Published: October 02, 2008 11:43 am            

Levine’s keys to Cubs-White Sox World Series

It was 1906 all over again Tuesday night when the White Sox finally got the job done and took home the AL Central title, joining the Cubs in the playoffs for the first time in 102 years.

It’s been a long road, but finally we’re here, and I’ve developed a couple keys after watching both teams play “playoff” baseball – one a 1-0 White Sox win against the Twins and a 7-2 Cub loss to the Dodgers.

5. Defense — Neither team sets the world on fire in this category and still made the playoffs as division champs. But this is the postseason and every play is magnified, especially errors. Let’s go back to 2005. In the ALDS, the White Sox trailed the Red Sox in game two, and didn’t look to be generating any offense. Then Tony Graffanino committed an error, opening the window for the White Sox and propelling them to a historic World Series win.

Now let’s flash back to 2003. It wasn’t Bartman who cost the Cubs in the NLCS, it was Alex Gonzalez’s error. If he makes that play, the game is over. But he didn’t, and the rest is history.

4. Home field — The Cubs had the best record in the National League at home, making Wednesday’s loss even more disheartening. To win in the postseason, teams must be able to win on the road, but the Cubs can avoid a lot of pressure by taking care of business at home. This makes game two a must win, just adding more pressure to a team trying to erase 100 years of postseason failures.

However, the need to protect home field for the White Sox may be even more important, as two teams finished with a better record at home than the Cubs – the Rays and the Red Sox. Look for game two to be the most important game in this series. The Sox must win that game to have a chance for the upset.

3. Manufacturing runs — The White Sox do literally none of this, and without all-star Carlos Quentin, this area must improve in the playoffs. Teams can’t just depend on the long ball to win playoff series.

Because of their National League presence, the Cubs are obviously better in this department. The Cubs will hit their fair share of homers (184), but can also move over runners. But against the Dodgers, the Cubs stranded 12 runners. The Cubs better start manufacturing runs, or this could be another short postseason.

2. Mental aspect — The White Sox have done it in the last 100 years, actually in the last three years to be exact. It’s a different team, but key components like Paul Konerko, A.J. Pierzynski, Mark Buehrle and Jermaine Dye have done it before, making for more leadership in pressure postseason situations.

This could be the biggest obstacle for the Cubs to hurdle. When one minor thing goes wrong, the fans, players…pretty much everyone involved will start thinking of the past happenings from the Billy Goat to Bartman. I know the players say the history doesn’t effect them, and if it doesn’t then kudos to them. However, I have a hard time believing that, so we’ll see what happens when something happens out of the ordinary.

1. Pitching — Who couldn’t think of pitching as the most important aspect of playoff baseball? I guess you could say I’m no mastermind, but this is truly something that cannot be overlooked. Look what happened with Ryan Dempster Wednesday. Every walk means much more than anything during the regular season and teams will take advantage of holes in the pitching staff. Whichever team can hold down solid pitching, from the starters to the bullpen, will have a more successful postseason run.

Winning in the playoffs comes down to a lot of execution and a little luck. But when you get luck, you must take advantage of it. If both of these teams can follow these broad, but simple rules, it should set up a week-long holiday in Chicago.

        

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