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When it comes to the World Series, SportsNation is of one mind -- the Yankees will win but it won't come against Cliff Lee. (In fact, voters think if Lee had started Game 4 on short rest, we'd be waking up to a 2-2 series today). So with that settled, we move on to something else that happened Sunday. Namely, Derek Jeter winning the Hank Aaron Award as the American League's best offensive player, as voted by the fans.

The only problem? Jeter didn't lead the AL in batting average, hits, runs, home runs, RBIs, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, stolen bases or much of anything, really. Tongue planted firmly in cheek, one SportsNation resident, commenter MazGonzoBeckett, offered an explanation for Jeter's win.

• "It's true, Jeter deserves it. There were only two better hitters on his team, and you can't count ARod because he was out for the first month, and you can't count Teixeira because I keep hearing he's mostly there for his defense. Jeter was the second-best-hitting shortstop in the league, but you can't count Bartlett because the Rays lost a bunch of games in September. And you can't count Mauer because he's left-handed. And you can't count Zobrist or Youkilis or Morales or Cabrera or Morneau or Abreu or Bay because ... ok, I give up." -- Join the conversation
• Vote on the World Series: Should the Phillies have pitched Cliff Lee on short rest?
• Chat: Buster Olney talks World Series and more, 1 ET

Alex Rodriguez hits two game-tying home runs in the late innings of postseason games. Brad Lidge closes out a game like the Lidge of old (or at least unlike the Lidge of this season). And the Angels make the Red Sox look positively Pawtucket-ish. Clearly, there is some bad postseason karma looking for a new home. Good thing MLB umpires are around.

Capping off a run of mistakes around the league, home plate umpire Jerry Meals, by his own admission, blew a call that prolonged a ninth inning in which the Phillies eventually took a 6-5 lead against the Rockies Sunday night. Then again, perhaps Meals can be forgiven for freezing on a call in a four-hour game played in sub-freezing temperatures.

Buster Olney thinks it's time to bring in mechanical assistance. Back in July, only a slight majority of SportsNation thought replay should be expanded. Has October changed that?

• Vote on NLDS: Will the Phillies close it out? | Vote on ALCS: Yankees or Angels?
• Chat: "Baseball Tonight" analyst Orestes Destrade talks playoffs, 3 ET.

“

i'd just like to send out a personal thank you to bud selig. bud, thank you so much for caring more about money than the fans. this was the best game of the post season (imo) and my kids didn't even get to see the first pitch. thank you so much bud for allowing me (on the east coast) to get 3.5 hours of sleep last night. i appreciated it greatly, 8 would have been too much...you're the best big fella. keep thinking about the mlb wallet and keep sticking to the little guys (literally, i'm talking about my kids).

” -- rustyburg

“

face it, no one wants to see the friggin rockies in the playoffs so im not suprised to see the umps pulling for the phils. no one likes the rockies cause they have no personality and are boring. so who wants to watch that

” -- thelivinglegend05

Alex Rodriguez drove in a run in October. CC Sabathia got a win in October. Derek Jeter was Derek Jeter in October. And despite a windy evening in the Bronx, the dubious right field launching pad at Yankee Stadium didn't make a complete mockery of a century's worth of baseball. So life is good for the Yankees, right? Not in the Big Apple, where the New York Daily News still found a way to work "shaky" into the headline of an article on the game.

The cause of the latest angst is Jorge Posada. Shortly after sounding miffed about manager Joe Girardi's decision to start Jose Molina at catcher when A.J. Burnett next pitches, Posada whiffed on a couple of Sabathia pitches early against the Twins.

Despite picking the Yankees to win the series by a better than two-to-one margin, SportsNation prefers Ron Gardenhire to Joe Girardi. So are catchers, former and present, the only liability for the team with the best record in baseball?

• Vote: How much does chemistry in a baseball battery really matter?
• Chats: Baseball myth debunker Keith Law, 1 ET | Steve Phillips, 2 ET

“

Giradi's next move is to start Rick Cerone in Game Four.

” -- njplayer79

“

Posada's reaction was normal, Giradi's reponse shows how he has matured as the manager of this team. It is a smart move by Girardi and gives his team the best chance to win. That is what the Yankee's need....strong leadership. Good job Joe.

