If I would have told you back in spring training that it would be the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series (NLCS), you probably would have laughed at me, correct? Yeah, I thought so.
But both the Nationals and Cardinals pulled off some postseason magic that we’ve gotten accustomed to with October baseball, both clinching divisional series wins with Game 5 victories, and both on the road at that. Despite the similarities though, they would both get their clinching wins in drastically different ways.
For St. Louis, they would put it on the Atlanta Braves, putting up an insane 10 runs in the first inning that would leave their mark in the record books — they would score 13 total in the first three innings. For Washington, they would need extra-inning magic to take out the west coast power Los Angeles Dodgers, but would achieve the victory with a Howie Kendrick grand slam in the 10th inning. The series win would give the Nationals their first since moving from Montreal back in 2005.
When the chaos was done and the smoke was settled, it would leave us with quite the unpredictable NLCS: Washington Nationals vs. St. Louis Cardinals. And now once a heavy underdog, the Nationals now come into a series as the favorite.
According to the online sportsbook BetOnline, Washington comes in as the -120 odds-on favorite, white the St. Louis Cardinals take the underdog label (again) at +100. It’s a bit surprising considering the Cardinals are the ones with home-field advantage, but at the same time, the Nationals are the ones who took out the Dodgers. So, I get it.
The first pitch for Game 1 of the National League Championship Series (NLCS) between the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals is scheduled for Friday, October 11 at 8:08 PM ET. Anibal Sanchez will be pitching for the Nationals, while Miles Mikolas is pitching for the Cardinals. You can watch the game via national television on TBS. Game 2 follows the next day on Saturday, October 12 with the first pitch set for 4:08 PM ET. Afterwards, the series then heads to Washington for Game 3 on Monday, October 14 with a time to be determined.
After you read and get your advice from me regarding the NLCS between the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals, you can then place your bets over at one of the top baseball betting sites for who you think will be advancing to the World Series out of the National League.
In the National League, it truly is the season of the underdog, especially with a matchup that nobody saw coming between the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals. When the regular season had ended, it was the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves that were favored to get out of the NLDS — the Dodgers were at +269 to win the World Series, while the Atlanta Braves were placed at +613 odds. As far as the Cardinals and Nationals were concerned, St. Louis was at +1325, while Washington was sitting at +1500.
Talk about a major shift, especially with the Washington Nationals. After making the playoffs for a few seasons and constantly getting bounced out in the NLDS, most folks lost faith in the Nationals over the years to win anything big, especially with the departure of Bryce Harper to the Philadelphia Phillies back in free agency. However, now that Washington pulled the impossible and upset the Dodgers to finally win a series, they’ve shot all the way up from a odds-on loser to the favorite to advance to the World Series out of the National League. Not a bad turnaround, eh?
When you look at the head-to-head meetings between these two in the regular season, you notice the starting pitching of the Washington Nationals wasn’t exactly the best, at least in terms of wins and losses. In fact, Washington’s big three of Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin went a combined 2-3, and there was also a no-decision with that record as well.
In the seven games that the Nationals and Cardinals played each other in, four of them would take place near the end of April, while the remaining three would come in the middle of September.
Just earlier, I would bring up the fact that Washington’s pitching wasn’t exactly the best against St. Louis, but remember what I said: “At least in terms of wins and losses.” If you look at the K/BB stat, you notice that the Cardinals would strike out a total of 83 times in seven games, suffering at least 10 K’s in each of those games. As far as Washington, they would nearly cut that in half, only striking out 46 times — they would take 10 K’s in just one of those contests. So at least with strikeouts, the Nationals certainly have the Cardinals there, they just need to contain their run production, which can easily be done.
The St. Louis Cardinals certainly looked flashy in that 13-1 thrashing of the Atlanta Braves in Game 5 of the NLDS, but man, you can’t help but to wonder if it was a fluke.
They’re getting solid production from Paul Goldschmidt, who would have a couple of hits in Game 5, and he was on fire the entire series batting .438 with two homeruns entering that game. The Cards have also been profiting off of Marcell Ozuna, who was so good in the Braves series that his batting average had actually declined to .429 after the final game.
