sportsfanatic

Tonight is the start of the 2008 World Series and it is shaping up to be a pitchers dual. Two of the young rising stars gets the call from their respective skipper tonight. Cole Hamels will be taking the ball for the National League Champion Philadelphia Philles . Scott Kazmir will get the start in front of the home crowd for the American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays . Neither of these pitchers have reached their 25th birthday and both are seen as the ace of their respective pitching staff. The rest of the pitching staff has been set for the series.

The game is built as one that will provide great pitching as well as two very powerful teams. The Phillies brings the bats of Ryan Howard, Pat Burrell, Chase Utley, and Jayson Werth who all hit 24 or more home runs. The Rays counter with Carlos Pena and Evan Longoria as the only 2 rays that reach more than 20 home runs for the year. With that said, as of late, B.J. Upton has been killing pitches as he marched through the ALDS and ALCS. Couple that with the on bace percentage of .349 from Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies and Akinori Iwamura of the Rays, and you set the table for 2 very potent lineups.

The experience edge definitely will go to the Philadelphia Phillies in the playoffs as they have been here before. However, I think that the heart has to go to the Tampa Bay Rays as they try to complete this Cinderella season. From the start of the season, no one expected that the Rays would get to this point. At the All-Star break, everyone thought that they would start going down. With that said, these guys did not know the meaning of quit as they continued to push through any adversity that they might have faced. I can still remember that with still a few weeks left to go the references to the 2007 New York Mets. Well, all of that is behind them as they stand proud holding the American League Championship. This is why we play all 162 games of a season and right into the playoffs.

As the series gets under way tonight in Tropicana Field, who will you be cheering for?

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