Game 1 starts at 6:30 P.M.
eastern time and features two pitchers who were once teammates and helped the
Boston Red Sox win the World Series in 2013 (that one’s for you, Hayato!) Jon
Lester gets the ball for the Cubs after compiling an 11-12 win/loss record with
a 3.34 ERA and 207 strike outs. Hardly the numbers Chicago was looking for
after signing him to a big money contract during the offseason, but perhaps he
will redeem himself in the postseason. The Cards will counter with John Lackey
(13-10, 2.77 ERA and 175 strike outs).
During the regular season,
Chicago and St. Louis played 19 times with the Cardinals coming out on top in
11 games, while the Cubs won 8. The last time they met was in the middle of
September at Wrigley Field in Chicago, with the Cubs taking two of three.
The Cardinals were the only team
in baseball to win 100 games this season, but they ended the year with three straight
losses. The Cubs, on the other hand, including the wild card win on Wednesday
night, have won nine in a row. They’ve been on a roll for the better part of
the last month and will look to knock out the NL Central Champs and advance to
the NLCS for the first time since 2003.
Prediction: Cubs in four
The other series will pit the
Los Angeles Dodgers against the New York Mets. Or in other words, the second best team in New York City for the first sixty years of the last century, versus their replacement. The Mets and Dodgers have met
in the post season only twice before, the most recent being the 2006 NLDS when
the Mets swept the series in three games. And of course, there was the
memorable seven game series in the NLCS which the Dodgers won back in 1988.
This will be the Mets first
appearance in the playoffs since 2006 while the Dodgers will try and put the
bad memories of their NLDS loss to the Cardinals in 2014 behind them. They
played each other six times during the regular season with the Mets winning
four. They took two out of three in LA in early July and then did the same
thing at Citi Field in Queens three weeks later.
Jacob deGrom (14-8, 2.54 ERA and
205 strike outs) will start for New York. The 2014 NL Rookie of the Year
pitched once against the Dodgers this year, giving up only two hits in 7 2/3
innings. Clayton Kershaw will start for Los Angeles. The lefthander was 16-7
this year with a 2.13 ERA and 301 strike outs. In his post season career,
Kershaw is only 1-5 with a 5.12 ERA and needs to improve upon that if he wants
to be recognized as one the best pitchers in baseball.
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