Nationals Arm Race

Fister shows Tim Hudson what *he* has between his legs. Photo via wp.com

It’s only fair to discuss, since we just saw Matt Williams pull another starter in the midst of a shutout and sitting right at 100 pitches.  That’s where Doug Fister stood after completing 7 innings last night before giving way to the conventional 1-2 punch of Clippard-Storen to finish off the Giants in Game 3.

With a 3 run lead and the top of the order due up in the 8th inning, the move to Clippard was a bit less arguable.  Fister was on a shutout, but wasn’t half as dominant as Jordan Zimmermann was the previous night.  Fister had given up 7 base runners in 7 innings: Zimmermann only 4 in 8 2/3rds.  It may smell like hindsight-is-20/20, but I thought this was a good managerial move.

Meanwhile, even if the hits off of Storen were mostly weak (going back to last night too; Posey’s single was on a good outside pitch that he nubbed into center and Sandoval sliced a ball the other way, landing it three feet fair, usually a sign of luck and not malice), are you concerned about going back to him with the game on the line?

Tonight, the Giants get our sole lefty Gio Gonzalez, who didn’t face the Giants this year.  In his sole start against SF last year, he gave up 2 in 7 and took the loss.  The Giants as a team possess a .258/.318/.390 slash line good for a wRC+ of 104 against lefties on the year, slightly better than how they fare against righties.  So we may brace ourselves for a bit more offense than we’ve see so far.  Meanwhile, the Nats get Ryan Vogelsong, who had just a 87 ERA+ for the season and who got absolutely blitzed in the two games he faced the Nats this year (2 starts, 11 1/3 innings, 13 hits and 9 runs).

Smells like a high-scoring, get into the bullpen early kind of game.  Do you like the Nats’ chances?

If we make it to game 5, do you dare to skip Strasburg and go with Zimmermann (who, by the way, would have his normal 4 full days of rest by the time the deciding game rolled around on thurs 10/9/14).

This picture is 2 years old; replace it with a red jersey and you would have thought it was last night. Photo Andrew Harnik/washingtontimes.com

On his 100th pitch of what I certainly thought was going to be a 3-hit shutout masterpiece to resurrect this playoff series for the Nats, Jordan Zimmermann missed on a fastball up to Giants #2 hitter Joe Panik, issuing his first walk and just the fourth base-runner of the night.

I was not entirely shocked to see Matt Williams trot to the mound, but I also wasn’t happy.  As my wife can attest, I uttered the following phrase: “I think he’s going to regret taking him out.”

Sure enough.  Another Drew Storen meltdown, another blown 9th inning lead that led to the team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

To be fair; this isn’t entirely about second guessing.  You can quite easily make the argument to put in Storen as thus: Storen has been lights out for the entire year.  The Giant’s most dangerous hitter (Buster Posey) was coming to the plate.  You would rather have Posey going at a fresh Storen than getting his 4th look at Zimmermann (most starters’ third time through the lineup averages inflate wildly, to say nothing of their 4th).  It was righty-versus-righty.

Well, sometimes you can over-think things.  Certainly Tom Boswell feels that way, based on his column this morning.

On the other hand, if the following scenarios had played out, I’m not sure anyone would have argued against the strategy.

1. After giving up the walk, Williams walks out to talk to Zimmermann, he stays in and gives up the Posey single, *then* Storen comes in and gives up the run-scoring double to Pablo Sandoval.  You’ve yanked the starter after putting two guys on, and you’ve gone to your closer in the highest-leverage situation of his career and he got unlucky.  That’s still harsh on Storen, but more understandable.
2. After giving up the walk, Williams leaves Zimmermann in like a total old-school manager and watches him subsequently give up the single and then the double, all while his closer warms up in the bullpen.  That would have led to the reverse second-guessing; why leave him in when you’ve got your closer ready to go?

Major league manager; sometimes you just can’t win.  Williams had a quick hook last night.  Don Mattingly had an excruciatingly slow hook two nights ago, letting his ace Clayton Kershaw give up *SIX* hits in the 7th inning of the Dodgers-Cardinals series before relieving him, and then watched his reliever give up a 3-run homer to turn a 6-2 lead into a 7-6 deficit.  That’s “lose your job” kind of decision making (if the Dodger’s don’t get out of the NLDS).

