MLB Postseason Predictions; Week 6 College Football coming soon, preview; the catastrophe that was the American Ryder Cup team

The 2025 MLB Playoffs have started today. I have not looked at scores because I don’t want to do that and know something I’m not supposed to. Can the Dodgers repeat or can the Brewers, Phillies, the home run hitting Bronx Bombers, the Toronto Blue Jays, or a team like Seattle, which has great pitching, emerge as World Series Champions? The Mariners’ Cal Raleigh, who hit 60 long ones to lead the Big Leagues, and drove in 125, third in the Majors behind Kyle Schwarber of the Phillies, who drove in 132, and Pete Alonso of the Mets, a massive disappointment as a team with a $342 Million payroll that failed to make the playoffs-Alonso drove in 126. Raleigh would be the MVP of the American League easily if it wasn’t for Aaron Judge of the Bombuhs, who hit .331, to lead the majors, and hit 53 homers and drove in 114. Raleigh is a stud, but only hit .247, so Judge should get the nod for the Most Valuable Player. 

In my preseason predictions, I picked Judge as my MVP of the American League, Jacob deGrom of the Rangers as my AL Cy Young, Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers as my NL MVP, and Paul Skenes of the Pirates as my NL Cy Young. Judge, Ohtani and Skenes are looking good. Will know that in mid-November and will let you know. Tarik Skubal of the Tigers will win the AL Cy Young. Skubal was 13-6 with a 2.21 ERA and an 0.89 WHIP (Walks plus hits per inning, key pitching stat ). He’s stellar and will make the Tigers tough in the postseason if he can get some help from the other starters and the bullpen, and get some hitting. Ohtani hit .282 with 55 homers and 102 Ribbies. Skenes was 10-10 with a 1.97 ERA and an 0.95 WHIP. While Skubal and Skenes didn’t rack up a ton of victories, they were dominant pitchers, who were un-hittable many times. Skenes didn’t get great run support from a Pirates team with a payroll of $84 Million, 23^rd out of 30 teams in MLB.

With that said, here are my predictions for the MLB Playoffs with the teams I like “matriculating,” along with the ultimate winner of the Fall Classic, which will commence Friday, October 24^th, and conclude on Saturday, November 1^st, if there is a game seven. FOX will broadcast the World Series. ESPN and ABC will broadcast all of the Wild Card Series, which will be the best 2-out- of 3 played at the higher seeded home team. TBS will handle the NL Division Series (best 3 out-of-5) and the NL Championship Series, best 4-out-of 7. And FOX And Fox Sports 1 will broadcast the ALDS and ALCS. 12 teams make the Playoffs with 3 division winners and 3 wild cards from each League. The top two seeds in the AL, which get byes, are the Blue Jays and the Mariners. The top two teams in the NL, which get byes, are the Brewers and the Phillies. 

Here are my Predictions for the Playoffs.

National League Wild Card Series

Dodgers over Reds in 3: @Chavez Ravine, LA

Cubbies over Padres in 3: @ Wrigley, Chicago

NLDS 

Phillies over Dodgers in 5: @Phillies

Cubs over Brewers in 5: @ Brewers

NLCS 

Phillies over Cubbies in 6: @ Philly

AL Wild Card Series

Tigers over Guardians in 3: @Cleveland

Yankees over Red Sox in 3: @ New Yawk

ALDS

Mariners over Tigers in 5: Seattle, home field

Yankees over Blue Jays in 5: Toronto, home field

ALCS 

Yankees over Mariners in 6: Seattle, home field

Fall Classic

I’ll take the Philadelphia Phillies to hang another banner at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies haven’t won the World Series since 2008, and their only other World Championship is in 1980. So while they’ve been very good lately, they haven’t gotten over the Dodgers hurdle or the Dbacks two years ago. I like left fielder Kyle Schwarber, Shortstop Tre Turner, who has been injured, but is back for the postseason and hit .304 with 15 long ones and 69 Ribeyes along with 36 stolen bases, and their stellar first baseman Bryce Harper, who hit .261 with 27 homers and drove in 75 in 132 games out of 162, to win the Series and give the City of Brotherly “Shove” another World Championship. They have a very good starting rotation set up for the postseason and possibly the best closer in the game in Dominican Republic native Jhoan Doran, who finished the season with 32 saves out of 37 opportunities, posted a 2.06 ERA, a 1.10 WHIP,  adding 80 K’s in 70 innings pitched. Doran came over to the Phils from the Minnesota Twins on July 31^st, right at the trade deadline day. 

