Almost a year since they last met in the playoffs, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Dodgers hook up again in another postseason series, this time in a best-of-five National League Division Series. Who’s going to advance, and who’s going to go home early? Find out more about this series when we breakdown the matchup below.
A day before this Cards-Dodgers series begins, the NFL, meanwhile, will kick things off in Week 5 of its season. You can read our predictions of all 14 Week 5 games here.
[sc:MLBArticles ]St. Louis Cardinals vs. Los Angeles Dodgers NLDS Betting Preview
Series Schedule & Results
Game 1 – Friday, October 3, St. Louis Cardinals at Los Angeles Dodgers – view all MLB lines
Game 2 – Saturday, October 4, St. Louis Cardinals at Los Angeles Dodgers
Game 3 – Monday, October 6, Los Angeles Dodgers at St. Louis Cardinals
Game 4* – Tuesday, October 7, Los Angeles Dodgers at St. Louis Cardinals
Game 5* – Thursday, October 9, St. Louis Cardinals at Los Angeles Dodgers
*If necessary
Will the Cardinals continue their postseason success against Clayton Kershaw?
[sc:MLB240banner ]Clayton Kershaw is arguably the best weapon the Dodgers have in their arsenal. However, the element of fear that he strikes upon opposing teams in the postseason doesn’t apply to St. Louis, or so it seems. The Cardinals are no strangers when it comes to facing Kershaw in the postseason. In fact, they just met him last season in the National League Championship Series, where the Cardinals beat the two-time Cy Young Award winner twice on their way to winning the league’s pennant, four games to two.
Kershaw started in Game 2 and Game 6 of that series and got rocked hard by the Cards, especially in the sixth game, where he gave up seven runs on 10 hits before being pulled out from the game in the fourth inning. Kershaw finished the series with an uncharacteristically high 4.23 ERA.
Of all the current Cards players, Matt Holliday has the most plate appearances against Kershaw, going 9-for-35 (.257) in his career. Yadier Molina, on the other hand, is batting .273. Although he only has five career plate appearances against Kershaw, Peter Kozma nevertheless has a notable 4-for-5 line in those outings with three doubles for a batting average of .800 and a team-high slugging percentage of 1.400.
Cardinals’ offense
Carlos Beltran and David Freese are no longer with the Cardinals this season, meaning St. Louis will head into October without two of its most reliable postseason performers in recent years.
Beltran has a career .333 BA and an OPS of 1.128 in the postseason. Freese, meanwhile has a .289 BA in nine career postseason series to go along with an .875 OPS. Without both players, there’ll be a lot of pressure on the likes of Yadier Molina, Matt Holliday, Matt Carpenter, Johnny Peralta and Matt Adams to find a way and score against an imposing contingent of pitchers the Dodgers are about to send to the mound in this series.
Here’s how these aforementioned Cardinals have fared during the last six games of the regular season:
Carpenter, the team’s hit leader with 162, is batting .350 and has a team-best .458 on-base percentage in five games before the NLDS. Adams and Peralta have .318 and .316 batting averages respectively during that same span. Furthermore, Molina is batting .263, while Holliday, the team’s RBI leader, only has a .235 BA with three RBIs.
Overall, the Cards averaged 3.7 runs per game in their last six regular season games. That figure, though, is skewed by an 8-0 win over the Chicago Cubs last September 22nd and a 7-6 victory against the Arizona Diamondbacks on September 26 as St. Louis scored no more than three runs in any of its other four games during that stretch.
Can the Dodgers’ offense upstage its pitching rotation?
Sure, the Dodgers get a lot of attention mainly because of its pitching, which ranked sixth in the MLB at the end of the regular season with a 3.40 ERA, but the team’s offense this season is what makes Los Angeles an even scarier team to face in the postseason than their 2013 version. The Dodgers finished the regular season with 718 runs, sixth most in the majors. In addition, they rank within the top six in batting average (.265) OBP (.333), slugging percentage (.406), and in on-base plus slugging (.738).
Pitching Matchup
Game 1: STL Adam Wainwright (20-9, 2.38 ERA) vs. LAD Clayton Kershaw (21-3, 1.77 ERA)
Wainwright’s last start: Wainwright threw seven scoreless innings, allowing just three hits and fanning eight batters in the Cards’ 8-0 win over the Chicago Cubs on September 22.
Trends:
- The Cards are 5-0 in Wainwright’s last five starts overall.
- The Cards have won in both of Wainwright’s last two road starts.
Kershaw’s last start: Kershaw allowed just one earned run and struck out 11 batters in eight innings of work in the Dodgers’ 9-1 win over the San Francisco Giants last September 24th.
Trends
- The Dodgers are 9-1 in Kershaw’s last 10 home starts.
- The Dodgers are 6-0 in Kershaw’s last six starts overall.
Game 2: STL TBA vs. LAD Zack Greinke (17-8, 2.71 ERA)
Greinke’s last start: Greinke surrendered one earned run on four hits and fanned six before being replaced in the fifth inning in the Dodgers’ 10-5 victory against the Colorado Rockies on September 28.
Trends
- The Dodgers are 5-0 in Greinke’s last five starts overall.
- The Dodgers have won in both of Greinke’s last two starts.
Game 3: TBA
Game 4: TBA
Game 5: TBA
Writer’s Prediction
The Dodgers avenge their ouster at the hands of St. Louis last season and win the series, three games to two. Create a betting account now, and see the latest odds and lines of the 2014 MLB postseason.
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