Interesting.....

I imagine whoever faces the Yankees will want to force the Yanks to use four starters given the Yanks' pitching woes.

Probably been discussed elsewhere, but how do the other teams fill out?  Assuming Boston wins the AL (and the choice to play in the 8-day B series) and the Yankees take the Wildcard (therefore, playing in series A by default), does the remaining division champ with the better record automatically get matched up with the Yankees in Series A, or do they themselves have a choice?

What the hell is up with the whole premise that one (1) good reliever is going to determine the outcome of a series? Seriously, do the NY media seriously think that the three other playoff teams are only going to factor in Joba to their calculations? Ridiculous.

I didn't get a chance to put this in the original post, but the difference between A or B is that A will have 1 more game started by the 4th starter, and B will have 1 more game started by the 2nd starter.

Here are my best guesses for 2nd and 4th starters of each team, and their relative strength (2 vs 2, 4 vs 4)

CLE - Carmona(2) Byrd(3)
BOS - Schilling(4) Wakefield(1)
NYY - Pettite(3) Clemens/Hughes?(2)
ANA - Escobar(1) Santana?(4)

I think BOS would prefer Wakefield vs Byrd rather than Schilling (or Matsuzaka) vs Carmona. Still the difference is minor, and on any given day a pitcher can be on or off (e.g. Byrd has done well in the postseason).

If any teams are fighting to make the post-season in the final weekend, they may not have their #1 or #2 starter available for Game 1, particularly the AL B series.

David Pinto addresses this at Baseball Musings and conjectures that a team like Boston wouldn't want the extra day of rest, while Cleveland and Anaheim would.