Phillies over Yankees in 7, ***Philly home field advantage.***

Most Valuable Player: Bryce Harper

That was my Prediction before the season started, and I’m sticking with it. Philly may take the moniker Titletown away from Green Bay, though the Packers have a very good team this year. The Eagles sure do too.

Thursday

College Football Week 6 will be headlined by the now No.10 Crimson Tide hosting the No.16 Vanderbilt Commodores at 2:30 P.M. CT on ABC.  The Crimson Tide is coming off a massive 24-21 victory over then No.5 Georgia at Sanford Stadium in Athens, in a game that Ty Simpson was terrific in, completing 24 of 38 passes for 276 yards, 2 TDs and 0 interceptions. Ty added a 2-yard TD run. Ty, Kadyn Proctor and the O line were superb, and the defense really stepped it up led by “L-T-Overton!” as the great Chris Fowler exclaimed when LT stopped Georgia running back Cash Jones on a critical fourth and one at the Crimson Tide 9 in the fourth quarter. Offensive Coordinator Ryan Grubb’s play call on 3^rd and 1, in which Ty threw it back to Jam Miller and Jam ran for the first down and got down to help run the clock down, was a brilliant play call and clinched the game. I’m getting bullish on the Crimson Tide. It’s still a long season, but I’m liking what I’m seeing. They gained a lot of momentum from last Saturday’s victory. The Florida State game looks like it was just an off day for the Tide, and now the chemistry is good amongst the players and coaches. Things are clicking. Kirby Smart has an Alabama problem, as his 1-7 record against the Crimson Tide attests to. He told the media afterwards that he’s not losing sleep over it. But I might be if I were him.

On the other side of the state, Hugh, Jackson Arnold and the Auburn offense are having catastrophic problems. Hugh needs to turn things around quickly or it could be curtains for him at Auburn. 

No.3 Miami @ No. 18 Florida State Saturday at 6:30 P.M. CT on ABC is another massive contest, which will have  key playoff implications. All the games from now on for the contenders are tremendously important for their playoff aspirations.

The U.S. Ryder Cup team was a total and complete disaster until Sunday, when they showed a little more heart in the 45^th Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. They played well in the singles matches on Sunday, but it was too little, too late. Keegan Bradley just didn’t have enough life experience or captain experience and was severely out-captained by the terrific European Captain, Luke Donald. The European team seems to want it more than the American team does right now. After winning the Ryder Cup with his 6 foot birdie putt on 18 to halve the match with Russell Henley, and clinch the Euros’ 14^th point, which allowed them to retain the Cup, Shane Lowry said it was the hardest thing he’s ever done and more important to him than winning the 2019 British Open at Royal Portrush in his home country of Northern Ireland. Now that’s a big statement. Europe won 15-13. The U.S, team is just too concerned about individual accomplishments and the monetary rewards of playing golf rather than the team concept the Euros embrace at the Ryder Cup. They wanted to be paid to play and they did get paid pretty handsomely, but just don’t have the hearts to overcome a European team led by Rory, Tommy Fleetwood, Lowry, Jon Rahm, and 45-year young Justin Rose, who want this more than anything else-almost anything else in their lives besides their families- for their native continent. The U.S. needs to figure it out soon and find a way to get these players to grasp the team concept, or it could be a long dry spell for American fortunes at the Ryder Cup. The 46^th Ryder Cup will be played at Andore Manor in Limerick, Ireland on September 17^th-19^th, 2027. Those fans will most likely severely harass the American team after the embarrassing behavior of the Bethpage Black fans over the weekend.