I’ll start this off with a resounding WELP. Our boys were sent home earlier than anyone expected. The Nats taking out the Dodgers could be one of the biggest upsets in L.A. sports history. But, the show must go on. And as I mentioned in the first post to kick off this series, we here at DLD are Dodgers fans first and foremost but we’re also baseball fans. So, as the postseason continues, as well will this series of the DLD staff predicting who’ll move on.
The National League Championship Series will be between the Washington Nationals and the St. Louis Cardinals. Even though the Nats ended the season with a better record than the Cards, St. Louis won their division allowing them home-field advantage for this series.
The Nats have started this postseason better than they could imagine –winning the Wild Card game and advancing in the playoffs against the 2018 NL Central champs and taking 3 of 5, winning their first series against the Dodgers who just finished their most successful season in franchise history. Both being firsts since 2005 when they moved to Washington D.C. and became the Nationals. And they did both with superb performances from Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Juan Soto, and Anthony Rendon. So far this postseason, Strasburg and Scherzer have combined for 28 innings while posting a 2.57 ERA with a 37/7 K/BB ratio. Soto and Rendon together have slashed .309/.404/.595/.999 with 10 runs and 11 RBI. The play from those 4 will need to continue if they want to advance to the World Series.
The Cards also took 3 of 5. And they did it by holding one of the most potent offenses in baseball to 3.4 runs per game while putting up 5.2. Adam Wainwright, Jack Flaherty, and Miles Mikolas combined to allow 5 earned runs in 4 starts and 26.2 innings pitched. While on the offensive side, Paul Goldschmidt, Marcell Ozuna, and Tommy Edman put up 14 runs and 9 RBI while slugging .787 in 61 at-bats. With that kind of run prevention and scoring, it’s a surprise they didn’t sweep and went 5 games with the Braves.
Now, here’s the staff’s predictions.
Cardinals in 6
Nationals in 6
Cardinals in 5
Cardinals in 6
Nationals in 6
Cardinals in 6
Nationals in 6
Nationals in 6
The Nationals come into the series as either slight favorites or slightly sizable favorites. With the way the Cardinals played in the NLDS it doesn’t seem so but then the Nats just defeated a squad that was one of the top 3 projected teams to win the World Series.
Oskar is a contributor to Dodgers-Lowdown. Follow him on Twitter @2rawsko94. You can follow the rest of the team that have Twitter accounts by clicking on their name.