ALCS Preview

This series between the Detroit Tigers and Oakland A's is going to be a doozy. It features the two best pitching staffs in baseball and two strong young starting rotations. The Tigers will send guys to the mound like Justin Verlander and Jeremy Bonderman who you have now heard of because they beat the Yankees. The A's will send Barry Zito, Dan Haren and Rich Harden to the mound and you will know all of them by the time this series is over.

These games will be tight and not that many runs are going to be scored. Both teams have more pop than they are credited with but both will have to manufacture runs to move on. I look for Frank Thomas to have a big series for the A's just as he did against the Twins in the division series. He and the other A's will be patient at the plate and make the Tigers starters work deep counts. On the other side the Tigers are impatient at the plate and Zito and Harden will work that to their advantage by throwing their fierce curveballs out of the strike zone and havng guys chase. Both teams play good defense so neither team has a huge advantage their.

I said that the winner of the A's-Twins series will win the World Series and I am sticking with that prediction.

A's in 7