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The National League wild card game was everything the AL wild card game wasn't -- boring, disappointing, anticlimactic, non-electric. It's one thing for a team to win in a rout, but it's another to do it on the road, where broadcast cameras pan the stands in search of the saddest fans between pitches.
With the Pirates knocked out, it's hard to come up with a true favorite ... until you realize Juan Uribe is in the mix, anyway, giving a very divisive team some unanimous appeal.
Washington Nationals
White Sox ties: Matt Thornton, Gio Gonzalez kinda.
Reasons to root for: They've never won it; Thornton Luck reversal; the racing presidents; exclamation point on the Doug Fister trade; a well-constructed team with the league's best record.
Reasons to root against: Fan base is still diluted by transplants; Mike Rizzo shenanigans; close-ups of Jayson Werth's beard.
Los Angeles Dodgers
White Sox ties: Juan Uribe.
Reasons to root for: Haven't won it since 1989; Uribe; Li'l Uribe; Vin Scully; Dodger Stadium; Uribe; Yasiel Puig action; all additional Clayton Kershaw starts; Uribe.
Reasons to root against: Exorbitantly high payroll inefficiently distributed; soap opera potential if they fail; blacked out own fans all season with botched launch of RSN; parking lot violence; Brian Wilson getting attention again.
Huh. Tweetdeck lets you schedule a tweet every day for 10 years. Okay. I'll try anything for 10 years once. https://t.co/54kKO0nwy9
— Grant Brisbee (@mccoveychron) September 19, 2014
St. Louis Cardinals
White Sox ties: A.J. Pierzynski.
Reasons to root for: Cubs fans don't like it; Pierzynski could get a chance to mess with people again; hey, that looks like Jon Hamm.
Reason to root against: They're always there, and just lost last year; Best Fans In Baseball; close-ups of John Lackey; Anheuser-Busch.
San Francisco Giants
White Sox ties: Jake Peavy,
Reasons to root for: AT&T Park; Mike Krukow; Madison Bumgarner; any and all additional descriptions of Hunter Pence; Peavy might buy a cable car to go along with his duck boat.
Reasons to root against: They just won it; Peavy just won it; they knocked out the Pirates, who most people would have wanted more.