You guys know what I follow and am most interested in; starting pitching.  So you probably know what I would have done; stick with my starter.  But sometimes it isn’t that simple.  So I’m not going to kill Williams for last night.  I do think Storen’s future with this team is in serious doubt; would you throw him again this post-season?  Would you trust him going forward?  Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice …. and I see Storen in a new uniform next year.

I spent 6+ hours watching that baseball game (practically the first time all summer I have watched a game from start to end).  The longer I watched, that more and more looked like it was going to be the inevitable disappointment, as Yusmiero Petit looked like the second coming of Roger Clemens and the Nats hitters looked like a AAA team at the plate for much of the night.  A deflating end to a long night.  Tanner Roark gave up the game-winning homer on a mistake (he missed over the plate while trying to hit the outside corner and Brandon Belt destroyed it), but the offense had more than their share of walk-off opportunities.

The Nats have a long road ahead; they match up with the Giant’s Ace next, have to win 2 straight on the road just to get it back to a 5th game.  Lets see if they have what Tim Hudson implied they may not have: I can’t say it here in a PG blog but it rhymes with “Walls.”  🙂

Strasburg’s first post-season start is upon us. Photo unk via thewifehatessports.com

Last year I went nearly game-by-game, night-by-night with predictions and analysis of the playoffs.  Can’t do that this year, but I am doing some quickie starter match-up analysis to do some Divisional Series match-up predictions.  The current list of probables is mostly guess work, with the help of MLB.com’s probable pitcher page.  Also using depth charts to make guesses on the probables.

Lets start with the home team.

Washington-San Francisco

Potential Pitching Match-ups:

1. Game 1: SF@Wash: Jake Peavy vs Stephen Strasburg
2. Game 2: SF@Wash: Tim Hudson vs Jordan Zimmermann
   
3. Game 3: Wash@SF: Doug Fister vs Madison Bumgarner
4. Game 4: Wash@SF: Gio Gonzalez vs Ryan Vogelsong (if necessary)
5. Game 5: SF@Wash: Peavy vs Strasburg (if necessary)
   

The WP’s James Wagner has a nice “how do the Nats fare against Peavy and Hudson” story on 10/2/14 with per-National stats against Peavy and Hudson for the first two games.  And Wagner also just announced the rotation order for the Nats.

Yes, it seems like we’re going to see Strasburg & Zimmermann at home instead of Stras-Gio.

Looking at the match-ups, its easy to say “advantage Washington.”  Strasburg has been hot.  Zimmermann has been even more hot.  We then throw the underrated Fister against Giant’s best starter, then come back with Gio in game 4 on the road, where he’s  going against the erratic Vogelsong.  Hudson has had the Nat’s number for years, but he’s been a train wreck in the 2nd half of 2014.  Peavy has been a bulldog for San Francisco since the trade, but was nearly a 5.00 ERA in the AL.

I’m predicting Washington sweeps the first two at home, loses Bumgarner’s start, then beats SF in game 4 to wrap up the series 3-1.

St. Louis-Los Angeles Dodgers

1. Game 1: Stl@LAD: Adam Wainwright vs Clayton Kershaw
2. Game 2: Stl@LAD: Lance Lynn vs Zack Greinke
   
3. Game 3: LAD@Stl: Hyun-Jin Ryu vs John Lackey
4. Game 4: LAD@Stl: Dan Haren vs Shelby Miller (if necessary)
5. Game 5: Stl@LAD: Wainwright v Kershaw again (if necessary)
   

St. Louis has already announced that Michael Wacha is *not* in the post-season rotation, which is a huge blow for their chances to out-last the Dodgers.  The game 1 match-up might be the pitching matchup of the post-season, with perennial Cy Young candidate Wainwright going against the likely MVP in Kershaw.  Lynn has gone from being barely a 5th starter to being the #2 guy on St. Louis’ staff, but I don’t know if he’s got enough to get St. Louis the split against Greinke.  Missing Wacha means that St. Louis will have to depend on both Lackey and Miller.  Long odds there.

This series might end up being a sweep frankly; I think LA has the distinct pitching advantage here.  And not having Wacha’s dominance from previous post seasons makes it tough.  Dodgers in a sweep or 3-1 if the Cards can get to either Greinke or Ryu.

