Umpires announced for Cubs Wild Card game

Houston’s Dallas Keuchel goes against the Yankees. Regular season is 162 to gather wins.

As a person who had the Los Angeles Angels winning the World Series this year, it’s best if I never make another prediction ever again. Plus, the Yankees lineup is nearly all lefty so Keuchel will have his way vs the Bombers.

Speaking of Jake Arrieta, he’ll be nice and ready on Wednesday for the Pirates. The Cubs and Pirates have been franchises stuck in the wilderness for many years.

Just-retired San Francisco Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt, 13-year MLB veteran Jason Grilli and Major League coach Bo Porter will serve as guest studio analysts on MLB Network during the 2015 Postseason.

So again, no one (outside of Pittsburgh and Chicago maybe) are clamoring for change. Without further ado, let’s get it poppin’ and see which team is poised to loft that trophy around one month from now.

The Chicago Cubs notoriously have not won a World Series in 107 years, which is the longest drought in any major professional sport.

The Pirates have faced the strong arm of Arrieta in five game starts and 36 innings pitched. The Blue Jays are hoping for similar results as they host the Texas Rangers in the AL Division Series, which begins Thursday.

DL: At the risk of alienating Cubs fans, most of which are banking on Back to the Future’s forecasting, I’d love to see Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke face the mashers of the Toronto Blue Jays. For years they’ve dwindled at the bottom of their division. For the Rangers, they’ve played better on the road with a 45-36 record. As I mentioned, the Royals also flew under the radar of our algorithms a year ago. How would the modern day murderer’s row of Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson and Russell Martin do against a Koufax/Drysdale type set-up that’s combined to strikeout 501 batters? But, Houston has won four of their last five to take a hold of the Wild Card race.

One thing both of these players had in common is they were unquestioned stars during the regular season, a near prerequisite for postseason stardom. Chris Young (11-6) is another option. Something tell us the New York Yankees would spend infinitely more if that’s what it took to get into the playoffs. However, Toronto’s odds did slightly improve from last week when they were listed as 4/1 favorites. I just think that Toronto has the high powered offense that has had the Royals number this year.

This won’t be included in the rankings, but the Astros are at a serious disadvantage in a series against the Blue Jays. The Californian based team have the upper hand in home field advantage. I have no life, so I check the power rankings pretty regularly; I can not recall an instance in which the Dodgers weren’t one of the top two teams in the league. Pitching is going to be vital in this series with both sides filled with extreme talent.

ESPN has deployed NEP’s EN2, its Sunday Night Baseball mobile unit, to serve as the core of the Wild Card Game production.

The Mets aren’t throwing any slouches either with former NL Rookie of the Year Jacob deGrom scheduled to pitch in the opener. There are other choices for Terry Collins within Steven Matz (4-0) and Jon Niese (9-10).

Wild Card teams get to set their roster for the one-and-done game and then reset it for the Division Series if they advance. The schedule says “Fox or FS1” for the first time in ALDS Game 4. It’s going to be a close one. Houston added another run to seal off the 3-0 win. Los Angeles ran away with the National League West, but they’ve had this small problem with … choking. Look for St. Louis-area lawmakers to contribute to the Senator’s correspondence. They would eventually lose to the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS.

Because they were not able to win their division, the Pirates and the Cubs had to back their way into the playoffs and into this winner-take-all game.