However, when you look at the rest of the lineup from St. Louis, there’s been nothing whatsoever — other than maybe one (lucky) heroic moment from Yadier Molina. On top of that, Atlanta’s pitching was unusually bad in that game, especially Mike Foltynewicz. That wasn’t the same Braves team that I saw all season long. So as I stated earlier, I can’t help but to wonder if this series win was a bit of a fluke for the Cardinals. Check out the numbers from Games 1-4, and then compare them to Game 5. St. Louis hasn’t been playing good baseball for the most part.
Those statistics is the combined production from Dexter Fowler, Paul DeJong, Tommy Edman and Kolten Wong in the NLDS. In Game 5, they were great, all four even drawing walks that would eventually become runs. But with the rest of the series, the run support was non-existent, even going 17 straight innings at one point with just one scored.
Now that they go from a five-game to a seven-game series, the St. Louis Cardinals’ run production becomes even more vital now. If the offense doesn’t show up in this series, they won’t manage to tally up enough runs to pull out four wins. And not only that, but the potency of the Washington Nationals also puts some heat on the Cardinals to deliver. For example, one of their sluggers in Anthony Rendon, who the Nats recently offered a seven year/$215 million contract, was incredible in his 17 NLDS at-bats. Altogether, he would put up a .412 batting average and would earn five RBI’s — and that’s not even the most of it.
When you go through the lineup of Washington, they have a total of six players (14 at-bats minimum) who have averaged at least .250 or higher when it comes to hitting the ball. They’re sure to get run production from Goldschmidt and Ozuna, but after that, the numbers fall off at a pretty dismal rate. So again, I ask: Was Game 5 a fluke? Was this series win a fluke? Atlanta’s bats weren’t going as they normally did in that series, so that’s another factor at play in this entire thing. The Cardinals are going to need to step up the production against the Nationals in a seven-game series if they hope to advance to the World Series. If not, it could be a wrap.
As far as the entire series is concerned, it’s hard to tell what the starting pitcher matchups are going to be throughout, and when they happen at that. On their off days, both teams have been using their starters as relievers, giving leverage to both rotations. That’s because they can, especially with the elite pitching that both of these ball clubs have.
WASHINGTON NATIONALS
ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
Now that we enter the NLCS, a seven-game series, you can be sure that both teams will now go to a four deep rotation now. For the St. Louis Cardinals, you can expect Adam Wainwright to be thrown into the mix, while Anibal Sanchez will be coming in for the Washington Nationals.
With Washington’s pitching in the NLDS, Patrick Corbin’s numbers were horrible. In three outings (one of them would be a start) combined, he would post a seriously high 7.88 ERA. In his defense, however, the vast majority of it would come from a terrible showing in Game 3 as a reliever. As far as their other pieces, all three of Strasburg, Scherzer, and Sanchez would be on point against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
St. Louis wouldn’t play the Dodgers, rather the Braves in the NLDS, and it would show in the statistics. On paper, the Cardinals pitching was much better than the Nationals. As a matter of fact, it was incredible, including three starters who would have ERAs under 2.00. To put it even more into perspective, their best pitcher in Jack Flaherty was actually their worst in the series against Atlanta, but even he was top-notch with a 2.77 ERA in two games.
Yeah, the St. Louis Cardinals would get the best of the Washington Nationals in their regular season head-to-head meetings, but here’s why it’s hard for me to take the Cardinals in a seven-game postseason series: Their weak offense.
When you take the 13-run blowout win over the Atlanta Braves out of the equation, you get stuck with four games full of nothing but an entire team relying solely on just two bats. Honestly, they’re lucky to even be in this position to begin with, especially considering Freddie Freeman was only one inch away from ending this series and sending the Braves to the NLCS. On top of that, you also have to remember with those games in the regular season that the Cardinals would strike out an insane amount of times despite getting the series win. If they do that here in the playoffs, their offense will be even worse than against Atlanta, and will ultimately cement their defeat.
That’s exactly what I have happening. And not only does Washington have that leverage, but also have the monkey off of their back of being unable to get past the divisional series. Now that they’ve conquered those demons and have a massive amount of momentum, I see them riding this wave all way to the World Series. Give me the Washington Nationals in six, winning the pennant for the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) and heading to the World Series.
BETTING PREDICTION: Washington Nationals (-120)
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