FanHouse PlayoffPulse

Playoff Pulse is our morning rundown of the night that was and the night that will be during the MLB postseason.

Looking Forward ...

FanHouse's Jay Mariotti proclaimed last week that the Yankees would not be beat. He probably didn't mean every game, though. Yet here we are. The Yankees are 5-0. Not even the 1998 Yankees -- winners of 125 games that year -- started out the playoffs that well.

No one is suggesting that New York will literally run the table, but perhaps the most amazing thing about this run in October is that the Yankees haven't been at their absolute sharpest.

Playoff Pulse is our morning rundown of the night that was and the night that will be during the MLB postseason.

Looking Forward ...

Controversy? What controversy? We won't know officially until Saturday afternoon if backup Yankees catcher Jose Molina is once again paired with scheduled Game 2 starter A.J. Burnett, though it seems highly likely that Molina will once again get the nod.

Manager Joe Girardi told reporters before Game 1 that the pairing "worked pretty well last time," about as strong a hint as he could give that it will be an encore for Molina.

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In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

Things move fast in the Internet Age. That's the nature of a 24-hour news cycle or maybe just the short attention span of Americans. Either way, before you know it we're going to be talking about CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira (And Jake Peavy and Manny Ramirez and maybe even Prince Fielder).

So let's take the chance, while we still can, to pay tribute to the 2008 champions. With a cheesesteak in one hand and a Yuengling in the other, here's to you Philadelphia.

- Here's to the Phillies fans, first and foremost. You're not always the easiest folks to understand. You've booed just about everyone including many of your own players. Even among East Coast baseball fans you can seem like a cynical, sour bunch. But your passion and loyalty is undeniable.

In frigid temperatures and pouring rain on Monday night, Citizens Bank Park was packed to the hilt. In more than 100 years of existence, you've been rewarded for your devotion with a title only twice. It hardly seems like enough.

- Here's to Cole Hamels, who at just 24 has established himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball, and just maybe its greatest changeup artist.

Until his magical October run, Hamels wasn't widely recognized by casual fans for his dominance. He wasn't even an All-Star this year. Hope you enjoyed the relative anonymity while it lasted, Cole.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

Over the next few hours and days, sports fans are going to be inundated with every possible take on the way Bud Selig handled the events of Game 5. Some of it will be fair and some of it will not be.

My quick take: Selig was dealt a tough hand and played things very poorly. He made a bad situation worse by not invoking his powers as commissioner and suspending the game immediately when it began to rain heavily in the fifth inning. It was not an easy situation, and because Selig is uncharismatic -- because he and the sport he presides over make for an easy target (just ask Congress!) -- he'll take more of a beating than he deserves. Be wary of who you listen to and read on the topic. Many of the columnists and pundits who rip baseball for every single flaw it has, will overlook the very same flaws in other sports, particularly in the NFL.

All that aside, let's not forget that there's still a series to be finished, a championship to be won, anywhere from three innings to two games (and change) left to be played in the 2008 season.

So how are the actual parties involved in this series going to be affected by the weird, wild suspension of Game 5? The answer to that question seems pretty obvious: Everybody except the Phillies and their die-hard fans is a big winner.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

On the precipice of their first World Series title in 28 years, the Phillies deserve a world of credit for the way they have executed in October. They have played to their strengths all month long, and as it turns out, those strengths are enough to win a title.

They have a dominant ace in Cole Hamels who may very well close the Fall Classic out Monday night. He's 4-0 in October and he gives the opposing pitcher very little room for error. The rest of their rotation has flown under the radar in part because of Hamels' excellence and in part because of a ballpark that inflates ERAs, but it's proven to be very capable, too, behind the southpaw ace.

They have a lights-out bullpen that finishes with Brad Lidge, but also features top-notch flame-thrower Ryan Madson as the bridge to Lidge and a number of useful situational guys like Scott Eyre and Chad Durbin.

And they have a power-laden offense that has much more balance than the Rays -- one that is capable of putting crooked numbers up on the board as it did in Game 4, but also capable of staying in the game even when it struggles with runners in scoring position because of the home run ball.

