Who wins NLCS?

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Make your prediction for the NLCS.

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I think the Cards will win in 7.  The reason is pitching, surprising enough.

The Cards have the best pitcher by far in Carpenter, and right now he will go against Trachsel twice.  If it goes 7, and you have that match up it is the Cards all the way.

Game 1 is Glavine vs Weaver.  While the season stats easily favor NY, I think it is much closer than people think.  in his last 12 starts Weaver is 5-2, with a 3.88 ERA, and 1.32 WHIP.  His performance the last 10 games is compareable to Glavine for the entire season.  Weaver will go twice (unless there is a sweep), and he has to win once.  I hink he can do that.

Game 2 is Maine vs Suppan.  Maine is the best Mets pitcher, not Glavine, but Suppan is still a decent pitcher.  I think he can beat Maine once, but even if he doesn't, if they get 2 wins from Carpenter and one from Weaver, that leaves the Marquis vs Oliver Perez game.  Now Perez has shown that he can absolutely dominate, but he is either really good or really really really bad.  He hasn't made major improvements since he came over to the Mets, just marginal improvement.  I think the Cards should be favored in that game.

Basically the Mets must get 2 wins from Maine, and 2 wins from Glavine, because Trachsel isn't going to beat Carpenter, and they can't let the series hang on Oliver Perez having a decent start.

[Skandery]

The Cards pitching has stepped, no doubt, but I think a lot of it is playing over their heads and I have to think Weaver, Suppan and Wainwright will come back down to Earth.  LaRussa has never handled success well and I think the Mets are going to dominate like they pretty much dominated the rest of the NL this year with the Cards maaaaybe getting one of Carp's starts.  Then again, Caleb calls me a pessimist.  



Note:  What happened to Pedro??

[Reality]

I was there.  Weaver was good, but he was made to look much better then he was by a Bruce Botchy coached team.  Dave Duncan had Weaver geared to throw mostly curveballs.  Forest Gump Botchy and batting coach instructed Padre batters to be aggressive and pounce on Weavers fastball.  It never came.

Glavine was also the victim of perhaps the all time most Marty Shottenheimer in a baseball uniform coach, Bubba Cox.  Glavine is itching for the World Series win.
Weaver will be good again, but Mets batters will be patient and slap him around.  I do not think they will rock him, but i predict a slow and steady 4 runs against him in 5 innings or less.

Carpenter winning 2 is asking a lot.  Again the Padres bailed him out of a couple huge innings, especially the 1st inning when they had 2 runs in and bases loaded.  Mets will not be as dense.  Carpenter split is possible, but no way would i bank on 2.

O Perez has continued to SUCK since coming to the Mets.  I do not know what is up with this move.  The word around San Diego regarding OPerez downfall is a-l-c-h-o-h-o-l.  As in seen out and hammered numerous times.  I would pencil that one in for Cards victory.  He's not a David Wells type who can do shots between innings washing down their omlette. :up:

Bullpens will no doubt figure in this one.  Both have been good.

Perdo is out 8 months with rotator cuff.




 

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I was there.  Weaver was good, but he was made to look much better then he was by a Bruce Botchy coached team.  Dave Duncan had Weaver geared to throw mostly curveballs.  Forest Gump Botchy and batting coach instructed Padre batters to be aggressive and pounce on Weavers fastball.  It never came.

Glavine was also the victim of perhaps the all time most Marty Shottenheimer in a baseball uniform coach, Bubba Cox.  Glavine is itching for the World Series win.
Weaver will be good again, but Mets batters will be patient and slap him around.  I do not think they will rock him, but i predict a slow and steady 4 runs against him in 5 innings or less.

Carpenter winning 2 is asking a lot.  Again the Padres bailed him out of a couple huge innings, especially the 1st inning when they had 2 runs in and bases loaded.  Mets will not be as dense.  Carpenter split is possible, but no way would i bank on 2.

O Perez has continued to SUCK since coming to the Mets.  I do not know what is up with this move.  The word around San Diego regarding OPerez downfall is a-l-c-h-o-h-o-l.  As in seen out and hammered numerous times.  I would pencil that one in for Cards victory.  He's not a David Wells type who can do shots between innings washing down their omlette. :up:

Bullpens will no doubt figure in this one.  Both have been good.

Perdo is out 8 months with rotator cuff.

The probability that Carpenter is 2-0 is MUCH greater than Maine or Glavine going 2-0.  Carpenter is the best pitcher in the NL, and has been for 2 years.  Carpenter in game 3 is a virtual lock.  He will be pitching at home, where his ERA is 1.89 and his WHIP is .89.  Glavine's numbers the last 3-4 years are basically the same as Jeff Weaver, with the exception of Weaver's horrible April, May, June, July of this year.  Otherwise Weaver's numbers last 4 years are as good or better than Glavine.  If Weaver splts with Glavine, then NY MUST win both of Maines starts against Suppan, PLUS win with Oliver Perez.  What is the greater probability Carpneter beating Trachsel twice, or Glavine beating Weaver twice?


