On Wednesday, the Pirates face off against the Cardinals in St. Louis for a winner-take-all Game 5 NLDS game (5p PT, first pitch). The Cardinals start Adam Wainwright (1-0, 1.29; won Game 1), and the Pirates start Gerrit Cole (1-0, 1.50) on short rest.
So which team do we want to advance in that NLDS?
I'm more worried about the Cardinals. Yes, the Cardinals still have Matt "Nutshot" Holliday out there in the field to come through for the Dodgers in a pinch. But the Cardinals were solid divisional winners, and they've got pitching (Wainwright and Wacha among others), a solid lineup (Carlos Beltran, Holliday, David Freese), and good defense (Yadier Molina, for starters). 97 wins can't be that bad of a team.
The Pirates (who also finished with more wins than the Dodgers (94 to 92)) would be favorable solely for the lack of home-field advantage, which would flip to the Dodgers by virtue of the Pirates being the Wild Card team. But Andrew McCutchen scares me, Marlon Byrd has been pounding HRs this postseason, and then there's that annoying Russell Martin character who is only batting .200 but has had a flair for the dramatic late this season.
Prior to last night's Dodgers win, the last series-winning celebration I recalled involved Martin on the dugout roof, spraying champagne into the crowd. I would hate to see Martin spraying champagne again.
I suppose the benefit that we get, either way, is that both teams have to pitch one of their best pitchers in Game 5 just to advance. (Hopefully the game goes 26 innings, as well.)
So who you got in tomorrow's game, boys and girls? Pirates or Cards?
art swiped from this deviantart page
5 comments:
My totally unscientific (because trying to count @replies is a pain) Twitter poll last night yielded a 15-4 result in favor of the Pirates.
There were two votes for "It doesn't matter."
For those of you with bad memories, I am reposting something I posted here in May...
Blogger BJ Killeen said...
I am thinking it's all part of the plan. You know, going Hollywood. Here's the movie pitch: Big-name team, throws lots of money at the players...more money than everyone else..then let's throw a bunch of injuries on the major players, including a big fight on the mound that really injures the hero. Stick 'em in last place for a few months, yada, yada, yada, then when it all seems hopeless, they suddenly pull themselves up by the bootstraps and go on to win the World Series in the bottom of the 9th with a game/series winning walk-off home run by the guy who was sucking big at the start...Whaddaya think, Leo? Who can we get to play Kemp?
5/06/2013 11:26 AM
Would rather face the Cards, and have Ace 1 and Ace 2 start the away games, while providing Ryu/Nolasco/Volquez/Capuano the friendly confines of Dodgers Stadium.
Pirates, only because I LOVE their stadium.
I do not want to see the Cards. I don't know, maybe it's the residual Tom Niedenfuer/Jackie Clark nightmares that are influencing this but I'm thinking Pitt City. My concern with this, of course, is the whole former Dodgers coming back to haunt us curse (think cody Fucking ross). This is our year and no former Dodger malcontent will be allowed to mess with that. My daughter has some Wiccan friends and, well enough said.
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