{"id":9870,"date":"2014-10-09T13:59:07","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T17:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9870"},"modified":"2014-10-09T13:59:07","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T17:59:07","slug":"champion-series-pitching-matchups-predictions-that-you-should-ignore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9870","title":{"rendered":"Champion Series Pitching Matchups &#038; Predictions (that you should ignore)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So, in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=9854\">Divisional series prediction post<\/a>, I predicted the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Washington-San Francisco<\/strong>: predict a Washington 3-1 series win.\u00a0 Actual: SF wins 3-1.<\/li>\n<li><strong>St. Louis-Los Angeles Dodgers<\/strong>: predicted a LA sweep or 3-1 series win.\u00a0 Actual: StL wins 3-1.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Detroit-Baltimore<\/strong>: predicted a Detroit sweep or a 3-1 win.\u00a0 Actual: Baltimore sweeps 3-0.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Kansas City-Los Angeles Angels<\/strong>: predicted a LA victory in 5.\u00a0 Actual: Kansas City sweeps 3-0.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Had I published in time, I likely would have gotten at least one of the WC games wrong too (I liked Bumgarner but thought <strong>Francisco Liriano<\/strong> could revert to his dominant 2013 post season form).<\/p>\n<p>Four predictions, four incorrect, mostly wildly so.\u00a0 Damn.\u00a0 So much for the &#8220;pitching wins in the postseason&#8221; narrative.<\/p>\n<p>Now what?\u00a0\u00a0 Of course!\u00a0 Post another prediction piece \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>In the NL; the two top teams lost in the divisional series, leaving the weakest divisional champ going against the wild card, both with two off-days to re-set their rotations.\u00a0 In the AL; two surprising sweeps and a huge gap between games lets both teams re-set their rotations too.\u00a0 I&#8217;m guessing at the rotation order, but it should go as follows:<\/p>\n<p>NL:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Game 1: SF@Stl: <strong>Jake Peavy<\/strong> vs <strong>Adam Wainwright<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Game 2: SF@Stl: <strong>Madison Bumgarner<\/strong> vs <strong>Lance Lynn<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Game 3: Stl@SF: <strong>John Lackey<\/strong> vs <strong>Tim Hudson<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Game 4: Stl@SF: <strong>Shelby Miller<\/strong> vs <strong>Ryan Vogelsong<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Game 5: Stl@SF: Wainwright-Peavy (if necessary)<\/li>\n<li>Game 6: SF@Stl: Bumgarner-Lynn (if necessary)<\/li>\n<li>Game 7: SF@Stl: Lackey-Hudson (if necessary)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>SF barely hit against Washington&#8217;s starters but still squeaked out 3 games from 4.\u00a0 St. Louis on the other hand hits the ball a ton and should pound SF&#8217;s lesser starters.\u00a0 I like a split in Stl thanks to Bumgarner, then Stl taking two of three in ATT, and SF liking their chances throwing their ace in game 6.\u00a0 But who the heck knows what is going to happen; Wainwright gave up 11 hits in his last outing.\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>St. Louis in 7.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>AL:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Game 1: KC@Balt: <strong>James Shields<\/strong> vs <strong>Chris Tillman<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Game 2: KC@Balt: <strong>Yordano Ventura<\/strong> vs <strong>Wei-Yi Chen<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Game 3: Balt@KC:\u00a0<strong>Bud Norris<\/strong> vs <strong>Jason Vargas<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Game 4: Balt@KC:\u00a0<strong>Miguel Gonzalez<\/strong> vs <strong>Jeremy Guthrie<\/strong> (or perhaps <strong>Danny Duffy<\/strong>)<\/li>\n<li>Game 5: Balt@KC: Shields-Tillman (if necessary)<\/li>\n<li>Game 6: KC@Balt: Ventura-Chen (if necessary)<\/li>\n<li>Game 7: KC@Balt: Vargas-Norris (if necessary)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I, and every other national pundit, continue to be underwhelmed by Baltimore&#8217;s pitching staff.\u00a0 But they get the job done: Norris was un-hittable against Detroit, and Tillman pitched good enough to win.\u00a0 Is KC on a mission to save <strong>Dayton Moore&#8217;<\/strong>s job?\u00a0 It sure seems so.\u00a0 They couldn&#8217;t surpass Detroit in the regular season but swept the best team in baseball in the ALDS.\u00a0 But meanwhile, Baltimore *hits* the ball.\u00a0 I think Baltimore could win both games at home to start and then two of three in KC.<\/p>\n<p>Prediction: <strong>Baltimore in 6<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, in the Divisional series prediction post, I predicted the following: Washington-San Francisco: predict a Washington 3-1 series win.\u00a0 Actual: SF wins 3-1. St. Louis-Los Angeles Dodgers: predicted a LA sweep or 3-1 series win.\u00a0 Actual: StL wins 3-1. Detroit-Baltimore: predicted a Detroit sweep or a 3-1 win.\u00a0 Actual: Baltimore sweeps 3-0. Kansas City-Los Angeles [&hellip;]<\/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":[346,1676,1039,2031,1910,1022,49,1334,2030,306,897,894,1038,468,1333,219,2625,2232],"class_list":["post-9870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-post-season","tag-adam-wainwright","tag-bud-norris","tag-chris-tillman","tag-danny-duffy","tag-francisco-liriano","tag-jake-peavy","tag-james-shields","tag-jason-vargas","tag-jeremy-guthrie","tag-john-lackey","tag-lance-lynn","tag-madison-bumgarner","tag-miguel-gonzalez","tag-ryan-vogelsong","tag-shelby-miller","tag-tim-hudson","tag-wei-yi-chen","tag-yordano-ventura"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9870"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9885,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9870\/revisions\/9885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}