Detroit-Baltimore

1. Game 1: Det@Balt: Max Scherzer vs Chris Tillman
2. Game 2: Det@Balt: Justin Verlander vs Wei-Yin Chen
   
3. Game 3: Balt@Det: Bud Norris vs David Price
4. Game 4: Balt@Det: Miguel Gonzalez vs Rick Porcello (if necessary)
5. Game 5: Det@Balt: Tillman-Scherzer (if necessary)
   

The 96-win Orioles get rewarded with having to face three Cy Young winners in the first three games.  Their rotation mates are underrated (3rd best ERA in the 2nd half) but certainly not in the same class as what Detroit puts up there.  Baltimore’s best case is to get a split at home, then a split away and get to the 5th game.  I don’t see it: I think this series hinges on whether Verlander is Cy Young-Verlander or inexplicably-bad-lately Verlander.  I’m guessing the former; Detroit wins this series in a sweep or perhaps 3-1.

Kansas City-Los Angeles Angels

1. Game 1: KC@LAA: Jason Vargas vs Jered Weaver
2. Game 2: KC@LAA: Yordano Ventura vs Matt Shoemaker
   
3. Game 3: LAA@KC: C.J. Wilson vs James Shields
4. Game 4: LAA@KC: Weaver vs Jeremy Guthrie (if necessary)
5. Game 5: KC@LAA: Shoemaker v Vargas (if necessary)

The Angels are struggling into the playoffs and have announced they’re going with a 3-man rotation.  Weaver’s history of going on 3 days rest is spotty; one decent start and one blow-out.  Meanwhile the Royals burned their #1 guy in the WC game AND threw Ventura enough to have people question Ned Yost‘s sanity (even moreso than they already were with his multiple bunting).  But the Angels hit, and the Royals’ guys won’t be able to completely put them at odds.

I think the 3-man rotation will backfire, and whether the Royals throw Guthrie or Danny Duffy in game 4 won’t make a difference; they’ll hit Weaver at home and push this to a 5th game, where everybody will be on deck.  Angels in 5.

Lets see if these probable pitchers hold up to guesses made on 10/1/14.

Will the Nats be staring down Kershaw in the playoffs? Photo via wiki.

Here we are.  After a crazy trade deadline in July, and an August and September that featured the division leaders (in most cases) solidifying their positions and extending their leads, the playoffs are upon us.

Lets take a look at the rotations of the playoff teams (despite the fact that the four Wild Card teams are just one-man pitching staffs until they win the play-in game).  Who lines up best?  For each team i’ve tried to line the pitchers up one through five, with the 5th guy being the one headed to the bullpen.

(Quick useful links: AL full standings on b-r.com, NL full standings, and post season schedule at MLB.com).

Trade deadline 2014 acquisitions highlighted in blue.  Pre-season acquisitions highlighted in Green for context.

NL Division Champs:

• Washington: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmerman, Fister, Roark (yes this is how I think it will shake out despite Roark’s great season-long performance; we posted on this separately)
• St. Louis: Wainwright, Lynn, Wacha, Miller, Lackey (Masterson to the bullpen when Wacha came back)
• Los Angeles: Kershaw, Greinke, Ryu, Haren, Hernandez, Wright (Beckett hurt, done for year, Ryu coming back, should be ok for playoffs so I’ve inserted him as the #3.  Maholm, Billingsley, Fife hurt all year).

Just look at what the Dodgers have tried to do to keep their rotation afloat in terms of player acquisition over the past couple of years.  I’d like to have their budget.  They will have no less than eleven capable, MLB-experienced starters once they’re all healthy.  Yes Kershaw is unbeatable, but as pointed out earlier this year, they are basically a .500 team otherwise.  Their 4th and 5th starters have been below replacement for much of the past month but they’re getting back Ryu right in time for the playoffs.   St. Louis’ rotation looks just as strong as it has been for the past few years; Wainwright quietly has 20 wins and a 2.38 ERA on the season.  Lynn has been great.  Only Miller has struggled but still has a league-average ERA+.

It is hard not to look at the Nationals’ rotation and claim they’re the deepest one-through-four, despite Gonzalez’s struggles.   I’d take our #4 (Fister) over anyone else’s #4, I think our #3 matches up just as favorably to anyone els’es #3, and Strasburg has a 1.34 ERA in September as the #1.

NL Wild Card:

• Pittsburgh: Liriano, Cole, Locke, Volquez, Worley (Morton dinged up late Sept, made way for Cole).
• San Francisco: Bumgarner, Hudson, Petit, Vogelsong, Peavy (Lincecum to bullpen for Petit, Cain out all year)

The NL WC pitching match-up will be Bumgarner-Liriano.  Both teams manipulated their rotations at season’s end to preserve their aces for the coin-flip game.  We’ll do a separate prediction piece.

