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NL Wild Card picks: We've come to a Giant consensus

This week we've debated if baseball's wild card format is even keeping with the spirit of the sport, (correctly) picked the American League Wild Card winner, and now, time to keep our streak going, Giants-Mets in the National League Wild Card.

Welcome back to the Yardbarker roundtable where we ask our experts to kickback, relax and just chat about sports in general. We asked out panelists:

Giants vs Mets. 'Even year' magic vs. the 2015 World Series losers. Which team is your pick and why.

Demetrius Bell:  The Giants have been horrible during the second half of the season, but they figured it out just in time to keep their postseason spot. Now they're going into a win-or-go home situation with Madison Bumgarner taking the mound. That's normally good news for them, and it should be good news for them tonight. I don't think that either the Giants or Mets are going to get past the Cubs, but I do think that the Giants will be the team that gets the right to face the Cubs.

Shiloh Carder:  Giants. In a one-game deal like this, I'm going with Bruce Bochy. Think about this: Bochy's Giants have won 10 straight postseason series (if you include the Wild Card Game as a series). In that time, the Giants won all EIGHT elimination games they were in, including down 0-2 in the 2012 NLDS to the Reds and down 1-3 to the Cardinals in the ensuing NLCS. The Giants have won 11 of their last 13 games playoff games against National League teams. I don't care what year it is, those are impressive numbers.

Matt WhitenerThe scenario is oddly similar to where the last Giants romp through October began: Wild Card play-in game, on the road, with a Giants team that had just heated up towards the end of the season sending their top guy to mound in an attempt to extend the season into the series phase of the postseason.

That top guy was Madison Bumgarner and he authored the first in his line of historic outings, as he became an all-time postseason legend in the process. He struck out 10 while allowing a meager four hits over 9 innings of shutout ball to launch the Giants into the playoffs and towards their third World Series win in 5 years.

Fast forward two years and the stage is set for the same thing to occur. Bumgarner, who owns seven postseason wins in 14 outings, carries a well-deserved aura to the mound in October and could require minimal run support in order to carry the Giants into a match up with the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS.

This October's most dangerous underdog will get started again towards what seems to be routinely there's every other season again: a World Series title.

David Matthews: As a Cubs fan, I am absolutely horrified of Even Year Magic and the likelihood of facing Madison Bumgarner in SF for Game 3 and a really pissed off Bumgarner in a potential Game 5. The same would happen with a Mets series, but Noah Syndergaard has not become a folk hero just yet. I would really like to see a rematch of last year's NLCS, but I ultimately going to have to pick the Giants and then hope Bumgarner misses a flight or is detained by TSA before he can face the Cubs. There are too many players on the Giants that have been in this situation before and while the Mets are an even better story this year, that's because they're held together by spit and twine at this point. I think this is going to be the better of the two play-in games, but it ends with heartbreak in Flushing yet again.

Jamie Neal: This even year bull$#!% has to stop.

I'm glad the Giants won a World Series in 2010. I even took my ex to the ring ceremony game to celebrate because it was that big of a deal in the Bay Area where we grew up. I was excited for all my Giants fan friends who enjoyed the World Series win in 2012. Bruce Bochy pulled all the right strings again and had that band of misfits playing some other worldly type baseball. I moved back to Las Vegas right before the World Series started in 2014 and won a lot of money on the Giants. But now? I cant stand the fans who shout and scream about the fact that its an even year. Nothing against any Giants fans, but let's be real - there is no even year magic. If there was, Scott Spiezio and the Angels wouldn't have won in 2002 (and don't tell me that didn't count because it was '02 - an even year is an even year).

Aside from that personal rant, I just don't know if this team has that "it" factor.  I don't know if Bochy has the right squad to pull off another huge playoff push. I don't know if this team has the starting pitching to go deep into the playoffs and bring home yet another World Series title to the Bay Area. The Mets are the home team. Noah Syndergaard is on the mound. This team just feels like it's ripe and due. And yet, I can't pick against Bruce Bochy. I can't pick against Brandon Crawford. I can't pick against Buster Posey. I cant pick against Hunter Pence. I can't pick against Denard Span, Sergio Romo, Brandon Belt, and Madison Bumgarner.

Giants win. Bumgarner adds to his postseason resume. The Giants celebrate in a way only they can. And the Mets... the Mets remain the lovable losers they have been for the majority of my adult life.

Phillip Barnett[Shows phone to girlfriend]

Me: "I have to pick between the Giants and the Mets. I think I'm going to pick the Mets."

Paridesa: Get away from me. You have no faith.

Me: Well, I figured if I picked the Mets, it would be some sort of reverse jinx where I get the prediction wrong and the Giants end up winning.

Paridesa: That's not how that works. You have actually believe that the other team is going to win.

Me: I'm going to pick the Mets anyway.

I don't know if admitting to trying to engineer a reverse jinx and being upfront about it is enough repenting to the baseball gods in the same sentence that I'm sinning in, but Noah Syndergaard is on the bump and the Mets have the best record in baseball since August 20. The Giants are coming in with negative momentum and Madison Bumgarner hasn't completely been himself since the All-Star break. The Mets are a better baseball team, are coming in playing better baseball and have home field advantage.

Maybe I do believe it after all.

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