Game 4 will be a huge key.  Assume Perez and Marquis pitch close to what they all year, then St. Louis has the advantage.  That also means they get maybe 5 innings out of Marquis.  The Cards bullpen then has to pitch 4 innings.  Well St. Louis will have an off day between games 2 and 3, plus they will have Carpenter going at home in game 3.  St. Louis' bullpen will have pitched next to nothing for 2 days.  They can easily go 4 innings, probably even 6.  That puts St. Luois in an even bigger advantage.  If they get 7 innings out of Suppan then even better for St Louis.

[Reality]

zig i am hearing everything you say.
What I'm seeing is this years playoffs has seen more statistical probabilities thrown out the window then i can recall in a long time.

Ie Kenny Rogers playoff record of past, and specifically against  Yankees vs what happened. :up:

Detroit tanks in Game 1, including the classic moronic "Lets give the Yankees more gifts to help them win/shoot ourselves in foot" -as if they are not already good enough with $200 mil payrol.  (Gift in game 1 early men on 1st and 2nd no outs and they try to steal third. :unsure:   Thrown out, IRod strikes out next pitch.  Boom 2 outs zero runs rally over.

On the stat front, the radio was talking about this playoffs Round 2 a chance for _____ becoming only the 5th pitcher to win both the opening of Round 1 and R2.  Could that be right?  I thought they were talking about Carpenter but can't be since he is going in game 3.  

One of the ____ pitchers was David Wells.  Can't believe some of the other Yankee and old Oakland As Threepeat pitchers didnt win opener of R1 and R2.  Oh, maybe they were some of the other 5.  But only 5?  Plus how about the old Yankee 8 peats.

[Joe Vancil]

Reality,

It would be relatively rare to win the opening game in both Round 1 and Round 2 because there hasn't BEEN a Round 1 and Round 2 for very long.  Somewhere less than the last 15 years.

 

[Reality]

D'Oh! :lol:  

[ziggy]

The Cards pitching has stepped, no doubt, but I think a lot of it is playing over their heads and I have to think Weaver, Suppan and Wainwright will come back down to Earth.  LaRussa has never handled success well and I think the Mets are going to dominate like they pretty much dominated the rest of the NL this year with the Cards maaaaybe getting one of Carp's starts.  Then again, Caleb calls me a pessimist.  



Note:  What happened to Pedro??

Well it is 1-1 going back to St. Louis, so cngrats Caleb.  The Cards dodge a big bullet tonight, as Carpenter did not pitch all that well, and they still got a win, off Billy Wagner to boot.

I personally felt LaRussa made a mistake moving Carpenter up to game 2.  Carpenters has pitched much much better at home this season.  He has been absolutely lights out at home for the last 3 season, while being just medicore on the road.  This also means he will pitch game 6 in NY, so he may get beat then, but they got a win when he was pitching so it did work out.  I said before one of the keys was Carpenter getting a win in St. Louis and going deep to give the bullpen some time off.  After the rain out in game one, and 5 days in a row, getting a lot out of Carpenter the day before game 4, was going to be important for St. Louis' bullpen, but now they have Suppan, and it is critical they get 7 innings from him.

St. Louis didn't put Marquis on the LCS roster, and is going with Reyes against Perez.  Reyes is a 5 inning pitcher, that is all they can hope to get out of him.  He has pitched 6 or more innings only 5 times all season, but each time it was a quality start.  As I said above games 2 through 4 is going to wear out the bullpen.

Weaver has had 6 good outing in his last 7.  I think he is back on the right track.  He was a tough luck loser in game one, he really did pitch well.

I still believe this will go 7, and if it is Trachsel vs. Suppan, then at that point it is a picken deal.  A lot depends on the number of pitches each bullpen has had to throw in games 1 through 6.

[Reality]

concur zig and would say Mets blew royal chance to beat Carpenter.  I thought Willie Randolph had a lets sit on the lead MartyBall type Marty Shottenheimer attitude with the lead(s).  Otherwise props to Cards for hacking.  Great stat by espn how many pitches they fouled off compared to MartyMets.  Like 54 to 17.

zig and all, strategywise were you taught when pitching and ahead 0-2 on batter, do NOT throw a strike. Positive things that can happen are
batter swings at theoretically unhittable ball
ump burns batter with strike call
you set up next pitch

Key blunders by Mets.  Specifically:

Top 7.  G Mota pitching.  Great job of getting two outs.
Al Pujols singles after 11 pitches.  (whadaya gonna do, props to Pujols.  Beauty part for Mets is yet again you got the batters before Pujols out. :up: )
Walks Jim Edmonds on 4 pitches. :huh:
Regains composure, gets two quick strikes on Spezio.
Throws a meatball. :eek2:  :eek2:   Spez racks it for the 6-6 tie.

