The Giants and Cardinals have won the last two world series respectively, and enter this year’s NLCS having fought in gritty 5-game division rounds.
The Giants coasted their way into this year’s post season, despite their lack of power hitting. The Cardinals duked things out in the wildcard round against the Braves, as they easily took the victory and keep showing the baseball world why you can’t count them out. The pitching rotation for both teams is as follows: For the Giants-Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, Matt Cain and either Tim Lincecum or Barry Zito. As for the Cardinals they’ll send up- Lance Lynn,Chris Carpenter, Kyle Lohse and Adam Wainwright.
The Cardinals on paper have the deeper team, despite not having as many regular season wins as the Giants. We’ve seen the Giants’ offense look anemic in the first games against the Reds, and they cannot afford to fall behind to a red hot Cardinals team. The Cardinals have the stronger bullpen advantage with Jason Motte carrying his regular season heroics into the post season. The Giants bullpen isn’t too far off either, albeit they do need a bit more help with Guillermo Mota being questionable at times. Call me old fashion, but I’m predicting here and now that the team that puts up more runs will win the series–call me bold. The Cardinals were 2nd in the league in runs scored, and have showed no signs of stopping.
I’d be tempted to say that this will be a long series, given both teams knack for finding magic and pulling out wins from nowhere. But I flatout think the Cardinals are the better team, I’ll disregard the fact they do not hold home field advantage, and go out and pick them to win the series in 5.