Buctober: NLDS Preview

First off, let me say that Tuesday's Wild Card was an amazing game.  The fans were insane, the players fed off that energy, and the Pirates took care of business.  To some degree, the Reds choked, but the Pirates also dismantled Cincy and every key moment in the game swung in the Buccos favor.

If they can play like that the rest of the way, they'll not only win this series, they'll win it all.

Trouble is, I don't think that they can sustain what they did on Tuesday night.

St. Louis is more consistent and balanced.  They finished 3rd in runs scored, 4th in batting average, 3rd in on-base percentage, and 12th in slugging.  They were also 5th in ERA and 8th in WHIP, and were in the top 15 in pretty much every other pitching category.  They're not a team that needs to score a bunch of runs to win, but they're a team that can win a slugfest.  They can also win tight, low-scoring games.  They play exceptionally well at home and they get 3 out of 5 games at Busch Stadium.

They have a ton of players on the roster with extensive postseason experience. Talent usually trumps experience, as the Pirates proved on Tuesday night, but the Cardinals have more talent and more experience.

I don't think that the Wild Card game hurt the Pirates at all.  If anything, it gave them the confidence and the experience they didn't have previously.  Francisco Liriano will still get to pitch in the first three games -- Game 3 at PNC Park and he's much tougher at home than on the road -- and a starting threesome of AJ Burnett, Gerrit Cole, and Liriano is still very formidable.  Maybe Burnett versus Wainwright today favors the Cardinals, but the pitchers don't go against each other.  They go against the batters for the other team.  As long as the Buccos do a better job of scoring runs against Wainwright than St. Louis does against Burnett, then AJ and the Pirates will win.  The bullpen was barely touched on Tuesday, Mark Melacon didn't have to pitch, and Jason Grilli has two days rest.

The 4 seed vs. 1 seed matchup only concerns me in that the Pirates need to play three road games in a five games series, but they would've needed to play three road games regardless of who they drew.

I just think this Cardinals team is a bad matchup for them, despite the fact that the Pirates won the season series 10-9.  They won most of those games at home and four of those wins came in a five game series at the end of July at PNC.  If the Buccos had three home games and started off the series with two games in Pittsburgh, I'd pick them.  This is a really close series, the games should be tight, and it's entirely possible that the Pirates could pull it off.

As a lifetime Pirate fan, I've spent my time hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.  It could be that's clouding my mindset and opinion now, because there's something knawing at me that says the Buccos hold the advantage in terms of talent, pitching, and matchups and have enough of an advantage to overcome the fact that St. Louis has homefield.

If they can split the first two games in St. Louis, then they have a real shot.  If they can't split those games -- I think they lost both of them -- then the Cardinals can split the next two games in Pittsburgh.  If they split in St. Louis, then it's very possible that they could use that momentum to close out things at home.

I don't think it'll happen that way, so I'm going to go Cardinals in 4.

HOWEVER, if the Buccos do happen to beat the Cardinals, I like their chances to advance to the World Series.  I think that they have the pitching depth and building confidence to take on the Braves or Dodgers. I will be rooting for them to take this series and advance to the NLCS (then the World Series!), but expecting them to fall flat on their face in Missouri.

BONUS COVERAGE:

My buddy Keith, who knows everything about baseball, completely disagrees with me.  I asked him for his prediction (without first telling him that I was going to try and quote him on it) and he had this to say:

"The Cardinals offense is not intimidating without Allen Craig, particularly since the only reason they won the division was an absurd team performance with RISP.  Plus, the Pirates all believe that they are a part of something special while this is just another postseason for the Cards.

The Braves are virtually unbeatable at home for some reason.  The Dodgers have won 60 of their last 90 games. Both teams have absolute shutdown closers.  LA wields the extra threat of Clayton Kershaw, but the Pirates have handled Zack Greinke pretty well over the years.  I think whoever wins the Atl/LA series wins the NL."

So, I'm hoping for the best, that Keith is right.  Like he usually is.

Buccos Update: Might Be Time to Panic

My friend Dan is an aspiring Pirates fan, but he doesn't know a lot about baseball.  He never followed it while he was growing up and the Pirates haven't given any reason to learn the game since he moved to Pittsburgh.  The last two seasons, I've been teaching him different things about baseball in general and about the Buccos specifically.

Every day this month, he's asked me the same question: Is it time to panic yet?  I keep answering that, no, it's not time to panic, because it's a long season and we still have a lot of baseball yet to play.  After the Pirates fell to the Dodgers 11-0 on Tuesday night, he texted me and asked if it was time to panic.  I said yes.  I would still feel a sense of panic even if the Buccos had won last night and the fact that they didn't isn't helping my sense of panic.

I hate to say that any game is a must-win with so much baseball left to play (45 games remaining), but I have to say that I think today's game is a must-win situation.  Winning today won't turn the season around necessarily -- Cutch and James McDonald are still slumping, everyone in the lineup still strikes out too much and doesn't walk enough, the bullpen has been shaky, they're not hitting for power like they were in June and July -- but it will help them remember what it's like to win.

Coming into the current home stand, they knew they were going to face a higher level of competition than they did coming out of the All-Star, but they still had 11 games at home and they had been playing exceptionally well at PNC Park.  They're 3-7 through the first ten games and, really, the only bright spot was that nine run outburst in the bottom of the fourth on Sunday (I was there for that and it was awesome).  They've played 13 straight games and have seven more in a row staring them in the face.

This is a team that's used to losing.  Clint Hurdle has done a good job of creating the skeleton of a winning mindset and veteran AJ Burnett has bailed this team out of a slide on a number of occasions already this season.  But, the skeleton Hurdle has constructed is still pretty young and fragile and Burnett's only one guy.  The Dodgers are awfully good and they've looked very formidable thus far in this series.

It's a big obstacle to overcome and I don't know if this team is up to the challenge.  A win today won't save the season, but I really believe that a loss will make an already panicked fan base seriously start to lose interest (it's almost football season, after all). 

They need to remember what it's like to win.  They need something to make them feel good about the upcoming road series against the Cardinals and Padres (who really should've swept the Buccos last weekend).  They need something to keep them from collapsing like they did last season.

But... I don't think they have it in them.  And that makes me nervous.  Panicked, even.