The field is set for the MLB’s version of the Final Four.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are tan, fit and rested and ready to open up the NLCS against a Chicago Cubs team that had to pull out all the stops — including one in Albuquerque on the way to California — to take down the Washington Nationals in a topsy-turvy five-game series.
It’s an NLCS rematch from last year, with similar dynamics at play. How will Clayton Kershaw hold up, and what does the Dodgers rotation — and worse yet, their bullpen — look like behind him? Can a tired Cubs pitching staff outlast the Dodgers?
Last year in the playoffs, the Cubs came into the series having thrown nearly 250 more pitches than the Dodgers. This year, that gap is a bit more….pronounced, one might say:
We still don’t even know who will start for the Cubs in Game 1 on Saturday, though it appears to be leaning heavily toward John Lackey or perhaps Jose Quintana, who worked in relief in Thursday’s Game 5. Jake Arrieta started Game 4 while Jon Lester worked in relief, and Kyle Hendricks was largely ineffective in his Game 5 start.
This isn’t the same Cubs team last year that had a strong Arrieta and Lester, however. Lester posted a 4.33 ERA (4.10 FIP) with the Cubs this year — his worst single-season ERA since 2012 with the Red Sox — and was, in general, just way more hittable than he’d been at any point in his now three-year stint with the team. Arrieta posted a solid 3.53 ERA, but that was backed with a 4.16 FIP and again, iffier secondary numbers than we’ve expected since he came over from the Orioles in 2013.
With free agency looming, Arrieta has a lot to gain the rest of this month.
Hendricks is a total wild card as well, as his Reagan-era fastball was all over the place on Thursday night, leaving him to be hit much harder than usual by a tough Nationals offense. Then there’s Lackey, the grizzled 38-year-old righty who posted just a 4.59 ERA this season and had the second-worst home run rate in the game.
The odds are not in the favor of the Cubs here, friends.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers wrapped their sweep of the Diamondbacks on Monday evening, and will have rested for five days before jumping back into meaningful action. As a result, Kershaw is lined up to try exorcise some of his postseason demons (career numbers of 4.63 ERA, 10.7 K/9, 2.8 BB/9 and 1.16 WHIP in playoff games) for a team that, quite frankly, isn’t quite as perfect as one might expect after winning 104 games.
The bullpen doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence on the road to Kenley Jansen. Brandon Morrow’s renaissance was fascinating, but he pitched in all three games in the Diamondbacks series with just one strikeout and a home run allowed. Tonys Watson and Cingrani are solid from the left side, while Kenta Maeda, Ross Stripling and Josh Fields are good on the right, but none of them seem to exude confidence from the legions of Dodgers types one might find on social media.
The rotation behind Kershaw is on the shaky side too. That, again, is probably more based on expectations than reality. Assuming two of the three of Alex Wood, Rich Hill and Yu Darvish pitch to their ability — not that wild of an assumption, really — the Dodgers should be fine. With that said, again it isn’t a bunch that has given their fans the confidence you’d expect after a 104-win season.
Maybe that speaks more to the expectations than anything?
The pressure is on Dave Roberts to win with this team — and now.
With an offense like he has, that shouldn’t be that difficult. In a normal year, Justin Turner would be a runaway MVP candidate while Cody Bellinger is one of the best rookie hitters we’ve seen in years. Corey Seager is an absolute stud, while Austin Barnes and Chris Taylor are two of the most under-the-radar great players we’ve seen emerge out of nowhere in quite some time.
But there are weaknesses. Outside of Yasiel Puig in the outfield, it’s really a mix-and-match bunch with Andre Ethier and Curtis Granderson mixing in with Taylor. Second base is weak — a comment that’ll no doubt prick up some Twins fans’ ears — though Logan Forsythe may have found his swing with a strong performance in the LDS against the Snakes (4-for-9).
The pick: Dodgers in six.
The Game 1 matchup in the ALCS strongly favors the Astros. It’s not only because it’s in Houston, but because Masahiro Tanaka was absolutely dreadful (6.48 ERA) away from Yankee Stadium. Keuchel’s wizardry with groundballs flies in the face of baseball’s offensive revolution, and that’s going to make him an extremely difficult matchup in Yankee Stadium in Game 4 if it comes to that. Regardless, if the Astros pitch Keuchel three times in the series, the Yankees’ chances are not great.
Then again, that means the Yankees have pushed it to a Game 7 — something I don’t personally foresee — and that means they’ve gotten to Justin Verlander and/or Charlie Morton/Brad Peacock.
The Yankees can’t go horse-for-horse in terms of starting pitchers, but they do hold a trump card in an era where this is a big deal — the better bullpen. The Astros can’t match up with the ridiculous group of Chad Green-David Robertson-Tommy Kahnle-Dellin Betances-Aroldis Chapman — frankly, not even the Kansas City Royals two years ago could — so it may become a strange battle of strength versus strength, even if they don’t match up exactly in terms of when they’re dispatched in games.
Neither team is an embarrassment on the other side of the pitching game, either. In fact, the Yankees finished fifth in starter ERA in MLB (3.98) while the Astros were sixth (4.03). That doesn’t include much from Verlander and abbreviated seasons for Lance McCullers Jr., Peacock or Morton — and as a result, the Astros get a boost.
Furthermore, the Yankees didn’t have much in the way of peers bullpen-wise — 3.34 ERA even with Robertson and Kahnle joining the bit at midseason — with only couch-sitting Boston and Cleveland ahead of them. The Astros were markedly worse at 4.27 (17th in MLB), and may rue not adding Zach Britton when they had the chance. Well, more accurately, someone like that, since Britton — who strangely hasn’t been seen in public since Toronto last October (we kid) — battled injuries all season long.
It’ll be a fun matchup of contrasts, and probably a good window to the future. For every Carlos Beltran and Josh Reddick on the Houston roster, they also have a Carlos Correa and George Springer who represent the youth of a farm system that was teeming with talent just a few years ago when Sports Illustrated pegged them as the team to beat this season.
The Yankees are on a similar path — including some aged veterans like Matt Holliday, Todd Frazier and Chase Headley et al — but are playing with house money now while waiting on youngsters like Clint Frazier and Gleyber Torres to fully emerge.
We’re sticking with S.I. on this one.
The pick: Astros in six.
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