If Monday is a coronation, it will have been well earned indeed.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

It took two whole games, then another two hours for the World Series to really get interesting. Boy, was it ever worth the wait.

The upshot of Game 3 is that the Phillies are suddenly looking extremely formidable, needing just two wins to capture a championship and with at least one more start from Cole Hamels -- a seemingly guaranteed win -- still in the offing. But that's just the fallout from the first real classic of this series, and maybe the best World Series game outright in the last five years.

The devil is, of course, in the details.

We should have known right from the get-go that this was going to be wild one. It had the latest start time of any game in World Series history. Jamie Moyer threw the first pitch at 10:06 PM ET, and right from the start he was painting corners.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

The Rays pulled out all the stops in Game 2 of the World Series to get even with the Phillies. They scratched out a victory on the offensive side, scoring three of their four runs on a pair of ground ball outs and a safety squeeze.

Much will probably be made of manager Joe Maddon's willingness to play small ball in a critical postseason game because, hey, let's face it, the mainstream media and baseball old-timers love it when the little things play a big factor in crucial postseason games.

But that might be missing the forest for the trees. The Rays are headed to Philadelphia knotted at 1-all in the World Series and ready to go on a roll similar to the one they went on in the ALCS. And the reason they look poised to reel off a few wins, and maybe just run off with the World Series trophy in the process, is because of their almost surreal pitching depth.

Look, Evan Longoria and B.J. Upton are terrific young players. Whatever is brewing in Tampa Bay -- whether it's a dynasty or an annual contender in the AL East -- both are going to be a big part of something special. But neither has done much so far in this series. Longoria is hitless, Upton grounded into two key double plays in Game 1 and their partner in the middle of the order, Carlos Pena, is also 0-for-the-Fall-Classic.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

For a one-run game in October, Game 1 of the World Series wasn't exactly a thriller. That's not because it lacked tension or it was a poorly-played affair. It's because Game 1 played exactly to form. As they have three times already this October, the Phillies breezed to victory with Cole Hamels, their best pitcher, on the mound.

A dazzling performance from Hamels is exactly what people expected out of the Phillies, even though they are overwhelmingly considered the underdog in the World Series.

The hard work, and presumably the real drama, lies ahead in this Fall Classic, and Game 2 should be the beginning of it all.

A win from Hamels in the opener is what the Phillies needed to turn the World Series into a competitive one. Everything came easy. Hamels dominated for seven innings, showing once again he's the best starting pitcher in October, and Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge proved unhittable again in relief. The next time Philadelphia will have the starting pitching edge is the next time Hamels steps on the mound.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

In the end, there was a great deal of justice in the American League Championship Series. The better team -- the one that out-scored the Red Sox 43-28 in the series -- moved on to the Fall Classic. The team with fresher arms, with a deeper bench, with more of a right to represent the AL in the World Series at this point in the season will be there on Wednesday.

The defending champs weren't denied their dignity either. It looked like they would be, down 7-0 and on the brink of elimination in the latter innings of Game 5, but they staged one of the most improbable comebacks in playoff history, then got gutsy performances from Josh Beckett and Jason Varitek -- both unable to perform up to their own lofty standards to that point -- to push the series the distance.

With all apologies to the Phillies, these were the two best teams in baseball all season long, and the ALCS was a fitting conclusion to the year-long clashes between the AL East rivals.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

Josh Beckett has authored many great starts in the postseason. He's been a part of two separate 3-1 playoff comebacks. He slayed the Yankees in the World Series in 2003. But what he accomplished in Game 6 Saturday might just be his finest October moment of all.

It's a strange thing to say considering what he did just a year ago against the Indians, considering he only threw 78 pitches, made the Rays swing and miss just five times and lasted a mere five innings, but, of course, context is everything.

Beckett hasn't been himself this month. The strained oblique he suffered on the final weekend of the regular season has clearly been affecting him in his three postseason starts, dropping his fastball velocity from the mid to low-90s and damaging his normally tremendous command and control.

Sometime between Game 2, when he was bombed by the Rays, and Game 6, he figured out a way to be successful. In an odd way, it was the only path that Beckett could take to add to his postseason legacy.