{"id":7958,"date":"2013-10-11T10:29:29","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T14:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7958"},"modified":"2014-09-24T09:02:17","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T13:02:17","slug":"alds-wrap-up-and-nlcs-game-1-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7958","title":{"rendered":"ALDS wrap up and NLCS game 1 thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If Verlander is back to Ace form … good luck stopping Detroit. Photo unknown via rumorsandrants.com<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I thought Oakland would get to Verlander<\/strong> last night; I was wrong.\u00a0 Who knew after the inconsistent season he had that suddenly he’d be pitching 8 dominant (and 5 perfect) innings in an elimination game on the road.\u00a0 Phew.\u00a0 If Verlander is back to being “best in the league” level these playoffs … Boston is in trouble.\u00a0 A Scherzer<\/strong>\/Verlander 1-2 punch going 4 times out of 7 is going to be tough to beat.\u00a0 Same with a Greinke\/Kershaw<\/strong> 1-2 punch on the NL side. \u00a0That’s why in a simplistic quick analysis it’s hard to go against a Detroit-Los Angeles World Series right now. \u00a0Up until yesterday I was thinking Boston-LA … but now i’m not sure Detroit is beatable.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Billy Beane<\/strong> famously said that “his sh*t doesn’t work in the playoffs” and once again he’s right.\u00a0 Notice how Oakland, Tampa and Pittsburgh all made the playoffs with dinky payrolls but well put-together teams but subsequently lost to bigger payroll teams?\u00a0 When the chips were down, Detroit had a $20M\/year pitcher going against a $500k pitcher, and the game was won when their $24M\/year MVP hit a homer.\u00a0 I’m not saying that happens all the time, but it is sure happening this post season. \u00a0I’ve got a draft post quickly reviewing payroll versus standings (like I try to do every year) and its interesting to say the least what has happened to some of the game’s biggest payrolls.On the other hand … what a playoffs so far.\u00a0 I think its easy to point out that the 4 best teams remain, that all four teams are significant, historical baseball franchises, and the world series looks set to be an absolute classic matchup no matter what happens.<\/div>\n
NLCS Game 1 thoughts: Greinke-Kelly<\/strong>. \u00a0Kelly may not be “sexy,” but he’s a darn effective pitcher. \u00a0 The last time he faced the Dodgers he shut them down (one run in 6 innings). \u00a0Greinke was good in the NLDS (2 runs in 6 innings in Atlanta), had a similar 2 in 6 line in St. Louis in August, but got mostly hammered by the Cardinals in the 2011 playoffs. \u00a0 This is two years later, of course, a whole different set of circumstances. \u00a0 I think both guys are going to have similar lines tonight (6 innings, 2 runs) and i’m calling for a close game won by the home team Cardinals with their superior hitting and home field advantage.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought Oakland would get to Verlander last night; I was wrong.\u00a0 Who knew after the inconsistent season he had that suddenly he’d be pitching 8 dominant (and 5 perfect) innings in an elimination game on the road.\u00a0 Phew.\u00a0 If Verlander is back to being “best in the league” level these playoffs … Boston is […]<\/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":[212,426,1260,44,1037,254],"class_list":["post-7958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-post-season","tag-billy-beane","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-joe-kelly","tag-justin-verlander","tag-max-scherzer","tag-zack-greinke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958","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=7958"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7972,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7958\/revisions\/7972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}