Expecting the Unexpected

Although I cannot claim to be a real Flyers fan, anyone from the Philly area has to be loving the NHL Eastern Conference Playoffs right now.  After getting in the playoffs on the last day of the season, facing the 2-seed in the first round, being down 3-0 in the second round, and losing their goalie, the Flyers now have home ice advantage in the Eastern Conference Finals and won Game 1 6-0 last night.  I doubt anyone outside of my good friend Bean could have predicted a series of events for the Fly Guys anything like what has gone down in the past few weeks.

Along the same lines, the baseball season thus far has been nowhere close to what most of the "experts" would have expected.  Here's a quick look at some things that just shouldn't be happening:

AL East - The Red Sox are in 4th place.  The Yankees, commonly picked to win the World Series again, are in 2nd behind the Rays.  The Rays are not necessarily a surprise, but the 3rd place Halladay-less Blue Jays certainly are

AL Central - No surprise to me the Twins are in first.  To my credit, though, I'm awesome.  The Royals winning 14 games with only 1 of those coming from Cy Young winner Zack Greinke is definitely unexpected

AL West - The Mariners were looking mighty good with two aces and the addition of Chone Figgins, but they have one of the worst records in baseball.  The Angels, who were the other favorite to win the division, are also under .500.

NL East - The Nationals.  Holy crap the Nationals.

NL Central - The largely favored Cardinals are in 2nd place behind the surprising Reds and just ahead of the Pirates.  Yes, the Pirates are in 3rd

NL West - The Padres are in 1st place after back-to-back losing season and with no sign of a real offense aside from Adrian Gonzalez

So, although the season is still relatively young, many things are happening around the league that have people confused.  It's tough for a team to be a fluke for an entire 162-game season, so things will even out eventually.  

In the meantime, the Pirates are in 3rd place and coming to Philadelphia.  It's tough to claim the Pirates have been successful this season with a 16-21 record, but it's tough to tell both Pittsburgh baseball fans that the Pirates have been unsuccessful considering the horrendous failures for the past 17 seasons.  Third place is a big deal.

Win or lose, the season has been exciting to watch for Pirates fans.  They are 11-4 in games decided by 2 runs or less.  That means that they get to see other teams score a lot of runs in games they lose.  That's exciting, right?

This is good and bad news for the Phillies.  We know that we can score a lot of runs.  We also know the pain of losing close games all too often.  I have a feeling that this 2-game series will see more success, though.

Game 1: Charlie Morton vs. Kyle Kendrick

Charlie Morton sounds like a baseball player's name.  That seems to be all he has going for him this season.  He has a quality start in each of his last 3 games, and his ERA is still over 9.  That means that he has an ERA of 4.50 at the very most in his last 3 games, yet in 7 games this season, he has an ERA of 9.19.  I normally do a stupid amount of math and calculations in this blog, but I'm just going to say that he completely sucked for 4 games before becoming decent.  This game could end up being something like 12-6 in favor Phillies with the Pirates random offensive success showing up while Kendrick pitches.  Kendrick could also end up pitching a shutout.  We'll see which Kyle shows up for this game.

Game 2: fill-in-the-blank Pirates pitcher vs. Roy Halladay

I would say sorry, but I hate Pittsburgh.

This series should be a 2-game sweep for the Phils, relying on offense in one game and pitching in the next.  But with the way this baseball season has been thus far, we can't really know what to expect.