NL Also-Rans;

• Atlanta:  Teheran, Minor, Santana, Harang, Wood (Beachy, Floyd, Medlen out all year)
• Milwaukee: Lohse, Garza, Gallardo, Peralta, Fiers (Nelson and Estrada to bullpen)

The Braves fell so far, so badly in September that they were nearly surpassed by the lowly NY Mets for 2nd place in the NL East.  That’s crazy.  But they still remain here as an also-ran because they were in the wild card race until mid-September.  I still think it is crazy what they were able to accomplish given the starting pitcher injuries they suffered in spring training and don’t quite understand why Frank Wren was fired.  If you want to fire him for his crummy FA contracts so be it; but the man engineered a team that made the playoffs three of the past five years.  Harsh treatment if you ask me.  Insider comments seem to think that Wren lost an internal power-struggle involving Fredi Gonzalez.

And here’s what we’re looking at in the AL:

AL Division Champs:

• Baltimore: Tillman, Norris, Chen, Gonzalez, Gausman (Jimenez demoted to BP)
• Detroit: Scherzer, Verlander, Sanchez, Price, Porcello
• Los Angeles: Weaver, Wilson, Shoemaker, Santiago, Rasmus, LeBlanc (Richards injured, Skaggs hurt)

It is hard to look at these rotations and comprehend where these teams currently stand:

• How is Baltimore leading the AL East by 12 games?  None of these guys are a league-wide “Ace.”
• How is Detroit not pulling away from the AL Central with this collection of arms?  Of course, you could ask this question of Detroit over and again the past few years; with a stacked lineup and stacked rotation they have just barely won their (usually) weak division year after year.
• How does Los Angeles have the best record in the majors with a non-drafted FA and a waiver claim in their Sept rotation?  Would you favor this rotation over Detroit’s?

I guess it doesn’t matter; these teams have bashed their way to their titles and should continue to hit in the post-season.  Apparently the O’s aren’t going to go with Gausman in their playoff rotation despite his good seasonal numbers.  It may be a case of veteran manager going with the veterans, as Gausman’s numbers are pretty much in line with most of the rest of the Baltimore rotation.  The injury to Richards really hurts the Angels: Weaver may be close to an Ace but Wilson showed he is hittable in the post-season and lord knows what will happen when LA has to throw their #3 and #4 choices.

AL Wild Cards:

• Kansas City: Shields, Duffy, Ventura, Guthrie, Vargas
• Oakland: Grey, Samardzija, Lester, Hammel, Kazmir

AL Wild Card looks like a knock-out match-up of Shields and Lester; the A’s burned Grey yesterday to get the win that put them in the playoffs.  Oakland has to be kicking themselves; how did they go from (easily) the best team in the majors for the first half to struggling to hang onto the WC spot?   On paper replacing 3/5ths of the rotation (out with Chavez, Milone, Pomeranz and Straily, in with Samardzija, Lester and Hammel) sounded like a great idea … but to me the team’s chemistry was clearly un-balanced.  At least they held on to the spot and avoiding a one-game play-in against Felix Hernandez.

AL Also-Rans:

• Seattle: Hernandez, Walker, Iwakuma, Paxton, Young (Elias out for year)
• New York: McCarthy, Greene, Kuroda, Capuano, Pineda (with Tanaka finally coming back at season’s end.  Nova and Sabathia gone all year with injuries).

All Seattle needed to do was *get* to the wild card game … and they’d have great odds of advancing behind ace Hernandez.  But struggled to the finish line.  Meanwhile Cleveland and New York would have been mentioned here a week ago, but both squads just ran out of time to make comebacks.  I’ll give NY credit: they played 7 games better than their pythagorean record with huge chunks of their rotation gone for the season and depending on guys who’s names I had to look up.

Coming soon; a review of the WC matchups with predictions.

Roark may be odd-man out in the playoffs. Photo Alex Brandon/AP via wp.com

The NL East champion Nationals have a problem that lots of teams would like to have: they have 5 great starter options for 4 post-season rotation spots.  Who should we pick, and in what order should they pitch?

(all stats are as of 9/23/14 courtesy of baseball-reference.com)

Option 1: stick with the season-long rotation.  Strasburg-Gonzalez-Zimmermann-Fister with Roark heading to the bullpen.