” -- samHDT

If the Red Sox and Yankees wind up playing in the ALCS, is there a way Brett Favre can throw out the first pitch? Just to see if the world would, in fact, actually implode?

With apologies to debates over whether the Rockies can handle the Phillies' left-handed pitching, or if Clayton Kershaw is ready to be a postseason ace, the prospect of another Red Sox-Yankees clash looms over the postseason as either a return to the best rivalry in sport or as many as seven five-hour nightmares, depending on your perspective.

Are you rooting for another showdown or absolutely anything else?

• Vote: Angels-Red Sox | Dodgers-Cardinals | Phillies-Rockies | Yankees-Twins
• Vote: Pick a World Series winner and how long each division series will last
• Your rankings: Power Rankings | Playoff closers | Big-game pitchers | All-time upsets
• Chat wraps: Buster Olney | Eric Young | Joe Morgan | Rob Neyer | Peter Gammons
• Hall of Fall: Steve Bartman becomes first inductee

Moving on from last night's Favre-less drama in Minnesota, we move immediately to a playoff (now that we're finally allowed to use that word) tripleheader Wednesday. It's a quick turnaround, as the Twins will attest, but SportsNation has been prepping all week by picking the brains of some of ESPN's best baseball writers. Hey, it beats working.

Steve (Hopkinton, MA)

What do you think of the plan to have Molina catch AJ in the playoffs?

Buster Olney

Steve: Not surprising. I think Burnett is going to be the barometer for what the Yankees do (or don't do) in the post-season, and they need him to be excellent -- and it's clear that he is just more comfortable with Molina, to the point where pitching to Posada distracts him. So Girardi, a former catcher who was known for his empathy for pitchers, is going to do what makes one of his starting pitchers feel most comfortable. Full transcript

Tyler (San Diego via Boston)

Where are the Dodgers mentally after their late season fall from grace? Is Kershaw going to be ready for playoff baseball?

Peter Gammons

The Dodgers' biggest concern is trying to get Manny Ramirez hitting again, because he has actually been a liability in the three-hole. Their young hitters do feed off of him so they need Manny to be something other than an average offensive player. Scouts who saw Kershaw Saturday night thought he had the best stuff of any pitcher in the NL. He is their best hope to win 2 games against either Chris Carpenter or Adam Wainwright. Full transcript

Ben (Boston)

"Cole Hamels is exactly as good right now as he was a year ago." No, he's not. That implies he's pitching just as well now as he was then, and if he's less successful it's just bad luck. Do you refuse to recognize that players go through hot streaks (when everything clicks) and cold streaks (when they lose their touch)? That's just being a human being. Hamels in a hot streak is better than Hamels when he's not so hot.

Rob Neyer

With all due respect, Ben ... Are we *really* still having this conversation? If so, I suppose I should be glad; it means my work's not yet done. But would you look at Hamels? His HR, BB, and K rates are almost EXACTLY the same as last season. The difference in his ERA's is due mostly to luck; last year he was lucky, this year he's been unlucky. But he's fundamentally the same pitcher. Full transcript

Only three times since 1901 has an MLB team come from three games behind with four to play. That's a smaller number than the total of unassisted triple plays in the same span. It's a smaller number than the total of perfect games in that span. It's even a smaller number than Hall of Famers who went by animal names in everyday conversation (Goose Goslin, Catfish Hunter, Mule Suttles and Rabbit Maranville, for starters). But the Minnesota Twins became the first to make the postseason by beating the Tigers Tuesday night.

Now the question is would an encore be an even greater upset?

The Yankees took all seven games from the Twins during the regular season. They're rested and ready (and a little perturbed, in the case of Jorge Posada). The Twins didn't even get to New York until just before the morning radio shows started and have hardly any arms left to pitch.

• Your Rankings: Who are the Twins chasing for the all-time postseason upset?

• Vote: All things Twins-Yankees series
• Playoff Power Ranker: Where do the Twins fit in with the rest of the playoff teams?

