As we Braves fans sit patiently waiting for the playoffs to start for our club, the Tampa Bay Rays already find themselves one loss away from elimination. I’ll be honest with you when I say that all this baseball watching I have done in the past two days has gotten me both nervous and excited about our boys taking the field tonight.

I can’t decide to be encouraged or let down by the example of the Rays-Rangers series. The series has on one hand really shown how you cannot predict what will happen in the postseason. I mean if you predicted that the team with the AL’s best record would find themselves in a 0-2 hole at home then more power to you. So, in that case us Braves fans (being the somewhat underdog Wildcarders) can be encouraged by how the Rangers have put away all the talk and got down to business.

On the other hand this series can show how short this short series can truly be. Like I stated before, the Braves and Giants haven’t even thrown a pitch yet. But Rays fans feel like their season is over.To me it would seem like such a shame to make it this far on what has been such a historic season for Atlanta only to be swept out of the NLDS.

No matter how you look at it I think one thing is clear: we’re all ready for baseball. So whether this NLDS series is encouraging or a warning for the Braves, I say “Let’s go get em boys”. Let playoff baseball for the Braves begin!