This is likely what happens regardless, since manager Matt Williams is old school and likely sticks with his veterans over the “new guy” in Roark.  Thanks to four off-days between their last regular season game (Sunday 9/28) and the first game of the playoffs (Friday 10/3) it doesn’t even matter what order these guys have been pitching in; even the guy who goes Sunday (scheduled to be Gio) would have four full days of rest prior to the NLDS opener.

Option 2: Go with the four best starters in terms of season-long performance: Zimmermann-Fister-Strasburg-Roark with Gonzalez the odd-man out.

Looking at the above stats, this would be your top four going strictly by a subjective opinion looking at the “old school” stats of W/L record and ERA.  But a closer look at the FIPs show this to be faulty logic; despite his excellent numbers Fister has the highest FIP of the starters despite having the best ERA+ figure.  Plus, you really don’t want to leave out your sole lefty starter in a playoff series.

Option 3: Go with the hottest hands. Strasburg-Zimmermann-Gonzalez-Roark with Fister in the pen.

Here’s the stats for the last 5 starts for each guy:

Taking a look at each starter’s last 5 starts, a couple things become clear: Strasburg, as we have all seen, is on fire; just two walks in 33+ innings and a 1.34 ERA.  Its ridiculous that the team hasn’t won all five of his games.  Washington has won all five of Zimmermann’s starts.  Meanwhile, Fister looks like the weakest link here, with the highest whip and the fewest Ks in the closing run.  Roark’s finish hasn’t been too bad, but his peripherals put him behind Gio.

Option 4: Look at the home-road splits to pick starters.  Strasburg-Roark-Zimmerman-Fister

Here’s the season long home/away splits for our starters.

This isn’t so much about picking who is better at home; its going with those who have the best away records.  Zimmermann and Fister both give a better chance of winning on the road and make sense as game #3 and #4 starters.  Meanwhile both Strasburg is less effective on the road versus at home.   This scenario leaves us without Gio though, our sole lefty, so it probably isn’t viable.

Option #5: play match-ups with the opponent.  Unfortunately, I’m hoping the team clinches the top seed, which means they go against the wild card winner … and while we’re pretty sure we know who the WC teams are (San Francisco and Pittsburgh) at this point … we don’t know who will host the play-in game, nor who they’ll be throwing.   Washington took the season series against both squads (4-3 over Pittsburgh, 5-2 over San Francisco), and the timing of those series are also interesting:

• Nats dropped 3 out of 4 in Pittsburgh in May when playing poorly.
• Nats swept Pittsburgh 3 straight in August at home as they began to solidify their lead in the division.
• Nats won 3 out of 4 in San Francisco in June when they were still a .500 team.
• Nats won 2 out of 3 at home in August in a slug-fest of a series.

Fister beat Liriano in Pittsburgh in May; Strasburg, Zimmermann and Treinen all lost.   Then, Roark and Fister pitched effectively in August while Gio was run-of-the-mill.

Against San Francisco; Strasburg, Fister and Roark all pitched great in ATT Park (only Treinen got beat).  Then at home, Strasburg was awful, Fister mediocre and Zimmerman effective in the August series.

Does that tell us much?  Not really.

In the end, I think it’s going to be the same rotation that we lined up on opening day, in the same order. Luckily for us, that means our hottest pitcher (Strasburg) getting the ball in game #1 and #5, it means our two starters who are best away from home will get the ball in games #3 and #4 at the opponent’s park, and it gives us a decent balance of lefty/righty in the first two games at home.  No room for Roark though, which is a shame considering his performance on the year.

So much for cutting edge analysis 🙂

Miller threw a grand total of one inning in the post season. Photo unk via missourinet.com

The common narrative surrounding the Washington Nationals after their 2012 NLDS exit was, and still is to this day, is a story of “arrogance” on the behalf of Mike Rizzo for deigning to protect Stephen Strasburg and shutting him down prior to the playoffs.  More than a few blow-hard sports writers on local and national stages postulated that the Nationals lost that series “because they didn’t have Strasburg.”

Cut to 2013: St. Louis’ year-long #2 starter Shelby Miller, a guy who had 31 starts with a 3.06 ERA/119 ERA+ and a 15-9 record, was removed from the playoff rotation and tossed a grand total of 1 inning this off-season.  He threw one inning of mop-up duty against the Pirates on October 4th in a 7-1 loss.  Instead the team gave those starts to #5 starter Lance Lynn, who rewarded the team with 2 losses in his 3 post-season starts and a 5.19 ERA in 17 1/3 innings.

