Hello,
Friday night will be Game 1 of the NLCS, the first time the Dodgers have played in the NLCS since 2009. That year they swept the Cardinals in the NLDS but lost to the Phillies in the NLCS. Sometimes it's easy to forget that the Dodgers were a good team under the hellish reign of the McCourt family. Despite the McCourt's many flaws those Dodgers teams usually still had good seasons. No one knew how ugly the McCourt's ownership was until Frank and Jamie got divorced. As with many divorces a lot of seedy details then came out. Thankfully McCourt was eventually forced to sale.
Friday night's NLCS scheduled pitching match up is wily veteran vs. youngster, continuing a trend established over the last two nights. (More on that below.) Scheduled to pitch for the Dodgers is Zack Greinke (15-4, 2.63), the former Cy Young award winner. Despite Greinke's regular season brilliance he has been less than impressive in the playoffs, in his career he's 1-2 with a 5.56 ERA. I'm hoping Greinke plays up to his contract tonight instead of his playoff history.
Greinke is scheduled to pitch against Cardinals second year player Joe Kelly. I'm sure many of you are like me, just who is Joe Kelly? No he didn't used to play quarterback for the Bills, that was Jim Kelly. Joe Kelly is a 25 year old kid that has pitched for the Cardinals for two years. He's been both a reliever and a starter. In 2013 Kelly was 10-5 with a 2.69 ERA. Over his two years with the Cardinals Kelly is 15-12 and has a 3.08 ERA. (Thanks to baseball-reference.com.)
Clearly Mike Matheny is taking a chance here, giving the ball to the second year player. Tonight's match up will be an interesting pitching duel. The Cardinals are playing at home, I expect that will lessen the effect of Greinke's experience over Kelly.
themusicaddict's prediction: I'm not going to lie to you, this is truly a homer pick. I pick the Dodgers to win in 7 games, but do expect a great series.
We found out who the Dodgers were going to be playing in the NLCS when the Cardinals beat the Pirates 6-1 on Wednesday night. It was the first of two battles of the wily veteran vs. the rookie in Game 5 of the two remaining league division series. Not too shocking but the wily veteran was the better pitcher in both games.
Again on Wednesday St. Louis beat Pittsburgh 6-1. The wily veteran then was Adam Wainwright, he pitched all 9 innings allowing 8 hits, but only 1 run. Wainwright improves to 2-0 and has a 1.13 ERA this post season. David Freese's two run homer was the big blow in this game and the only two runs that Pittsburgh rookie Gerrit Cole allowed. Also the only two runs that the Cardinals would need.
Cole pitched 5 innings, giving up 3 hits and 2 runs. Cole was 1-1 with a 2.45 ERA in the playoffs. He received some playoff experience and will hopefully be even that much better in next season's playoffs.
The Cardinals have had tremendous success over the last few years. Thanks to ESPN, here are some of their more impressive stats. The Cardinals advanced to their third straight NLCS and also are 8-1 when facing postseason elimination the last 3 years. They also recently won a World Series.
St. Louis has homefield advantage over the Dodgers because they had a better overall regular season record. Although in the head to head match up the Dodgers actually won 4 of 7 games. Of course if LA wins 4 of their next 7 games they'll be going to the World Series!
While the Cardinals advanced, no one can take away how great of a regular season Pittsburgh had. The Pirates won 94 regular season games, beat the Reds in the Wild Card game and gave the very tough Cardinals all that they could handle. If the Pirates improve as much as they did since last season to next season they very well could be in the World Series. The Pirates have established a culture of winning and winning is what they expect. Congrats to the Pirates Pedro Alvarez, he's the first player to have at least 1 RBI in each of his first 6 playoff games. Very impressive especially after such and up and down season.
On Thursday night the pitching match up was between the Tigers wily Justin Verlander and the A's Sonny Gray. Justin Verlander was nearly unhittable last night, throwing a no-hitter into the 7th inning. He threw over 20 swing and miss pitches, I believe the exact count was 24 swing and miss pitches. He also threw 10 strikeouts. Verlander didn't pitch all 9 innings like Wainwright, but he was even more dominant. In his 8 innings he only allowed two hits and no runs at all. Overall it was just a complete and dominant performance.
Speaking of complete and dominating performances, what Verlander has done to Oakland recently is exactly that. Verlander has pitched 30 consecutive scoreless innings against the A's.
The big hit for the Tigers was Miguel Cabrera's two run homer in the 4th inning. Meanwhile like the Pirates Gerrit Cole, the A's Sonny Gray pitched 5 innings as well. Gray gave up 6 hits, including Cabrera's homer. But he also gave up 3 runs and 4 walks.
Like the Cardinals the Tigers will be playing in their 3rd straight NLCS. They'll travel to Boston to play the Red Sox, who've been resting since eliminating the Rays. Game 1 of the ALCS will be Saturday night. The scheduled pitching match is Jon Lester (15-8, 3.75 ERA) vs. Anibal Sanchez (14-8, 2.57 ERA).
themusicaddict
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