I previously posted about Dylan’s baseball picks, which he supplied in Rolling Stone magazine in August. He had named the Detroit Tigers as the team he likes this year — and had named the Chicago White Sox’s politically incorrect Ozzie Guillen as his favorite manager, and had picked Derek Jeter (of the New York Yankees) as a favorite player.

Well, the prophet credentials are really on the line now. Dylan’s team pick, the Detroit Tigers, slumped badly late in the season, squandering a seemingly prohibitive lead they had accumulated in the American League’s Central Division during the first half of the year. It came down to the last game, which they lost, thus ceding the Central Division to the Minnesota Twins. Still, Detroit had the best record in the American League other than the three teams who won their respective divisions, so they qualified for the post-season play-offs — and a shot at the World Series — by virtue of the “wild-card” slot. (All of this detail is in particular for RWB’s non-American readers.)

Now, the Detroit Tigers are playing the New York Yankees in a best-out-of-five series. The winner of that series will face, in a best-of- seven game series, the winner of the match-up between Minnesota and Oakland. The winner of that series will then face the survivor of the same set of play-offs taking place in the National League — in the best-of-seven World Series.

The NY Yankees and the Detroit Tigers played their first game last night, and it didn’t go well for Detroit, who lost by a score of 8 – 4. Though the Yankee pitching was not its best, the Tigers pitching had simply no answer for a line-up of New York batters that has come together to be one of the most fearsome ever assembled. Still, it remains to be seen whether Dylan’s endorsement of the Tigers will provide the mojo they need to achieve an upset.

Player-wise, Bob’s fave Derek Jeter hit in all five of his plate appearances last night (homering in the final one). This tied the Major League baseball record for number of hits in a post-season game.

Dylan’s favorite manager, Ozzie Guillen, is not a factor in the play-offs because the Chicago White Sox failed to qualify for them. He won’t even be watching. The AP quotes him thusly:

I want to be there. I’m not going to sit there and watch baseball because it makes me sick to my stomach to watch somebody else, not us.

So there you have it. Hey — someone has to track this stuff.

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