The ALCS will begin tomorrow, and the Yankees will take it.  Now, don’t get us wrong: we’re rooting for a freeway series–great for the city of L.A. and good for baseball.

The Angels have a lot of momentum: they have never before swept a postseason series, and to do so against the Red Sox, their postseason nemesis in recent years, probably means a lot to the clubhouse.  Their pitching has improved hugely from last year (when they got swept by the Red Sox in the ALDS), and they added the Rays’ Scott Kazmir for the stretch run.  Their starting pitching in the Division Series was nothing short of great.

But….they never added a bat.  Remember a couple years ago, when people started feeling that Vlad Guerrero, their big bat, was mostly done and/or couldn’t walk anymore.  This is still so true that, with two outs in the ninth, Terry Francona opted to walk someone else to get to Guerrero.  Admittedly, he got a hit, but it was his first off of Papelbon, and his first clutch hit in…long. Real long.

The Angels added Torii Hunter in the 2007 offseason.  Even their management knew that wasn’t enough, though–thus the addition of Mark Teixeira for their playoff run, which didn’t turn out to help.  This year, no new bat.

Meanwhile, the Yankees have always had bats.  Too many bats.  (DH options at the beginning of the 2008 offseason?  Johnny Damon.  Hideki Matsui.  Bobby Abreu.  Jorge Posada.  Among others.) What they didn’t have was team chemistry, and Joe Girardi feels that his club has loosened up and is having more fun playing the game.  This is due, in our opinion, to the addition of Nick Swisher, who clearly has a ton of fun playing the game.  Nobody smiled bigger than Swisher last week when the stadium crowd laughed as he forgot how to count to four and tried to take a walk on a 2-2 pitch.  (If it had been A-Rod, he’d probably have burst into tears.)

The Yankees have a veteran playoff pitcher in Pettite, their bullpen is solid with the settling of Phil Hughes into the eighth inning setup role.  Every time you think Mariano Rivera is out, he pulls you back in, Corleone style.  Their bats are huge, and their clubhouse is finally getting rowdy.

We think that Angels have their work cut out for them, and we wish for their sake they hadn’t swept the Sox.  (No, really. A longer break means less momentum headed into the ALCS, which begins Friday.)  But we’ll go ahead and say they’ll take a game:

Yankees in 6.

9:28 He flies through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young man on the flying tra–oh, that’s just Alex Gonzalez, making a relatively routine play.  Wow.

9:29 THANKS TBS.  Now I know what RISP are.  Now explain what “scoring position” means.  Or better yet, “runners!”

9:31 Lester has adorable elf ears.  That is all the news that’s fit to print.

9:32 Figgins is the third K.  Told you they were coming.

9:35 Abreu draws his second walk.  Crowd goes nuts.  Everyone else is clearly as bored as we are.

9:38 Roommate asks if liveblog has mentioned the bananas foster we are about to make.  Crowd goes nuts.  Everyone is less bored now.

9:40 Second roommate, who just walked in, admits this is, in fact, kinda boring.  And he’s from the Midwest, so he knows from boring.

9:41 The bases are loaded.  With two outs.  Are we excited yet? We actually can’t tell.  John Farrell, aka Future Indians Manager, is chatting with him.

9:42 No grand slams this year?  “Well, who on the Angels hits homeruns?  Just Guerrero.  Oh. There’s Guerrero.”  (We have really attentive friends, clearly.)

9:43 That was, perhaps, a bit of a high swing. Moving on now.

8:49 Oh, Chone, Chone.  You do know your name is spelled wrong, right?  Really.  In what universe does a silent “e” at the end give something other than a long vowel?  Perhaps a universe where you do not ground out uneventfully on the second pitch you see.

8:52 Full-count walk gives the first baserunner of the game to the Angels.  Abreu walks.  V,-Mart, who has caught every Sox starter at least twice this year, is going to prove invaluable offensively and probably defensively as well, but if I were a batter, I’d be relieved it isn’t Tek behind me.  (Meanwhile, if you add together the two catchers’ caught stealing percentages in terms of batters they throw out, you get…almost 20%. Oy.)

8:54 Hunter’s fly ball to short left gives two down.

8:56 Vlad Guerrero just took a pitch.  In other news, Satan’s feeling a chill…

8:58 Mike Lowell’s knees are shot…and HE DOESN’T CARE.  Nice play ends the half.

AL East

It’s hard to believe that the Yankees’ 6.5 game lead isn’t a commanding one at this point, especially given the Sox still-slumping bats (here’s looking at you, Jason Bay), and exhausted bullpen.  The Sox schedule is tough from here on out, too, with lots of games against contenders and plenty of time to face Tampa Bay, seemingly everyone’s nemesis.  (A few years ago, Derek Jeter was quoted as saying that the Devil Rays really had the Yankees’ number that year, and everyone laughed.  Now, nobody in Red Sox Nation’s laughing.)  Meanwhile, the Yankees get to play Oakland and Kansas City. Case closed.

AL Central

This is the AL race that could really surprise us.  Detroit’s in the lead right now, but we think that the White Sox, especially with the addition of Alex Rios, are going to end up taking it: Detroit’s been too spotty in recent years, and while the White Sox have a slightly tougher schedule, they also have a more reliable bullpen, Mark Buehrle, and now, a bat they needed.  Rios has been with the Blue Jays a long time before this, and he might well be one of those players who does phenomenal things when suddenly playing for a contender.  We think the White Sox are a force to be reckoned with, and it’ll be the Tigers doing the reckoning from their couches, come October.

AL West

This one is also close, but the Angels have Guerrero back, are coming off a sweep of the Giants, are used to making the playoffs, and have an easier month of August.  September’s another story for all these teams, when they all play each other like crazy, but we think the Angels are going to slowly pull away from Texas, who are currently hanging just 3.5 games back.  Whether they make it out of the first round of the playoffs, well, that’s been a historical problem for them.  But that’s another column.  (One that’ll piss off one of UPH’s best friends, so we’ll hold off.)  The truth here is that the Angels don’t need rally monkeys–they just need to keep doing what they’re doing and ride the wave.  As for Texas?  See below.

AL Wild Card

Boston, Texas, Detroit, and Tampa Bay are the real contenders here: the White Sox are going to play spoiler, even if they make the playoffs.  They’re 7 games back in the Wild Card race, but we think they’ll end up taking their division, and playing havoc with the rest of the standings in September.  In one crazy period of a bit more than a week, they play Boston, the Angels, and Seattle. and then at the end of the month three versus Detroit.  Meanwhile, the rest of these teams are all playing either each other or other contenders as well.  We’re not really seeing a late surge from Tampa Bay–they don’t seem to have the chemistry they did last year–but we think Texas is hungry, and might finally end up in the playoffs again. We’re looking forward to revisiting this during the craziness of the September schedules, but for now, that’s our pick.