9th inning same exact blunder.  Two quick strikes on Spezio, Billy Wagner feeds him a meatball for a run scoring double. (Tagaguchi had already given Cards lead tho).



Zig and all when at bat.  Where you taught when a pitcher is having obvious control problems thus your team has men on base, do NOT swing at the 1st pitch offered.

Working example.  Bottom 3rd, Mets in top 3 had just given up lead and score is tied 4-4.
Chris Carpenter pitching 1 out.
David Wright  and Shawn Green both walk.  Its Carpenters 4th walk of the game, altho Green did work him like 9 pitches.  Still, obviously Carpenter in a pinch.  
Jose Valentin is 0-14 in the postseason.  Now swings at the 1st pitch, grounds into double play.  Rally killer.  

Bottom 4th Carpenter now hits the 2nd batter M Tucker.
Jose Reyes and Paul Lo Duca procede to 1st pitch swing and bail Carpenter on two easy pitches. :eek2:  
 

[Reality]

Suppan was super in Gm 3.
Gm 4 Carlos Beltran breaks out and Delgado continues his Pujols like rampage.
2-2.
OPerez won.
Go figure.  What now?

zig just as Cards basically "lost" when they started Carpenter on 3 days rest,
Mets making Glavine go Gm 4 on 3 days rest is also a big mistake IMO.

[ziggy]

Suppan was super in Gm 3.
Gm 4 Carlos Beltran breaks out and Delgado continues his Pujols like rampage.
2-2.
OPerez won.
Go figure.  What now?

zig just as Cards basically "lost" when they started Carpenter on 3 days rest,
Mets making Glavine go Gm 4 on 3 days rest is also a big mistake IMO.

Well Weaver is going on 3 days rest as well.  Neither team has any other options.  the big mistake the Mets made was keeping Cliff Floyd on the LCS roster, instead of another pitcher.  When Trachsel bombed out, they had to go long with Darren Oliver.  He can't pitch in game 5, neither can Trachsel, so the Mets bullpen is going to be short.  They have to win game 5, because Carpenter pitching 2 poor games in a row is not likely.

I think LaRussa made a big mistake pulling Reyes so early.  They were tied in the 4th when they pulled him, and then his bullpen threw 105 pictches including 42 out of Looper.  The Cards were in control of the series, and were going against the Mets worst pitcher.  Have the paitence to try and get 100 pitches out of Reyes, and hope for Perez to blow up, and burn up the NY bullpen.

That many pitches from Looper is going to hurt.  He can't go tomorrow, and if they lose game 4 (which they did), then they need to have the best of their nullpen ready in game 5, to win and set up Carpenter for game 6.  You have the 2 worst starters going in game 4, and you need to have the paitence to get as many innings as possible from your worst starter.

I still think the Cards will win, but it just got more difficult than it needed to be.

[Reality]

Cool if it rains out todays game, both Weaver and Glavine get to go on their regular rest Tue or Wed.  Or even a Glavine vs Carpenter Gm 5.

Concur with you 100 zig on LaRussa should have given An Reyes at least one more inning, that being the 5th.  Is this part of his rep of overmanaging the pitchers?  Seems like it.  Did he do any postgame comments on it, i havent seen any.  Obviously he thought B. Thompson could get thru the meat of the order (Loduca-Beltran-Babe Delgado) better.

O Perez ptoentially blowing up.  Yes i wondered the same.  When he got them thru 5 innings with a 5-3 score i thought Randolph should have been very thankful and called it an outing for O Perez.  But i guess top 6th an 11-3 lead allowed him to trade a couple more outs for a couple more runs off Perez in the bottom 6. :rolleyes:  

[Reality]

Weaver stays cool and instead it's Glavin who has a mini melt down.  Wow.
Pujols jack i had no problem with.  Mets still led 2-1 with two outs.
I thought Glavines two out walk to Rolen was his biggest unforced error.  Rolen became the 2-2 run.  All with two outs. :nonono:

Props to Card pitchers/Mets batters reacted like amatuers.  1st pitch swinging galore on Weaver, then when the relievers offered strike after strike they took.
Delgado on 3rd and Wright on 2nd with only one out.  Shaun Green and Valentine both go meekly, Valentine looking at an obvious stike 3. :rolleyes:

Willie Randoph is playing the What Me Worry? card.
The way this series has gone, i guess throw out the predicatable and i hope it goes 7 games.

[U.S. poll by espn]

Isn't anyone showing the Missourians any love?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPol...te?pollId=40023
They only "carried" two states.  Missouri and Arkansas.  Arkansas contains mainly their cousins, doesn't it?

Who do you like in todays Game 7?