In all honesty I am not tingling with anticipation about the postseason the way I was in 2010. Maybe it’s because I’m three weeks into being a dad and nothing quite compares with that. Maybe I’m jaded now that the Giants won the World Series. Maybe it’s something else.

Who knows, but I do know this: I will be pumped and ready for the game come Saturday night.

Here are some thoughts to close out the regular season as we prepare for the stress of post-season baseball:

• Buster Posey is the MVP. You can read several articles on the web right now parsing the stats (like this one), but as much as I love stats it comes down to this for me: 2010 we had Posey, we won the division. 2011: no Posey, 86 wins, no playoffs. 2012: Posey, division champions. Simple. More to the point, when Posey got hot, post-all star game, the Giants took over the race and never looked back.
• Adrian Gonzalez: sweet swing, solid player, but that three years in a row, three different teams, three times coming up short.
• If you had of told me in 2010 the Giants will win it all, Torres and Huff and Burrell and Ross will be heroes, but Pablo Sandoval will disappear and be a non-factor, I would have believed it all except the Pablo part. NO WAY the Giants win without that guy in top form. Maybe this year that story line is repeated with Tim Lincecum.
• You have to go Cain and MadBum 1-2 to start this series, but I really don’t like the options when the page turns to Cincinnati. Lincecum and Zito especially seemed destined to fail in that small ballpark.
• Major props to the A’s. What a season, what a story!
• Josh Hamilton will get a large contract this offseason but I just don’t see him being worth the money.
• My predictions for tonight’s games: Braves over Cards 3-2 and Orioles over Rangers 4-3.

(-SB)