The Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals will be beginning their post season against each other on Friday Oct. 3. The series will be a rematch of the 2013 National League Championship Series.
Cincinnati beating the Pirates on Sunday clinched the division for the Cardinals, earning them their second straight divisional title and fourth straight playoff appearance. Los Angeles is in a similar situation, winning the NL West for the second year in a row after beating the Giants earlier in the week. The series will be best of five beginning in Dodger Stadium before going to Busch Stadium.
The Matchup
The Dodgers have a slight edge on the Cardinals coming into this game, winning four of the seven games that the teams played during the regular season, but that is not the thing that LA will be looking at to gain an advantage; that will come from Clayton Kershaw being on the mound on Friday.
Kershaw will be looking for redemption this season. Last year he pitched the elimination game against the Cardinals and looked completely out of form, getting hit with seven runs in four innings.
That is not to say that the Cardinals will be out of sorts themselves. Adam Wainwright will be on the mound for St. Lois and is their best hope to make it to World Series and win their second championship in four years.
Keys to the Game
For the Dodgers, this is their chance to prove that they can actually beat St. Louis, and it all starts with Game 1. But it won't be easy. LA has been particularly ineffective in the eighth inning, with relief pitcher Brian Wilson losing his touch and other teams getting way too many runs on them late (perhaps most infamously when the the Cubs were able to set them back just before they went on to face the Giants last week.
In fact, things need to improve for the team at bat as well. The team does not have a penchant for coming back late and is 0-56 in games that they trailed after eight innings; 1-53 in trailing after seven and 2-54 when trailing after six. This team needs to learn to stay fresh for the long run if they truly want to be known as champions.
For the Cardinals, they have as good an offense as any to make Kershaw's day difficult on the mound, even without Carlos Beltran and David Freese. Matt Carpenter, Matt Holliday, Johnny Peralta and Adams all have great scoring advantages and are all batting over .300 (with the exception of Holliday who is averaging only .263).
This a game that will largely come down to who has the does the things that brought them to the post season. Both of these teams are well-conditioned, so all fans can do is hope that they keep proving themselves when it counts most of all.
Game 1 of the NLDS is this Friday at 6:37 PM ET/3:37 PM PT and will air on Fox Sports 1.