{"id":8006,"date":"2013-10-23T10:34:26","date_gmt":"2013-10-23T14:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8006"},"modified":"2013-10-23T10:34:26","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T14:34:26","slug":"world-series-game-1-pitching-matchup-and-prediction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8006","title":{"rendered":"World Series Game 1 Pitching Matchup and Prediction"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_8007\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LesterJon-Redsox-unk-via-weei.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8007\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-8007\" alt=\"Boston's Ace Jon Lester takes the mound in game 1.  Photo via weei.com\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LesterJon-Redsox-unk-via-weei.com_-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8007\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boston&#8217;s Ace Jon Lester takes the mound in game 1. Photo via weei.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>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&#8217;). \u00a0And 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).<\/p>\n<p>Lets take a look at Game 1&#8217;s pitching matchup and make some predictions. \u00a0Time permitting I&#8217;ll try to do this ahead of each game.<\/p>\n<p>Game 1:\u00a0<strong>Adam Wainwright<\/strong> vs\u00a0<strong>Jon Lester<\/strong>. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/news\/probable_pitchers\/index.jsp?tcid=mm_mlb_news\">Ace-versus-Ace, mano-y-mano<\/a>. \u00a0Straight up you&#8217;d have to take Wainwright over Lester; he has a 1.57 ERA in 3 post season games in 2013, having given up just <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/gl.cgi?id=wainwad01&amp;t=p&amp;year=0&amp;post=1\">4 runs in 23 innings<\/a>. \u00a0However, he has not exactly been doing this against an offense with the capabilities of Boston. \u00a0 The Red Sox are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/leaders.aspx?pos=all&amp;stats=bat&amp;lg=all&amp;qual=0&amp;type=1&amp;season=2013&amp;month=15&amp;season1=2013&amp;ind=0&amp;team=0,ts&amp;rost=0&amp;age=0&amp;filter=&amp;players=0&amp;sort=16,d\">#1 in the league in wRC+<\/a> as a team against right-handed throwers, #2 in the league in wRC+ at home. \u00a0I think it is safe to say that Boston likely gets some runs off of Wainwright tonight.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile St. Louis&#8217; issues with left-handed starters are pretty clear; 21st in wRC+ as a team, with a collective .238 BA. \u00a0 \u00a0And they&#8217;re going against a premier left-handed starter who just went against one of the &#8220;other&#8221; best offenses in the league (Detroit) twice with great success.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m predicting Boston gets to Wainwright, Lester holds StL at bay, and Boston takes game one to the great delight of the home fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;). \u00a0And since both Boston and St. Louis finished with the same number of wins, tying for the league lead [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2036],"tags":[346,221],"class_list":["post-8006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post-season","tag-adam-wainwright","tag-jon-lester"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8006","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=8006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8008,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8006\/revisions\/8008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}