Some quick playoff predictions before the games begin, and to save my self the embarrassment, I will do this round by round.

The clock will finally strike midnight for the Twins, who must have dragged themselves into New York around 1 am, if they were lucky. Yanks have set rotation , are well rested, and home field advantage. While I would love to see New York falter, I just cannot see it.

Yanks win in 3 straight, the twins will make it close, but they have a weaker rotation, and the bottom 3 hitters wouldn't make the Yankees bench squad.

The Red Sox venture to southern California, and get 2 warm games so excuse them for maybe falling victim to the sweet seduction of the west coast, and a dash of Lackey and Weaver. Through a suddenly hot Ervin Santana, and for good measure alternate lefties Joe Saunders and Scott Kazmir, and voila, they out match the Red Sox. But as these are the Sox, give them at least one game, but Halos prevail.

That's the AL, now onto the NL.

The other Cinderella story is the Rockies, and all they get is the defending World Series champs from Philly. Now I don't see the Rox winning, but I do see them challenging the Phils. If they ever get to closer's role in Philly, they may wish for the return of Mitch Williams.

Lee and Hamels are leagues better than what Colorado have, so this one goes 4 with Philles prevailing.

Now the last of the 4 divisional series pits the 2 large brains, in Tony LaRussa and Joe Torre, and make no mistake, these 2 will try and out manage each other, and they do not even like one another. Edge going in goes to St.Louis behind Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter, and the LA bats were pretty quiet up until last Saturday, so the advantage is all Cards.

However, we play this between the white lines folks, and my hunch is it will go the distance and St.Louis will win in 5.

The addition of Matt Holliday to the middle of the line up, and the depth of Cardinals rotation, giving Carpenter the Game 1 assignment, meaning he can start twice, and both would be home games.

This will easily be the best played series, and will be the closest in terms of scores, unless Torre decides he wants to pitch to Albert Pujols, then all bets are off. The Cards weakness is the back end of their rotation, and maybe middle relief, which may not be a big factor in a short series.

We'll see how smart I am by this time next week.