The Post I Didn't Mind Writing.

Huh. This is one of the first times that one of my baseball predictions came out wrong, and I'm happier than I would have been if I were right. Just 4 days after the Detroit Tigers swept the New York Yankees in the ALCS, the San Francisco Giants have overtaken the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS in the full 7 games, and they will move on to face the Tigers in the World Series starting this Wednesday.

The Giants should be excited. In 6 games this postseason, they faced elimination, and they won every time, and now they're going to the World Series. Ain't baseball funny?

Want to know a fun stat real quick? Of course you do. Before tonight, the Giants were 0-5 all time in Game 7s. That means every time they played in a winner-take-all contest in the postseason, they were a lock to lose, every single time. After tonight, though, they are a much more respectable 1-5. However, I get the feeling that they're focusing less on the 5 losses and more on the win, the win that came so easily for a team that is rarely in a situation like that. The Giants fought and scrapped most of the season just to stay ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers and even the Arizona Diamondbacks in the standings, finally clinching the division on September 22nd when they beat the San Diego Padres, the same team they ousted on the final day of the 2010 season that eventually culminated in a championship title for the boys by the Bay. They found themselves in a deep hole very early in the Division Series against the Cincinnati Reds, who won the first two games as the series moved to San Fran. Behind the masterful pitching of Tim Lincecum in relief (who knew that a move to the bullpen was all that was needed to turn the Freak's year around?), a grand slam by Buster Posey in the final game (if the LDS awarded an MVP award, Posey would have had it in the bag simply for that at-bat), and a little luck (home field advantage certainly played a part), the Giants managed to win the last 3 games of the best-of-5 and knock out the heavily-favored Reds. They advanced to the Championship Series, where they faced the Cards, the first time that the two most recent World Series winners have faced each other in the LCS for the opportunity to head back to the Fall Classic. While the Cards threatened by winning the first game in San Francisco, the Giants evened up the series in Game 2 as the series switched to Busch Stadium. They lost 2 of 3 in St. Louis, and returned home down 3 games to 2. The history was all against them. But they performed masterfully in Game 7, the first time they've done so in history. Matt Cain made his fellow starters proud by throwing a shutout against the defending champions, with some help from his bullpen and an offense that exploded for 9 runs over 8 innings. The Giants become the first team in MLB history to win 6 straight elimination games in a single postseason, and they're going to run into a Tigers team with everything to prove as well. This is sure to be a great World Series.

Motivated by last year's spectacular run, the Cards couldn't replicate their 2011 success.

For the Cardinals, October is significantly less kind in 2012 than it was in 2011. They found themselves in the same position this postseason that they did last year: viewed as dangerous underdogs, a team that could strike at any time or not at all. And it certainly didn't help that they lost their star first baseman, their longtime manager, and their reliable hitting coach all before spring training even began. What did help, surprisingly, was signing a 35 year old right fielder in Carlos Beltran, who promptly went .269/32/97 and made a team that lost the best batter of this generation barely notice the man was gone. Reigning World Series MVP (for another week) David Freese came into the season with high expectations after his historic playoff form in 2011, and while he wasn't terrible (20 homers, 79 RBI and an OPS of .839 are nothing to stick your nose up at), he certainly wasn't the force this postseason that he was last year, getting 13 hits in 47 plate appearances through the first two rounds and hitting one home run in 13 games. Veterans like Matt Holliday and Yadier Molina stepped up as well, with the two perennial boppers keeping the team afloat while players like Lance Berkman and Rafael Furcal spent extended time on the disabled list, and rookies like Pete Kozma and Matt Carpenter got a chance to make their cases for starting jobs down the line. But, surprisingly, this Cardinals team's biggest strength was their pitching. Adam Wainwright, fully recovered from surgery he had before the 2011 season, had to fill in the role opposite of the one he played a year ago: Chris Carpenter, the man who pitched beautifully in last year's postseason and redefined our perception of a big game pitcher, spent nearly the entire season recovering from surgery of his own. He went 14-13 with a 3.94 ERA and 184 strikeouts. Nothing special, but his presence was pivotal to the continued success of a team no one wanted to meet in October. After a hilariously blown call in Atlanta garnered them a Wild Card berth, they took the Division Series against the Nationals all the way to Game 5, in which they were down 6 runs in the 8th inning and still won the game 9-7 to advance to their second straight Championship Series. This explains why many weren't comfortable with the 7-0 lead the Giants had last night, thinking that if any team in this day and age could come back from that kind of deficit, it was the Cards. But after some timely misplays, the Cards found themselves flying low back to St. Louis

Well, we're finally here. The 108th World Series, between the Detroit Tigers and the San Francisco Giants, will start tomorrow, and with it, sadly, the end of the 2012 season. But this is far from decided. The two teams are matched quite nicely (expect a post analyzing both sides between Games 2 and 3), and it appears the stars are aligning for an awesome matchup. Keep it tuned here for any breaking news before the Series reaches its conclusion.