Rankings/List

The Atlanta Braves had a good year this season by most means. Won the Wild Card, overcame a plethora of injuries, and could have easily beaten the San Francisco Giants in the NLDS if a few more things went their way.

Following Bobby Cox's retirement, the Braves organization has already made a good move in hiring former Marlins manager and Braves third base coach Fredi Gonzalez. Despite his 276-279 record with the Marlins the last 3 1/2 years, Gonzalez has garnered a good amount of respect in the league, and was Cox's No. 1 choice to take over the Braves.

Baseball history has been filled with famous home run shots, brilliant pitching performances, and of course, fantastic defensive plays.

In the postseason, everything is magnified and every play takes on a greater significance, so any time a player does something truly special it is not only celebrated and highlighted, in some cases it is etched in our memories forever.

Jacoby Ellsbury had an injury-shortened season for the Boston Red Sox after he collided with the freight train otherwise known as third basemen Adrian Beltre and fractured four ribs on April 11. He appeared in only 18 games, hitting .192 and stealing seven bases after leading the AL with 70 steals in 2009.

A few days ago, my friend and I had a debate over the HOF credentials of Fred McGriff.  I said- the guy nearly had 500 Home Runs, that's gotta get him in.  My friend countered back- almost, but not 500.  

When the argument shifted to Mike Mussina, he stood up for him.  He said how Mussina almost had 300 wins.  I countered- almost, but not 300.  

Touche.

Another day has come and gone, and still no baseball. We hear that there will be a National League Championship Series played soon, but we are beginning to have our doubts. The NLCS allegedly starts on Saturday. We'll see.

In the meantime, as we continue to prepare to watch baseball, here are some more things to think about ahead of Game 1.

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In honor of one of the best pitching matchups in NLCS history between the Phillies and Giants starting Saturday night, here are 10 matchups that had the same amount of hype that Halladay-Lincecum, Oswalt-Cain and Hamels-Sanchez provide.

In the past 20 years, many matchups have gotten hype. The most memorable hype for a series had to have been in 2001 when the Diamondbacks and Braves battled it out with five future Hall of Famers,

This list focuses only on individual game pitching matchups.

Poor Brooks Conrad.

The Atlanta Braves second baseman, whom the team was forced to place considerable faith in when they lost infielders Chipper Jones and Martin Prado to season-ending injuries, could not have had a harder time of it during Atlanta's four-game loss to the San Francisco Giants in the NLDS. He collected just one hit and committed four extraordinarily costly errors, including three in the team's Game 3 loss alone.

Sometimes, heck, most of the time it's hard to believe that the same Miguel Cabrera, the eight-year veteran who has 247 home runs, nearly 900 RBI, and a career batting average of .313 is only 27 years old!

By all accounts, however, Cabrera had one of the finest seasons of his career in 2010, and definitely one more than worthy of Bleacher Report Featured Columnist's Silver Slugger Award at first base.

If the Wild Card system in Major League Baseball had any remaining detractors entering this season's Division Series round of postseason play—and it did—the pair of excellent series (San Francisco-Atlanta and Texas-Tampa Bay) may have wooed them all.

Although they are two very different pitchers, the Giants' Tim Lincecum and the Phillies' Roy Halladay are two of baseball's top three or four.

Saturday night in Philadelphia, Lincecum—the NL Cy Young winner each of the previous two seasons—will face Halladay, the front runner for this year's NL Cy Young, who tossed a no-hitter in his last start.

Although postseason baseball was limited to the World Series only until 1969, and the World Series and LCS until 1995, there have been dozens of classic pitching matchups in baseball history.