Upsets Abound in N.L. Playoffs


Braves and Dodgers unceremoniously kicked to the curb

Anything can happen in a short series






A couple of months ago, I declared the San Diego Padres dead.
This is a display of my overconfidence whenever it comes to prognostication. My lapse of reason for prediction is particularly painful when I’m in Las Vegas. It’s there when my penchant for being a prophet cannot turn a profit.
I should know better by now, and I do, but that doesn’t stop me. In sports, there is always a chance. Sometimes the underdog overcomes all odds and shocks the pundits. That possibility has an ability to wheedle its way into decision making.
There’s always a chance. That’s the tantalizing prospect. To be recognized as an oracle. A soothsayer of the science of sports forecasting.
I didn't see this coming, and that's the problem with the Major League Baseball playoffs. The defending world series champion Atlanta Braves looked unbeatable. The same with the 111 win Los Angeles Dodgers.
Both teams seemed to be locked to meet in the League Championship Series, deciding the right to represent the National League in the 2022 World Series. Despite their best efforts, and despite my highly concentrated mental hocus pocus on behalf of the Dodgers, the favored clubs got drubbed.
The upstart Philadelphia Phillies vanquished the Braves. The Fightin’ Phils made the playoffs by a narrow margin. Once in, they adhered as a team and crushed the mighty Mets and then turned their sights on the defending champion Braves.
Atlanta wasted the season when they got ousted from the tournament with much haste. The last time Atlanta got routed that decisively by a team from the north was by a squad helmed by General William Tecumseh Sherman.
And then the Dodgers. They succumbed to the Friers from the south. Los Angeles had treated the team from San Diego like a trifle. Fans from L.A. would invade the Padres home and would ransack the place like raiding hoodlums.
When the series started, nary a pundit chose the Padres to be victorious against the great blue behemoth. The Dodgers had smited the Pads fourteen times out of nineteen during this season. It would only be a matter of playing the games, and the Dodgers would continue their destiny to get to the World Series.
But, that’s why they play the games. The Braves and Dodgers are gathering their golf clubs and going on vacation.


Photo by Jimmy Conover on Unsplash

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