{"id":4833,"date":"2012-10-07T14:54:31","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T18:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4833"},"modified":"2013-10-02T10:58:11","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T14:58:11","slug":"divisional-series-matchups-by-the-starters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4833","title":{"rendered":"Divisional Series Matchups &#8211; By the Starters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4843\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/VerlanderJustin-unknown-via-rumorsandrants.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4843\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-4843\" title=\"VerlanderJustin unknown via rumorsandrants.com\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/VerlanderJustin-unknown-via-rumorsandrants.com_-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4843\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Verlander has already given the Tigers a huge leg up in their divisional series.  Photo unknown via rumorsanddrants.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As we have already seen in the playoffs thus far, predicting these coin-flip games, or predicting the outcome of individual games, is usually fool&#8217;s gold.\u00a0 The first four games of the playoffs featured four Road-team wins.\u00a0 You can argue that the higher-seeded teams in the divisional series are &#8220;better&#8221; than the home teams and this was to be expected &#8230; except that we&#8217;re talking about divisional winners\/90+ win teams all around.\u00a0 So far, the results have been surprising.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s also been tough this year is the lack of &#8220;announced&#8221; starters.\u00a0 The Tigers seem to know exactly who they&#8217;re throwing for all 5 games of the series &#8230; but nobody else does.\u00a0 Baltimore&#8217;s only announced starter (<strong>Jason Hammel<\/strong>) hasn&#8217;t pitched since September 11th and they have a handful of guys to pick from.\u00a0 In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2631\">last year&#8217;s version of this post<\/a> I was able to do match-up analysis.\u00a0 This year i&#8217;ll just look at the breadth of the starters to see who has an upper hand.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Washington-St. Louis<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Washington&#8217;s likely starters: Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Jackson, Detwiler<\/li>\n<li>St. Louis&#8217; likely starters: Wainwright, Garcia, Carpenter, Lohse<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ve already talked at depth about this series in my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4835\">previous post<\/a>.\u00a0 Just looking at starters, its hard not to see the Nats as the favorite. \u00a0Our Ace\u00a0<strong>Gonzalez <\/strong>goes twice in the series, St. Louis doesn&#8217;t hit righties as well.\u00a0 <strong>Carpenter <\/strong>could be a difference maker.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Detroit-Oakland<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Oakland&#8217;s likely starters: Parker, Milone, Anderson, Blackley<\/li>\n<li>Detroit&#8217;s likely starters: Verlander, Fister, Sanchez and Scherzer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Justin Verlander<\/strong> is as close to unbeatable as there is, again evidenced by his game 1 dominance. (7ip, 3 hits one solo home run).\u00a0 If he&#8217;s set to go in game 4, Oakland basically has to win out.\u00a0 The rest of Detroit&#8217;s planned starters all sport sub 4.00 ERAs and all of them have at least a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/teams\/DET\/2012.shtml\">113 ERA+<\/a>.\u00a0 In fact, how exactly is this only an 88 win team?\u00a0 They have three unbelievable hitters in the middle of their order and plus starting pitching.\u00a0 <strong>Max Scherzer<\/strong> and his dominating fastball apparently has recovered enough from a post-game celebration injury and should take the ball in Game 4.\u00a0 <strong>Anibel Sanchez<\/strong> has been pretty effective since arriving from Miami in a mid-season trade (is Sanchez an off-season FA target of the Nats for their 5th starter?) and should give the Tigers a great chance to win his game 3 start.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Oakland has a slew of rookie starters to choose from, all of whom sport sub 4.00 ERAs (the worst season ERA on the staff is <strong>Travis Blackley<\/strong>, who may or may not feature in the post-season).\u00a0 <strong>Jarrod Parker<\/strong> threw game one and was effective, just not effective enough.\u00a0 I was surprised to see <strong>Tommy Milone<\/strong> slated as the game 2 starter (perhaps chosen by virtue of his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/split.cgi?id=milonto01&amp;year=&amp;t=p\">home\/away splits<\/a>; 2.74 ERA at home, 4.83 ERA away).\u00a0 After that I honestly have no idea who we&#8217;ll see.\u00a0 Oakland named 5 starters to its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/sports\/2012\/10\/06\/neshek-among-12-pitchers-on-oakland-division-series-roster\/\">post-season roster<\/a>, but <strong>AJ Griffen<\/strong> was pasted in his last outing and may be a long-man\/emergency starter.\u00a0 <strong>Brett Anderson<\/strong> is clearly the staff Ace at this point but only returned in late August.\u00a0 Oakland&#8217;s been on such a tear though, its hard to bet against them.<\/p>\n<p>Prediction: Verlander already gave Detroit the huge advantage with a game 1 victory.\u00a0 Oakland needs more magic to advance.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>New York-Baltimore<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Baltimore&#8217;s likely starters: Hammel, Tillman, Chen, Saunders<\/li>\n<li>New York&#8217;s likely starters: Sabathia, Pettitte, Kuroda, Phelps?