Baseball Preview: L.A. Teams Vs. Phillies, Yankees

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Round two of Major League Baseball's post-season begins tonight with the Los Angeles Dodgers hosting the Philadelphia Phillies in a rematch of last year's National League Championship Series. The Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees start the American League Championship Series in New York tomorrow night. Both series are best of seven. And commentator John Feinstein joins us now to discuss them. Good morning, John.

JOHN FEINSTEIN: Good morning, Renee.

MONTAGNE: So the Phillies are the defending World Series Champions. The Dodgers had the National League's best record this season. What does that tell us about this series?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I think if it tells us anything, it's that this series will be closer than last year's, when the Dodgers beat the Phillies fairly easily in five games. The Dodgers surprised a lot of people, myself included, by sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals, who appeared to have the best pitching in baseball, in the opening round in the division series.

They have outstanding pitching, but the key to this whole series may be two Phillies pitchers, even though the Phillies have great hitters and Ryan Howard and Chaser Utley in the middle of their lineup. Cole Hamels was the MVP of post season last year. He's been injured throughout this season, pitched poorly in a division series last week, he's the game one starter for the Phillies. How he goes may determine how the Phillies go, along with their closer, Brad Lids, the guy who pitches the ninth inning. Again, last year he was perfect - 47 for 47 in 9th innings. This year he blew 11 saves. The two of them could decide which way this series goes.

MONTAGNE: And John, back to the Cardinals loss, what do you think happened?

FEINSTEIN: I think that two things happened. One, that they - Matt Holliday, their outfielder, lost the ball in the lights in Game 2 that would have won the second game. It would have been a third out in the 9th inning and the series would have been 1-1 and psychologically entirely different if it goes back to St. Louis 1-1. But I also think that the Dodgers were able to get to the top two Cardinal pitchers and that surprised the Cardinals and changed the series psychologically.

MONTAGNE: Okay. So onto Yankees/Angels. Based on their regular season, are the Yankees a really heavy favorite?

FEINSTEIN: No, they're not, and the reason they're not is because of past post-seasons. The Angeles have beaten the Yankees in post-season three times since 2002, and that is going to be a factor. The Angels believe they can beat the Yankees in spite of the Yankees' overwhelming statistics and their 103 wins as you mentioned in the regular season. And in Anaheim in particular, the Yankees struggle. So I think, again, like the National League, this will be a very close series.

MONTAGNE: Well, let's look to the past and other match-ups in years past. These are different teams from when they last met in post-season.

FEINSTEIN: Right.

MONTAGNE: What does the past say to us?

FEINSTEIN: Well, they wear the same uniforms, and that matters, even though you're right, there are a lot of different players. I think when it comes into play, Renee, is in a close series. The Angels had the same sort of hex against the Red Sox. They had lost series after series to them in post-season going back to 1986, but they were able to sweep the Red Sox in three games. If that series had been close, had gone five games, then I think the past comes into play. Same with this. If it goes seven games, the Yankee fans in Yankee Stadium will be very nervous about the past.

MONTAGNE: And Alex Rodriguez, do you think he finally broke out of his post-season funk in the Minnesota series?

FEINSTEIN: I will give you a definite maybe on that. He played very well. He had a key homerun in Game 2. He drove in six runs. But he's not going to exercise those ghosts until he wins a World Series in a Yankee's uniform, until he performs deeper into the playoffs than the first round. He's had other good first rounds before, then came the infamous collapse in 2004 against the Red Sox. He needs to have a big series against the Angels to get people to say that he's not Non-Mr. October, which is what he's been until now.

MONTAGNE: All right, John Feinstein, whose new book is "Change Up: Mystery at the World Series." Thanks very much.

FEINSTEIN: Thanks, Renee. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.