Playoffs start with three Cy Young winners

Associated Press

First playoff appearance in 15 years. Packed house in Philadelphia. Goose bumps galore.

By the time Joey Votto and the Cincinnati Reds have a chance to soak it all in, Phillies ace Roy Halladay will be in the middle of his windup.

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” said Reds manager Dusty Baker, taking his third NL team to the postseason. “It’s sort of like a kid coming out of college. Everybody wants to know what is his job experience? And sooner or later you’ve got to work to get that experience, and that’s where we are right now.”

The anticipation is over, the also-rans are out and the pressure is on. Everyone knows what’s at stake in October.

Ryan Howard and the Phillies are swinging for their third straight pennant. Texas is trying to win a playoff series for the first time. The wild-card Yankees hope to repeat as World Series champs.

Postseason baseball begins today, with a trio of Cy Young Award winners on the mound: Halladay, Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia.

In the first of three marquee pitching matchups, Lee gets the ball for the Rangers against the Tampa Bay Rays, who will throw an ace of their own under the roof at Tropicana Field. David Price has blossomed into the elite starter almost everyone expected, going 19-6 with a 2.72 ERA for the AL East champions.

First pitch, 1:37 p.m.

“Should be a pretty fun matchup to watch,” said Rays third baseman Evan Longoria, all set to play after missing the final 10 games of the regular season with a strained left quadriceps.

Texas’ dangerous lineup features playoff newcomers Josh Hamilton and Michael Young, but the Rangers are the only current major league franchise that hasn’t won a playoff series.

Lee was acquired from Seattle in July to help change that. The left-hander went 4-0 with a 1.56 ERA in five postseason starts for the Phillies last year.

“I expect as much out of myself as anyone expects out of me. You can call it pressure, call it what you want. But I’m not nervous or worried or any of those kind of words that would go along with pressure,” Lee said Tuesday. “I’m looking forward to it, and it’s going to be a challenge and a lot of fun.”

Next up, Halladay and the Phillies play host to Cincinnati.

With three aces in the rotation and a playoff-tested team, Philadelphia is heavily favored to reach its third consecutive World Series. The last National League club to do that was the St. Louis Cardinals from 1942-44.

But the Reds, led by Votto, a top contender for NL MVP, can slug with just about anybody and they have an overpowering arm to bring out of the bullpen in rookie Aroldis Chapman.

The night game is a familiar matchup. Sabathia and the Yankees face AL Central champion Minnesota in a first-round series for the fourth time since 2003.

New York won all three previous meetings, including last year en route to its 27th World Series title, but this time the Twins have homefield advantage at Target Field.

Tonight will mark the first outdoor postseason game in Minnesota since 1970, and the temperature is supposed to be in the 60s.

The Twins hung a picture in their clubhouse of the back page of a recent (New York) Daily News that read “Bad news: Yanks must go on road for playoffs. Good news: They play the Twins. E-Z Pass.”

All division series are best-of-five. The fourth matchup gets under way Thursday night, when retiring manager Bobby Cox and his wild-card Atlanta Braves play at NL West champion San Francisco.