Begins 01:20 Thursday 23rd October 2008 BST
Games 1 and 2 to be played at Tampa Bay
Games 3, 4 and 5 to be played in Philadelphia
Games 6 and 7 to be played at Tampa Bay

It's finally here! We've reached the pinnacle of the game for any professional baseball player and definitely one of the highlights of the sporting calendar for me personally. It is somewhat refreshing this year that the showpiece event will be played out with two teams that are not exactly fashionable in terms of baseball history but that could all change here!
The Tampa Bay Rays are the story of this season and when you consider what they have managed here it is quite remarkable. Having never had a winning record in franchise history and nearly always considered as the whipping boys of the tough American League East, the Rays have managed to turn things around in quite dramatic fashion through a combination of players starting to reach the top of their respective games, many chances at obtaining early draft picks and astute management. Even if they do not win the thing here, what they achieve will be a memorable and historic time for the club.
Joe Madden is not the sort of guy to just rest on his laurels and any professional has the big prize in mind so trust me, the Rays will definitely not be just here to say 'Well we've had a good run...' and call it there, they will want this badly!
The Philadelphia Phillies have endured some pretty awful runs in their history and have just one World Series to their name which was a success over Kansas City in 1980. In the last two years the Phillies have won the National League East division over the much more fancied New York Mets and are starting to establish themselves as one of the more successful teams of recent seasons.
The Phillies rely heavily on big scoring to get them the results with power bats in Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jayson Werth and Pat Burrell that are all regular home run threats to any team. They do also have a brilliant starting pitcher in Cole Hamels and a terrific closer in Brad Lidge but it has to be said that the rest of the pitching staff can be a little unreliable at times.
So who is going to win the series? The excellent pitching rotation of the Rays matched up against the power of the Phillies offense, the decent if unspectacular Rays offense against a fairly average Phillies rotation makes this one very close.
It's  a tough one and difficult to make a recommendation on really but if you have already taken the 2 point recommendation on the Phillies I offered you before the start of the post season you will be sitting on a potential sixteen points profit so it could be time to get some guaranteed funds back.

STATS

RECOMMENDATIONS -
Already recommended - 2 Points back of Philadelphia Phillies @ 9
5 Points back of Tampa Bay Rays @ 1.83 (Extrabet )
3 Points back of Philadelphia Phillies to hit the most home runs in the series @ 2.1 (Bet365)
0.5 Points back of Phillies to win series 4-2 @ 7 (Bet365)
0.5 Points back of Evan Longoria to get the most hits by a Tampa Bay player in the series @ 6 (Stan James)
0.5 Points back of Cole Hamels to be series MVP @ 12 (Ladbrokes)
0.5 Points back of Carlos Pena to be series MVP @ 26 (Ladbrokes)

3 Points back of Phillies to win Game 1 (Hamels vs Kazmir) @ 1.95 (PaddyPower)

Crafty Stan