We have a couple of themes on tonight’s show.  It goes 1, 2, 3, 4.  We’re going to look at the best 1-2 pitching combinations for this year’s playoffs as well as in past playoffs.  We’re also going to do the same for 3-4 hitting combinations.

First up is the 1-2 pitching duos.  We have a few good ones this year with Carpenter-Wainwright in St. Louis, Lester-Beckett in Boston, and Sabathia-Burnett in New York.  The thing that always fascinates me about these debates is the historical part of it.  There have been some great 1-2 punches over the years.  Koufax-Drysdale for the Dodgers, McLain-Lolich for the Tigers, and Schilling-Johnson for the D-backs to name a few. Who is better?  That can be debated for a long time.

The same can be said for the best 3-4 hitters of all-time.  Again, we have a few good ones this year.  Teixeira-Rodriguez in New York and Pujols-Holliday in St. Louis jump out at you right away as the most formidable 3-4 combos in this postseason, but are they better than say Manny-Papi?  Tough to say.

The other topic I can’t wait to get into tonight is the one-game playoff.  This is the 3rd year in a row we’ve had one.  We’ll have two guys on the set tonight who played in one and that’s Barry Larkin and Al Leiter who squared off in 1999 for the NL Wild Card.  Leiter and his Mets won 5-0.

We’re on from 6-8 tonight previewing all of the playoff matchups so make sure you tune in.- Matt Vasgersian