{"id":7854,"date":"2013-10-04T12:27:06","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T16:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7854"},"modified":"2013-10-04T12:27:06","modified_gmt":"2013-10-04T16:27:06","slug":"game-1-alds-and-game-2-nlds-pitching-matchup-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7854","title":{"rendered":"Game 1 ALDS and Game 2 NLDS Pitching Matchup thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re on a roll; 5-for-5 so far in predictions for individual games. \u00a0Lets see if we can keep it going now that all four divisional series are in full swing. \u00a0Cnnsi probable pitchers are here<\/a>, along with some good stats.<\/p>\n

NLDS Game 2: Pittsburgh-St. Louis<\/strong><\/span>: The Pirates are going with young phenom\u00a0Gerrit Cole<\/strong> while the Cardinals curiously are going with their least effective playoff starter in\u00a0Lance Lynn<\/strong>. \u00a0(Side note: I thought Lynn would be left off the playoff roster by virtue of being the 5th best St Louis starter; instead it turns out the Cardinals are moving\u00a0Shelby Miller<\/strong> to the bullpen for the playoffs<\/a>, ostensibly because Miller “looked tired” down the stretch. \u00a0BS: he lowered his ERA<\/a> during the month of August. \u00a0How is this not a “shutdown” of some sort, and if so where’s the righteous indignation that followed the Nats shutting down Strasburg<\/strong> in 2012 for a medical reason?). \u00a0\u00a0Lynn pitched to a 91 ERA+ on the year, struggled for most of the season but finished strong by posting a 2.82 ERA in September (going against a bunch of also rans for the most part). \u00a0He pitches significantly better at home<\/a>, perhaps one reason to get his NLDS start in now before the teams move to Pittsburgh. \u00a0Lynn has faced Pittsburgh 5 times<\/a> this year, but more importantly was his last two outings against the Pirates in August. \u00a0Both times they got to him; 4 runs in 5 innings on 8\/15, 7 runs in 4 innings on 8\/31.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Pittsburgh counters with its 2nd best pitcher in Cole. \u00a0Cole’s potential and minor league pedigree are well known to prospect watchers, and his arrival to the majors was heralded as the coming of the next big thing. \u00a0Oddly though, initially Cole looked mortal; it took him 17 MLB starts before he had a scoreless outing. \u00a0Like Lynn, Cole vastly improved once September came, capped off by 7 innings of shutout ball he threw at Texas and a 6 inning\/12 strikeout outing in late September. \u00a0To be fair, like Lynn Cole’s September starts were also filled with also-rans.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals hit. \u00a0And they especially hit right-handers (best in the NL<\/a> in several macro batting categories, including BA, OPS, wOBA and wRC+). \u00a0Despite my liking Cole, I have a feeling the Cards are eventually going to get to him. \u00a0Will the Pirates get to Lynn first? \u00a0I’m betting so; after last night’s beating and emotional letdown, I think the Pirates re-group and take game 2.<\/p>\n

NLDS Game 2: Los Angeles-Atlanta<\/strong><\/span>: The Braves are in trouble; after getting embarassed by\u00a0Clayton Kershaw<\/strong> last night they have to go up against a pitcher of nearly the same quality in\u00a0Zack Greinke<\/strong>. \u00a0Greinke was hurt early, and struggled to find his form until the season was half over. \u00a0But now he’s on a roll; he hasn’t given up more than 2 runs in an outing since July 25th<\/a>. \u00a0In his last 6 starts he’s given up a total of 7 runs. \u00a0The Braves are going to have a hard time scoring on him. \u00a0 In Greinke’s only start against Atlanta in June, he pitched 7 shutout innings, giving up just 4 hits. \u00a0I see a similar outing tonight; perhaps 7 innings giving up 1 or 2 runs and punching out 7-8 guys.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Atlanta counters with\u00a0Mike Minor<\/strong>, who hasn’t pitched badly per se down the stretch but certainly hasn’t pitched that dominantly; Atlanta has lost his last 6 starts<\/a>. \u00a0However, in two starts against LA Minor has been good. \u00a0I can see Minor holding the Dodgers at bay and getting this to the bullpens, where Atlanta has the very distinct advantage. \u00a0I’m predicting a very close Atlanta victory tonight to send it back to LA.<\/p>\n

ALCS Game 1: Tampa-Boston<\/strong><\/span>: After a disastrous 2012 season, Boston is back and is set to bash their way through the playoffs with its league-best offense. \u00a0In game 1 Boston throws its ace\u00a0Jon Lester<\/strong>, who has lowered his season ERA three quarters of a point in the last 2 months going against mostly a solid diet of playoff-calibre and AL east teams. \u00a0The Rays hit left-handers pretty well (108 wRC+<\/a>) but Lester has mostly handled them in 4 match-ups this season.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Tampa is hampered by its two play-in games costing them their two best arms. \u00a0They start the ALDS with their #3 starter\u00a0Matt Moore<\/strong>, no slouch himself at 17-4 with a 3.29 ERA and 116 ERA+<\/a>. \u00a0However Moore is struggling down the stretch; since a fantastic 2-hit shutout in Boston in late August, Moore has finished 6 innings<\/a> just one time and has had to be taken out of games early due to high pitch counts and unusual wildness (Moore leads the league this year in wild-pitches; very odd considering how well he controlled the ball in the 2011 playoffs). \u00a0Boston is just as patient a team as Tampa at the plate (they’re #1 and #4 in terms of BB% in the majors), and Boston can wait out Moore to get to Tampa’s fatigued bullpen.<\/p>\n

All in all, I think Boston waits out Moore, gets into Tampa’s bullpen and gets a win. \u00a0Lester holds Tampa at bay and Boston takes game 1.<\/p>\n

ALDS Game 1: Oakland-Detroit<\/strong><\/span>:\u00a0Presumed AL Cy Young winner\u00a0Max Scherzer<\/strong> gets the ball in game 1, going against the ageless\u00a0Bartolo Colon<\/strong>, who at 40 may have just had his best season (his WAR for 2013 is a full 1.1 wins better than his Cy Young winning season in 2005). \u00a0Scherzer may be averaging 10 K\/9, but the last time he hooked up with Oakland he got beat. \u00a0Likewise, the last time Colon faced Detroit he shut them down. \u00a0With\u00a0Miguel Cabrera<\/strong> hurting and the Tigers offense limping into the post-season, with Scherzer oddly inconsistent down the stretch, and with Colon entering the post-season nearly unhittable (he’s given up just 4 earned runs in his last 5 starts, three of them on solo homers), I think we’re about to see an upset in game 1. \u00a0I’m going with Oakland.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re on a roll; 5-for-5 so far in predictions for individual games. \u00a0Lets see if we can keep it going now that all four divisional series are in full swing. \u00a0Cnnsi probable pitchers are here, along with some good stats. NLDS Game 2: Pittsburgh-St. Louis: The Pirates are going with young phenom\u00a0Gerrit Cole while the […]<\/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":[343,426,1221,221,897,229,1037,405,775,1333,38,254],"class_list":["post-7854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-post-season","tag-bartolo-colon","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-jon-lester","tag-lance-lynn","tag-matt-moore","tag-max-scherzer","tag-miguel-cabrera","tag-mike-minor","tag-shelby-miller","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-zack-greinke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7854","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=7854"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7858,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7854\/revisions\/7858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}