For all the grief the 2012 Nationals got for voluntarily sitting Strasburg … why has there not been similar outrage for the Cardinals removal of their #2 starter from their post-season plans?   Where is the outrage facing the Cards’ management that Rizzo took for sitting Strasburg and “costing” his team in the playoffs?

The Cardinal’s excuse for sitting Miller was that he “was tiring down the stretch.”  To which I say B.S.; in five September starts he LOWERED his seasonal ERA.  This was clearly an innings-limit shutdown.  Maybe they’re the smart ones for just never SAYING it was a shutdown.  Miller himself apparently was unaware of the reason, being quoted recently as “not knowing” why he didn’t pitch in the post-season.

Strasburg was shutdown because he was recovering from an injury.  Miller was shutdown because the team subscribed to (in the minds of many critics) an arbitrary and unproven innings limit theory for starting pitchers.   What I don’t understand is why the two situations aren’t being treated as identical issues by those know-it-alls who so eviscorated the Nats for daring to protect a guy coming back from injury.  Is it simply a fame factor?  Strasburg clearly is more famous than Miller, therefore the situation was followed more closely in 2012?  Is it a factor of the Nats and Rizzo being the “new guys” and being ripe for criticism, while the Cardinals “know how it is done” and therefore get a pass in the national media?

I posed this question in a chat on Fangraphs and got the following response, “St. Louis didn’t lose the World Series due to lack of pitching.”  Ok.  Not the point; answer the damn question.  I could say the same thing about Washington’s loss in 2012; they certainly didn’t lose that game or series because of a lack of starting pitching … they lost that game because their bullpen couldn’t hold a 3-run lead and their closer couldn’t hold a 2-run lead at home in the deciding game.   You can play the “what-if-they-had-Strasburg” game for 2012 all you want; the fact is that the Nats were in a position to win the series and their closer blew it.  Can you say the same for St. Louis?   Don’t you think St. Louis would rather have had Shelby Miller on the mound in the pivotal game 4, which with a win would have given them an almost insurmountable 3 games to 1 lead in the series?   Instead Lynn coughed up 3 runs in 5+ innings, the Cards never have the lead, and Boston evened the series and regained home-field advantage.

It just frustrates me, the different treatment of the two franchises in these similar situations.  I readily admit that I’m defensive about pitcher shutdowns in general because I support the protection of young arms, I believe in innings management, and I believe both teams in the end did the right thing.  I talked about this in a post called “Innings Limits and Media Hypocrisy” in this space and (correctly) predicted that Miller would have shutdown issues towards the end of 2013.  I’m also defensive because I feel the Nats got a really raw deal in terms of the narrative, getting killed for trying to put a player’s health ahead of a short-term team goal.

I think the Cards had the right solution; shut him down, lie about it to the media, and go on with life.  A good road-map for Rizzo going forward, were he to run into this situation again.

Four games into this World Series, and we’re tied up at 2 games a piece.  Boston got their must-win victory last night on the strength of the unlikely Jonny Gomes (former Nat) and on 85mph fastballs from Clay Buchholz.  Lance Lynn didn’t pitch badly; in fact his stuff looked pretty good early on.  But one bad pitch to Gomes and the game was over.

Game 5: Jon Lester versus Adam Wainwright.  a repeat of the Game 1 matchup, though this time the tables are reversed in terms of road team/home team.   In four career home playoff starts Wainwright has conceded exactly four runs.   Lester had a .500 record and a 4.21 ERA on the road this season.  Despite St. Louis’ inability to hit lefties, I don’t think Wainwright is losing tonight.

Expect a close game, with St. Louis perhaps coming out on top with a 2-1 victory.  And since we’ve already had two rather rare game-ending baserunning mishaps (an obstruction call and a pick-off), i’m calling for Game 5 to include something like a running out of order, or a missed base being called out on appeal or something random.  Maybe we’ll just get a hotly contested balk.

So far, the World Series has played out the way I thought; St. Louis up 2 games to 1 (albeit on rather odd circumstances last night) and heading into the most difficult match-up to predict: game 4.