Talk about picking the right time to take the division lead! In Tuesday's Tigers-Twins tiebreaker, the Twins' extra-inning win gave Minnesota the largest lead it has had on top of the AL Central this entire season -- a one-game lead! (Cue Detroit imploding.)

Despite the Tigers' monopolization of the spot since early May, with the Twins in first place as of Oct. 6, they have officially won the AL Central and a playoff series against the Yankees (lucky them, right?). Which team will win this ALDS: the surging Twins or the consistent Yankees? Vote below!

“

Hey Tigers fans...I'm a Tigers fan as well. It's this simple - the Tigers had 7 chances in the reg season to control their own destiny. They didn't do it. As a result, they allowed themselves to be at the mercy of bad calls and bad bounces. It isn't on the umps.

” -- MotownRedMachine

“

Even if the Twins lose to the Yanks, great accomplishment to come back and win the division.

” -- illnos

• Vote: Which starting pitcher would you rather send to the mound Tuesday?

You would think repeating something 162 times would be a good way to guarantee conclusive results. When the Minnesota Twins are involved, you'd be wrong. We don't have a clue what will happen in the Metrodome on Tuesday night. (Although if we were the Twins, we'd keep Jared Allen around just in case anyone needs to rush the mound.)

What we do know is how little a chance SportsNation voters gave the Twins in the AL Central right up until the final hours of the regular season.

Scott (Bristol, CT)

What sort of chance do you give Rick Porcello and the Tigers on Tuesday in the Metrodome?

Buster Olney

Scott: The Twins have to be heavy favorites, because of the Metrodome home field advantage, because of the way the last four days have played out, etc. And Porcello is 0-2, 6.30 in the 'dome so far. But I was thinking about this the other day: Porcello really reminds me of Bret Saberhagen, with his nasty stuff, and maybe he's just young enough that that huge crowd and situation won't bother him at all. Look, everything changes in a hurry if Baker hangs an off-speed pitch in the first inning and Granderson goes deep. It's the nature of the sport. Full transcript

These are heady times in the Twin Cities. Brett Favre (steady on, you may hear that name a few more times today) gets his first look at the Packers tonight on Monday Night Football. Tuesday brings the Twins trying to complete a less tiresome comeback when they face the Tigers in a playoff ... tiebreaker ... really big game.

And we haven't even gotten to Sunday's thriller in front of roughly 4,000 people that saw the Timberwolves torch the Bucks (Roko Ukic vs. Mustafa Shakur; it's fantastic!) in the NBA preseason. Or the Wisconsin Badgers improving to 5-0 and claiming Paul Bunyan's Axe by beating the Golden Gophers on the gridiron in Minneapolis Saturday. You usually need a snow shovel to have this much fun in Minnesota.

We've got plenty of questions about the Packers and Vikings and Tigers and Twins, but first and foremost, which game is a bigger deal?

• Vote on Monday's game: Packers at Vikings | Vote on Tuesday's game: Tigers at Twins
• Chat : MNF with Football Outsiders, 7:30 p.m. ET | MLB with Eric Young, 3 p.m. ET
• Just for the heck of it : Got a Wild question? Talk NHL with Scott Burnside at 4 p.m. ET

We know baseball's regular season is a marathon, and one win in April equals one win in September. But when your team is coming to the finish line after running its metaphorical 26 miles, it has to feel good to have someone who can kick the guy behind you in the shins.

Justin Verlander was that guy Tuesday, kicking the Twins and their playoff hopes squarely where it hurts, but does one clutch performance when the Tigers needed it most put him in the thick of the AL Cy Young race?

With his team in danger of waking up this morning tied for first in the AL Central, Verlander beat the Twins and improved to 18-9 with a 3.45 ERA this season. CC Sabathia has 19 wins, Felix Hernandez has the same number of wins and a better ERA and Zack Greinke has fewer wins but the best ERA of all. But Verlander had the spotlight Tuesday night.

“

Justin for Cy Young. Coming through in a pennant race is normally significant. Zach and Felix aren't pitching for much at this point.

” -- GNewsomII

“

You should really go see Greinke pitch. If you haven't yet, it's really something. Plus it's cool that the dude is just a total space cadet.

” -- michissouri10