Rangers v. Rays: Position-by-Position Matchups

Seems like everyone except ESPN's Buster Olney is picking the Tampa Bay Rays to beat our Texas Rangers in the best-of-5 American League Divisional Series. Which makes sense actually. The Rays are a 96-win team, the winner of baseball's best division, with a 4-2 season series edge on Texas, and with World Series experience as recently as two Falls ago.

In general, the Rays scored more runs and made fewer errors than the Rangers. But this -- to me -- is anything but a mismatch. Texas plays a clean, efficient series, and they could easily win the first playoff series in their 39-year history.

Let's crunch some numbers, throw in some intangibles and spit out a prediction.

Read Richie's full Sportatorium blog and see the predictions at DallasObserver.com.