Starters: Clay Buchholz versus Lance Lynn.  Neither guy has pitched well this post season (both have identical 5.40 ERAs this post-season).  Neither guy looks like he’s going to be able to keep the opposing offenses down.  And I sense this game is going to be a 4.5 hour marathon going deep into each team’s bullpen and likely featuring early appearances for 5th/neglected starters for Boston such as Ryan Dempster, Felix Doubront.  Meanwhile St. Louis’ forgotten man Shelby Miller has thrown a grand total of 1 inning this off-season; against the Pirates on October 4th.  Could he possibly now feature more than three weeks later in a pivotal situation?

For all the grief the 2012 Nationals got for voluntarily sitting Stephen Strasburg … why has there not been similar outrage for the Cardinals removal of their #2 starter all year from their post-season plans?  If the Red Sox bomb Lynn tonight and end up taking the series, is there going to be similar outrage facing the Cards’ management that Mike Rizzo took for sitting Strasburg and “costing” his team in the playoffs?  Because clearly Lynn is the Card’s #5 pitcher, the starter that normally wouldn’t even be on some post-season rosters and clearly wouldn’t be getting a post-season start.

How much will Buchholz’ “shoulder fatigue” play in to tonight’s game?  How much will Lynn’s hittability factor in?

I see a slugfest, and I see Boston coming out on top tonight.  Which is good for Boston, because I can’t see them beating Wainright tomorrow night and they need this game to get the series back to Boston for games 6 and 7 (where Wacha looms for a possibly classic Game 7, if they can get there).

The series heads to St. Louis after the teams split in Boston.

However, the predicting gets harder from here on out, as each team gets deeper into its rotation and has to rely on lesser starters.

Game 3: Jake Peavy vs Joe Kelly.   Kelly was pretty good in September, lowering his season ERA from the 2.80 range to the 2.60 range, and Kelly pitched a nifty 6ip/2ER home start in the NLCS.  Peavy was not good in September, leaking runs left and right.  Peavy got hammered in the ALCS in Detroit.

All signs point to St. Louis jumping up 2 games to 1 in this series and putting a lot of pressure on the Game 4 starters (perhaps Clay Buchholz and Lance Lynn).  Boston obviously needs to take a game in St. Louis or they’re done.  And unless they want to take their chances beating Michael Wacha in a game 7 back in Fenway, they want to get two.  Kelly’s no pushover; he may look like an accountant but he throws some serious cheese: 94.4 average two-seam velocity with a peak of 98.8 this year.  Boston has its work cut out for them.  Meanwhile Peavy hasn’t been good, and I think the Cardinals jump on him quickly.

Because they’re in St. Louis, Boston has had to choose between sluggers, and Mike Napoli misses out.  This takes away a slugger in the middle of Boston’s order and puts a severe defensive liability at first in David Ortiz.  I think this and the return home to the charged up St. Louis crowd spells a Game 3 victory for the Cardinals.

Boston’s Ace Jon Lester takes the mound in game 1. Photo via weei.com

For just the 3rd time since divisional play went into effect, the World Series will be contested by the two best teams (by record) in Baseball (other two times: 1995 Atlanta-Cleveland and 1999 Atlanta-New York series’).  And since both Boston and St. Louis finished with the same number of wins, tying for the league lead with 97, we are guaranteed to have a situation that has happened just three times in the divisional era; the team with the best regular season record will also win the World Series (the other 3 times: New York in 2009, Boston in 2007 and the Yankees again in their legendary 1998 season).

Lets take a look at Game 1’s pitching matchup and make some predictions.  Time permitting I’ll try to do this ahead of each game.

Game 1: Adam Wainwright vs Jon Lester.  Ace-versus-Ace, mano-y-mano.  Straight up you’d have to take Wainwright over Lester; he has a 1.57 ERA in 3 post season games in 2013, having given up just 4 runs in 23 innings.  However, he has not exactly been doing this against an offense with the capabilities of Boston.   The Red Sox are #1 in the league in wRC+ as a team against right-handed throwers, #2 in the league in wRC+ at home.  I think it is safe to say that Boston likely gets some runs off of Wainwright tonight.

Meanwhile St. Louis’ issues with left-handed starters are pretty clear; 21st in wRC+ as a team, with a collective .238 BA.    And they’re going against a premier left-handed starter who just went against one of the “other” best offenses in the league (Detroit) twice with great success.

I’m predicting Boston gets to Wainwright, Lester holds StL at bay, and Boston takes game one to the great delight of the home fans.