So the pennant races in baseball this year amounted to a two-week contest to decide who would be the Yankees’ sacrificial lamb from the American League Central and about 48 hours of intrigue over whether the Braves could catch the Rockies for the National League wild card. The Rockies then pressed the fading Dodgers for the NL West title, but unlike the Tigers and Twins, neither team faced an early tee time on Monday.

Boy, was that scintillating? Another warmed-over Kelsey Grammer sitcom held more appeal. Baseball has a lot of work to do in the postseason to keep 2009 from being forgotten the instant Bud Selig beats feet out of the World Series winner’s clubhouse before his corduroy suit gets splashed with champagne.

Recent history has shown I’ll probably regret saying this, but the signs point to a pretty exciting October and, ugh, November, even though players will probably be wearing ski masks by the end of it.

Look at the National League. The three division winners — Phillies, Cardinals and Dodgers — all can make legitimate cases for being the favorite. And the wild card Rockies have a pedigree for pulling off some playoff surprises.

The Phillies have the best lineup of the lot and a strong 1-2 punch on the mound in Cole Hamels and Cliff Lee. The problem is that closer Brad Lidge has set fire to everything around him this season.

The Cardinals have a dominant top two of their own in Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright. Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday and Ryan Ludwick are a pretty formidable middle of the order, but the Cards clinched the Central a month ago and have been in cruise control ever since. It’s tough to turn it back on in October.

The Dodgers have been in cruise control for the last month, too. The problem is, they hadn’t clinched anything. They have the best bullpen in the NL, topped by the best closer, Jonathan Broxton. But they don’t really have a set rotation going into the playoffs, and Joe Torre has to choose between some unproven youngsters and mediocre veterans. The offense has struggled since Manny Ramirez returned from his 50-game suspension. Manny is batting a very pedestrian .270 with an .887 OPS since coming back (hmmm) and is hitting just .216 in the last month. There were even some boo birds at Chavez Ravine when Mannywood struck out four times against the Rockies on Friday night.

Speaking of the Rockies, they are playing with the same kind of confidence they rode to the pennant in 2007. Jorge de la Rosa and Ubaldo Jimenez are the two best pitchers nobody has heard about. The Rocks are the proverbial team no one wants to face in a short series right now.

I’ll wager anyone my 1982 Topps Terry Francona card that we’re headed for three very interesting NL playoff series. Scoff all you like at the so-called JV league, but whoever comes out of the Senior Circuit is going to be battle tested.

The same can’t be said for the Yankees or Red Sox when they come out of the ALDS. It says here that both teams will win in no more than four. The Yankees own the Twins and pretty much have since all the way back when Derek Jeter had range. As for the Tigers, some folks are clinging to the possibility that the Yanks will have trouble with Justin Verlander would be going up against New York’s ace, C C Sabathia. Sabathia stinks in the playoffs, right? Yeah, well, Verlander (1-2, 5.82 ERA in four starts) hasn’t exactly been a cross between Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett. The Yanks will roll to the ALCS.

The Sox should have a harder time with the Angels, but they won’t. Mike Scioscia should tell his guys to run wild and take advantage of Boston’s inability to throw out base stealers, but he won’t. Since he doesn’t have a true ace, he should use his two hottest starters, Joe Saunders and Scott Kazmir, both lefties, to start Games 1 and 2, but he won’t. Since his heart-attack closer, Brian Fuentes, is virtually guaranteed to blow a game in this series, he should ignore the book and stick with one of his set-up guys if he’s mowing the Sox down in the late innings, but he won’t. Since his team has never beaten Boston in a big game in its history, he should … you get the picture.

The Angels are of no concern to the Red Sox so long as the series doesn’t go five. Boston will win a fifth game, but I can’t say that I’m crazy about the idea of players who have had more needles stuck into them than the Barack Obama dolls at Fox News headquarters making three cross country flights in 10 days. Josh Beckett’s back issues are still a concern, regardless of how Saturday night’s tune-up went. Mike Lowell looked like he was headed to Clover Manor before getting another injection into his hip last week and having yet more fluid drained from the joint. And Jason Varitek, who the ever-loyal Francona is bound to use in at least one key situation, has forks sticking out where his needle marks should be.

We’ve been told that the Yankees are built for the regular season and the Red Sox for the postseason. I guess that’s supposed to mean the Yankees don’t have the pitching (it certainly can’t mean that they’ll suddenly stop hitting, can it?) for a seven-game series. Like all of Red Sox Nation, I’m hoping that’s true, but after watching New York’s pitching shut Boston down for the second half of the season, and seeing how strong the Yankee bullpen has been since Phil Hughes moved into the set-up role, I’m convinced that, finally, they have bought a $250 million pennant.

Hope I’m wrong. I hope we can proclaim the Yankees the biggest chokers of the decade a month from now. 

But rooting for the Cardinals to make sure the Yankees don’t get their money’s worth again wouldn’t be so bad, right?

Randy Whitehouse is a staff writer. His e-mail rwhitehouse@sunjournal