With the start of the Wild Card rounds underway, here’s my bracket for the race for the Pennant!
After a wild 162 games later, it’s officially October, the best month of baseball! October 1, starts the push for the pennant and a team to claim the 2024 World Series title. As a San Diego Padres fan who missed less than five games, I can say my bracket has some truth to it! Here is my take on the race and who I think is going all the way!
Wild Card
The wild card series is played by the best teams ranking 3rd through 6th in each league where they will play a total of three games and need to win two to advance. Starting with the American League, the Kansas City Royals head to Maryland to face the Baltimore Orioles, and the Houston Astros host the Tigers from Detroit.
In the Astros vs Tigers matchup, I have Detroit in 3. Who doesn’t love an underdog story? Detroit started the season weak and in August, no one would have believed you if you told them that they clawed their way into the postseason! You can’t have the postseason without the Astros. A team that can be consistent but at the same time down in the dirt, much like the beginning of the 2024 season. When the Astros shared their 26-man roster and Justin Verlander wasn’t on it, I knew they were doomed. If you can’t start with the best veteran pitcher you have, you’ve just thrown away your chance of claiming the throne.
In the second AL match-up, the Royals take on the Orioles where I have Kansas City sweeping Baltimore. Kansas City stayed hot throughout the season. After a horrible 2023 season where they had the second-worst record, things were looking up for the Royals as they made major changes in their roster and pitching staff. The Orioles took flight into the postseason last year and everyone had high hopes for them, but unfortunately were swept in the divisional series against the Texas Rangers in 3 games. When they came back and clinched a spot in the 24 race, I had high hopes for them but against the Royals, not a great chance. The Orioles are young but inexperienced and while they may be hungry, they’re not as hungry as KC.
In the National League, we have the Brew Crew from Milwaukee hosting the New York Mets. On the West Coast, the Atlanta Braves are hosted by the San Diego Padres! An important note is that the Mets and Braves faced off in a makeup doubleheader the day before the first wild card game. The Mets stayed on the East Coast to play Milwaukee while the Braves traveled far to play in San Diego where they didn’t make it in until midnight!
As a fan, I had the Padres take the series in three games, not because I didn’t trust them but because I wanted to go to Game 3. With the loss of the Padres owner, Peter Seilder, and the season dedicated to him, this one is special and the team knows and is playing differently. The players had a plan and have been following it, for him! Looking before the All-Star break, the Braves were a team to be reckoned with and were scary. In contrast, the Padres were struggling to keep a game over .500. After the break, the Padres came out hotter than ever with a no-hitter from Dylan Cease, players coming off the injury list looking like they have been born again. Atlanta started to slow things down, losing games they should’ve easily won.
The doubleheader played on Monday will play a big part in the win for San Diego but with the pitching staff Atlanta has, they can hold San Diego low enough to score some runs.
The Brewers are going to put up a fight but won’t be successful against the Mets. Funny to say but when the Mets brought out Grimace for the first pitch in August, they got hot! The Brewers are a calm, fun team but are going against the high-energy Mets who will rip out everything they have to keep going. Brewers got star players out for the season, like Christian Yelich, which will hurt them deeply.
Divisional Series
From the AL, the Yankees will host the Royals. As hard as this is for me to accept, the Yankees are a dangerous team. The addition of Juan Soto to their already solid lineup makes it even worse. Soto has been having a great season in pinstripes and the team as a whole has been dominant all seasons long, I can’t remember a dry spell they went through that hurt them. This series will be the first one the Yankees will play in the ‘24 season so I expect them to come out hard.
The Royals will come off of a sweep of the birds from Baltimore, but won’t expect the harsh Yankees to play some of the best baseball they can play. Back in June, the Yanks took the 4 game series blowing the Royals out of the water! I don’t see why when stakes are this high in the postseason, New York would let their guard down which is why I have New York in 3.
The Cleveland Guardians will host the Tigers, which is going to be a solid matchup! Cleveland has been solid all season long. They clinched the number 2 spot in the American League and before the All-Star break, were a scary team. The one doubt I have about Cleveland is that they started to get a bit sloppy toward the end. The Tigers, however, are the opposite and recently started to surprise us with their tiger crawl into contention. I think Detroit will put up a fight but ultimately, the Guardians will take the cake in 4.
It’s a battle of the 5-freeway brothers!! A rivalry game between the Padres and the Dodgers in the postseason is going to be the most electric game to watch! After a season of competing and going to South Korea and playing two games, the Padres took the season series going 7-5 against the brother from LA. If you watched the games played, you’ll see that San Diego has a genuine fight against them, and in the push for their first World Series win, there’s nothing that’s going to stop them from taking the National League divisional series in four games. The Dodgers may have Ohtani, Freeman, and Betts but when you compare them to the Padres blaze fire and add in their curse of the NLDS, there is no comparison.
From a Padres fan perspective, looking back on 2022’s postseason, we want neither of these teams to win. But if we had to choose one we take the Mets. Going through the season and looking at the games that they played against one another this season series is split at 7-7. But the way the Mets have been presenting themselves and have been playing is so fun that their push for a pennant is unmatched against the Phillies. The Phillies have an incredible lineup and an incredible home game record, so I think they will go the full five games and the Mets will ultimately win.
Championship Series
The final matchup before the World Series will be the Yankees versus the Guardians and the Padres versus the Mets. I have the Yankees taking the series in four games and the Padres beating the Mets to five games.
The Yankees versus the Guardians seems like a very interesting game and both were the top teams in the American League so I don’t see why they wouldn’t play each other in the championship series. From the season standings, The Yankees seem to take charge going 6 to 2 playing a series in the first half and then again in the second half of the season. As I said earlier the Yankees were a solid team all season long while the Guardians had hiccups. My pick for this series goes to the consistent team, the Yankees.
Though the Mets may have taken the season series from the Padres going 2-5, the way that the pitching staff played in those games was excellent. Our bullpen has evolved, our starting pitchers are better than ever and our lineup is solid. Through the season, we were still figuring out the kinks but now it is perfect on paper, perfect in play, and is ready to take on the Mets.
World Series
The last two standing will be New York’s pinstripes and San Diego’s brown and gold. The Yankees and the Padres have had a very interesting season. They played a series back in May where the Yankees took the series with two wins and a loss in the final game. With the Juan Soto trade that happened over the off-season and San Diego feeling like the trade was not fair, I honestly believe that we got the better end of the deal and because of it, we are in a great position and ready to defeat New York’s Giant. It’s going to be hard and it’s going to be a great game but the San Diego Padres will claim their very first World Series championship against the New York Yankees in five games.