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Baltimore&#8217;s only announced starter as of today is <strong>Jason Hammel<\/strong>, who (as noted above) hasn&#8217;t thrown in 3 weeks.\u00a0 After that?\u00a0 The Orioles used 12 different starters on the season and at one point demoted 3\/5ths of their rotation in a week.\u00a0 They seem set to roll out the above named guys after Hammel, but this leaves out both <strong>Miguel Gonzalez<\/strong> and <strong>Steve Johnson<\/strong>, who were effective down the stretch.\u00a0 I can&#8217;t find a link for Baltimore&#8217;s named divisional roster as of the time of this writing; which would have helped.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, looking at New York&#8217;s options past the above named three guys, I would initially guess that New York is going to a 3-man rotation for the playoffs.\u00a0 What would you rather do?\u00a0 See three effective veterans going on 3 days rest, or to give post-season starts to the likes of <strong>Phil Hughes<\/strong> or <strong>Ivan Nova<\/strong>?\u00a0 <strong>Freddie Garcia<\/strong> lost his starting spot in September when Pettitte returned but isn&#8217;t an option because of how ineffective he&#8217;s been all season.\u00a0 Would you give a game-4 start to rookie <strong>David Phelps<\/strong>?\u00a0 It seems amazing to me that the highest payroll team in the league can&#8217;t find an effective 4th and 5th starter (getting Pettitte out of retirement?\u00a0 Giving Garcia 17 starts after signing him off the trash heap?) and I think it continues to be their downfall (only one World Series appearance in 8 years).<\/p>\n<p>New York swept the Orioles in the first series of the season, split a 2-game set in mid-season, but lost EVERY other series exactly 2 games to 1 on the season.\u00a0 Is there any reason not to think they&#8217;ll do something similar in this series?\u00a0 I see a split in Baltimore and then New York struggling to win 2 of 3 in New York.\u00a0 Does Sabathia struggle going on 3 days rest?\u00a0 More importantly, does Pettitte??\u00a0 He should be on a golf course right now, not pitching in October.\u00a0 It should be interesting to see if New York uses a 4th starter.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>San Francisco-Cincinnati<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>San Francisco&#8217;s likely starters: Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Lincecum<\/li>\n<li>New York&#8217;s likely starters: Cueto, Arroyo, Latos, Bailey<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We&#8217;ve already seen some interesting mishaps with Cincinnati&#8217;s best laid plans; <strong>Cueto <\/strong>out with bask spasms after just 2 batters, planned game 3 starter <strong>Latos<\/strong> forced into action.\u00a0 Now it looks like Cueto will go game 3, with Bailey either pushed to game 4 or skipped outright since Latos only threw 4 innings in game 1.\u00a0 Or perhaps Bailey goes game 4 with Latos pushed to a possible game 5.\u00a0 Either way, the wild-cards here are Cueto&#8217;s health and Arroyo&#8217;s effectiveness.\u00a0 If Cueto returns for a game 3 start, with Cincinnati haven already &#8220;stolen&#8221; a game against SF&#8217;s ace, the Giants are in trouble.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, has San Francisco made a decision on its starters?\u00a0 They&#8217;ve named all 5 (the above four plus <strong>Barry Zito<\/strong>) to the <a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/news\/article.jsp?ymd=20121005&amp;content_id=39521540&amp;vkey=news_mlb&amp;c_id=mlb\">post-season roster <\/a>with an unnamed player dropping to the bullpen.\u00a0 I think they&#8217;ll go with supposed ace <strong>Tim Lincecum<\/strong> as the 4th starter despite Zito&#8217;s numbers being superior. Meanwhile, <strong>Ryan Vogelsong<\/strong> has been vulnerable down the stretch despite good numbers on the season.<\/p>\n<p>I think the back-end of the Giant&#8217;s rotation is a huge question mark, and if the Reds have already stolen a game against Cain, this series may be short.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we have already seen in the playoffs thus far, predicting these coin-flip games, or predicting the outcome of individual games, is usually fool&#8217;s gold.\u00a0 The first four games of the playoffs featured four Road-team wins.\u00a0 You can argue that the higher-seeded teams in the divisional series are &#8220;better&#8221; than the home teams and this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2036],"tags":[346,874,704,777,209,868,891,47,224,1039,1040,241,253,321,385,340,892,412,324,872,1036,437,890,43,44,231,894,586,317,1037,1038,956,51,468,1028,316,34,873,1029],"class_list":["post-4833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-post-season","tag-adam-wainwright","tag-aj-griffen","tag-andy-pettitte","tag-anibal-sanchez","tag-barry-zito","tag-brett-anderson","tag-bronson-arroyo","tag-cc-sabathia","tag-chris-carpenter","tag-chris-tillman","tag-david-phelps","tag-doug-fister","tag-edwin-jackson","tag-freddie-garcia","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-hiroki-kuroda","tag-homer-bailey","tag-ivan-nova","tag-jaime-garcia","tag-jarrod-parker","tag-jason-hammel","tag-joe-saunders","tag-johnny-cueto","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-justin-verlander","tag-kyle-lohse","tag-madison-bumgarner","tag-mat-latos","tag-matt-cain","tag-max-scherzer","tag-miguel-gonzalez","tag-phil-hughes","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-ryan-vogelsong","tag-steve-johnson","tag-tim-lincecum","tag-tommy-milone","tag-travis-blackley","tag-wei-yin-chen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4833"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7835,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4833\/revisions\/7835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}