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Picking a winner in the wild-card World Series ain't easy

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- In the good old days of Yankees dynasties -- say, the late '90s -- it was easy to pick a World Series winner. You went with the Yankees. If you were wrong -- well, it's not like it was a stupid pick or something. It was just wrong.

But the Anaheim Angels and the San Francisco Giants? How do you pick that? How do you choose between two teams that no one expected to be here in the first place?

What happened to Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, anyway? Where are the Braves? Wasn't Jason Giambi supposed to be the missing piece in New York?

The A's? Has anyone seen the A's?

The beauty of this particular World Series, which starts Saturday in Anaheim, lies in its tantalizing unpredictability. There's no history to rely on. Hardly any present, either. The two teams have never met in the World Series (Anaheim's never even been there). They met 16 times in interleague play from 1997-2001, with the Giants winning the series, 11-5. But they didn't play this season.

What's it all mean? Nothing. It means history's out.

A far as the players go, there's not a lot of World Series history there, either. Reggie Sanders of the Giants was with last year's champs, the Arizona Diamondbacks, playing against one of his teammates on the Giants, reliever Jay Witasick (a reliever with the Yanks). San Francisco's Livan Hernandez and Kenny Lofton and Robb Nen all have limited World Series experience (though not with the Giants). Anaheim reliever Dennis Cook is the only one of the Angels who has been to the Series (with the Mets in 2000).

Mostly, these teams are filled with guys who have been spending their late Octobers vacationing in the Caribbean and polishing the little hood ornaments on their Benzes.

What we're saying here is that they have no clue, either, as to what to expect. So forget World Series experience.

Start with pitching. It always comes down to pitching, doesn't it? Except there are no Cy Young winners, no Cy Young possibles, no All-Stars, no one who ever has won 20 games on these rosters. All right, Anaheim's Kevin Appier, probably the Game 2 starter, was an All-Star with Kansas City in 1995. That hardly counts.

The pitching staffs are a bunch of guys named "Who?" and "Say Again?" There are two guys named Ortiz (Russ for the Giants, Ramon for the Angels), the two Game 1 aces (Anaheim's Jarrod Washburn and San Francisco's Jason Schmidt), rookie John Lackey of the Angels and lefty Kirk Rueter of the Giants. There's Hernandez of the Giants, undefeated in eight postseason starts. And Appier.

Even with these unimpressive casts, the Angels were ranked second in the American League in pitching (3.69 ERA) and had the best bullpen in the league (2.98), while San Francisco's staff (3.54 ERA) was behind only Atlanta in the National League. Evidently, someone's doing some pitching.

How about big swingers? Well, there's no one bigger than the Giants' Barry Bonds, the one name that adds a little pizzazz to this whole deal. Nobody's been able to pitch to him effectively all year. And when opponents refuse to pitch to him, players like Benito Santiago and J.T. Snow have been making them pay.

The question rattling around seems to be what the Angels should do with Bonds. The answer is simple: Avoid him like everyone else does. The real question is what the Angels should be doing with the rest of the Giants' lineup -- Rich Aurilia and Jeff Kent in front of Bonds, and Santiago and Snow behind him.

The Angels have some hitters, too, though no one in Bonds' class. The Angels don't wait for guys like Bonds or Kent or Santiago or Snow. They try to start things with David Eckstein and Darin Erstad, get them moving along the basepaths, get Garret Anderson or Tim Salmon or designated hitter Brad Fullmer to drive them in and keep doing it. Bat after bat after bat. The key to getting the Angels out is getting the top of the lineup out. And that means not giving in when they foul off five balls in a row.

Defense? Nobody cares about defense. They're equal, OK? Lofton's arm is weak, which means the Angels will run on him, but no one on the Angels has a Vladimir Guerrero arm out there, either.

How about managers? Like everyone, Dusty Baker of the Giants and Anaheim's Mike Scioscia have had their second-guessers this postseason. Scioscia heard it when he didn't use closer Troy Percival in Game 1 of the divisional series against the Yankees. Baker heard it when he used reliever Manny Aybar in the divisional series against Atlanta. Still, what the managers have done has mostly worked. It's tough to say one of these managers is better than the other.

So what we have here are two well-rounded teams with equally OK pitching staffs (though the bullpen nod goes to Anaheim), something that sounds like a sure death knell for any hopes of a short Series.

It's easy to say that Bonds makes the Giants a superior offensive team. But it's foolish to think that the Angels, who have hit .328 this postseason and were tops in the AL during the regular season (.282), will take a back seat to anyone. (San Francisco has hit .247 this postseason.)

How do you pick it? Short of a dart board and a blindfold, you go with the team that makes fewer mistakes, the one that is more aggressive, the one that has more contributors to the cause (in case anyone breaks down), the one that played in the tougher division.

You go with the Anaheim Angels in, say, six games. That's what you do.

It might be a wrong pick. But it's not a stupid one.

John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here.

 

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