The National League Championship series is ready to roll! Two very familiar teams will face off, the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants. The Cardinals were the NL champions last season, but lost the world series to the Boston Red Sox, as a matter a fact, the Cardinals have been featured in the NLCS in the past four season’s including this year. They seek to win their second world series in that same time span.
Meanwhile the Giants look to reach another world series in what has become familiar territory for them as well. The Giants have won the fall classic in 2010 and 2012, if they can win another one this season it would make it an outstanding three world series titles in the last five seasons.
These two teams have some recent history in the postseason. The 2012 NLCS featured these exact teams in a series that went seven games. The St. Louis Cardinals had a commanding 3-1 series lead after 4 games in the series, but quickly saw their lead vanish with an amazing comeback from the Giants. San Francisco went on to win the final three games of that series which led them all the way to the championship. The MVP of that series was second baseman Marco Scutaro who is still part of the Giants organization, but spend almost all season and still remains on the disabled list with back problems.
This will be a very interesting series that could potentially turn into a dog fight. Both teams have great coaching in Mike Matheny and Bruce Bochy and both teams also have previous recent postseason experience.
The Cardinals come off their NLDS series with a lot of motivation after beating Clayton Kershaw twice. They used some timely home runs from players like Matt Carpenter and Matt Adams. Even though the Giants did have a huge home run from Brandon Belt in the record breaking 18 inning game versus the Nationals, the Giants aren’t likely to win using the long ball. They depend a lot more on their clutch hitting with runners in scoring position.
The Closer Factor:
Trevor Rosenthal STL- 2014 postseason stats:
3G, 3.00 ERA, 3SV, 3IP, 5H, 1ER, 4K, 1BB
Rosenthal has looked shaky at times during this postseason, but he has gotten the job done in all the games he’s been in.
Santiago Casilla SF- 2014 postseason stats:
3G, 0.00 ERA, 2SV, 3IP, 0H, 0ER, 2K, 1BB
Casilla has yet given up a hit in this year’s postseason and has looked dominant in all of his outings.
Pitching Probables:
Game 1: Madison Bumgarner (0-1, 2.57 ERA) SF vs Adam Wainwright (0-0, 12.46 ERA) STL
Game 2: TBD SF vs Lance Lynn (0-0, 3.00 ERA) STL
Game 3: John Lackey (1-0, 1.29 ERA) STL vs TBD SF
Game 4: Shelby Miller (0-0, 3.18 ERA) STL vs TBD SF
Photo Credit: USA Today