You are going to spend a lot of the next 24 hours reading all kinds of reasons why the Phillies will enter Friday’s World Series opener as a heavy underdog against the Astros. Those reasons are more than valid. But this year’s postseason is a perfect example of how little anyone really knows.
We saw it with the Giants in 2010 and the Cardinals in 2011: a best-of-seven series is a wildly different environment than a 162-game season. A playoff football game is 1/17th of an NFL regular season. A playoff NBA series is 1/12th. A seven-game baseball series is 1/23rd of a baseball regular season. Anybody who says they know what is going to happen in a sample size that small is wrong.
The Phillies have multiple paths to victory. The Astros probably have more of them, given the huge advantage that comes with their level of pitching depth. But it still comes down to top-end talent vs. top-end talent. Ask Robert Suarez how that worked out.
