going to get out of the first round. The Tigers last year lost their last 5 games and went 4-6 in their last 10, but managed to make it into the World Series. So unlike Newton's law, baseball momentum is not always a given.

My next post will be discussing college and professional football. Until next time kids...