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Roy Halladay pitches a no hitter in his playoff debut. In beating the Cincinnati Reds, Halladay becomes the second pitcher to throw a no hitter in playoff history. This happens to be the second no hitter he has thrown this season--the first being a perfect game.

Great players do great things whether it be in the regular season or the playoffs. The thing about the playoffs is that it magnifies hot streaks or slumps. It is still shocking that Halladay pitched a no hitter, but it is not shocking that he struck out eight, walked one and gave up no home runs. His so/bb ratio for the season is 7.3, and his hr/9 is at .9. He threw nine complete games and four shut outs.

Halladay's gem was just as good as his last start of the season in which the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Washington Nationals 8-0. In that game, he threw a complete game shut out, giving up two hits, striking out six, walking none and of course giving up no home runs. The only difference is two balls fell for hits. In his brilliant playoff debut, he pitched ridiculously well and got a little lucky that not one ball dropped in for a hit. Striking out batters, not giving up free passes and limiting the long ball...well...that's what makes him amazing.

Baseball Playoff Predictions

Since the baseball playoffs are so random, I decided to draw names from a hat to make my predictions. If I were to do some real analysis, I'd say Rays over Phillies and write 1,000 words. But even with analysis, anything can happen. Yeah yeah. Cliche. But it rings true with baseball. That's how we end up with the St. Louis Cardinals winning the World Series with David Eckstein as the World Series MVP and Jeff Suppan as the NLCS MVP a few years ago.

Rangers vs. Rays

Rangers

Yankees vs. Twins

Yankees

Phillies vs. Reds

Phillies

Braves vs. Giants

Braves

Yankees vs. Rangers

Rangers

Braves vs. Phillies

Braves

Rangers vs. Braves

Braves

Your 2010 World Series champion, Atlanta Braves. Bobby Cox retires a winner. I picked the Yankees to beat the Braves early in the season. Random drawing picks the Braves over the Rangers. My logic picks the Rays over Phillies. So you know it's going to be Twins over the Reds.