This is the World Series few people expected. Before the season, most of us were too caught up in the NL West Arms Race and the Steve Cohen Mets to pay much attention to Atlanta—SI's Tom Verducci being the the exception. Maybe we should have seen Houston's coming out of the American League. But the Yankees, Blue Jays, White Sox and Rays were either flashier or safer picks.
After the 162-game slog, four of our MLB writers predicted the Astros would take the AL pennant, with Stephanie Apstein selecting them to win the World Series, but none of our MLB writers predicted this matchup.