It won't be easy for the Mets who then have to face Zack Greinkie in game 2, but it won't be easy for the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw who come into this 1st game trying to erase consecutive postseason shortcomings.
Something has gotta give, either Kershaw wins a big game or the Mets finally beat Kershaw and put another postseason L on his resume.
Time to try and break things down...
So who has the edge in this series? well when you break it down things don't seem to be stacking up well for the Mets, as I already said they are on the road and the numbers say that the LA Dodgers had the best home record in MLB this season.
What you have here is 2 franchises that have always built their teams around pitching and when you look at the numbers the Mets and the Dodgers have identical numbers in the pitching department. These 2 team have solid pitching but I like the Mets young arms and I also like the Mets bats over the Dodgers lineup.
On the mound for the Mets will be last year rookie of the year Jacob deGrom who takes the ball vs Kershaw tonight where 1 run could be the difference in this game 1 pressure cooker. Speaking of pressure, the Dodgers have got to get it done! This is the 3rd year in a row for Don Mattingly and the Dodgers and it's time for them to get deep into the playoffs. They have the pressure to win and this is what happens when you spend all this money and the expectations go sky high. They are the team with the big salary, $272 vs $101.
The pressure is on LA while the Mets come into this series feeling like their playing with house money. If your the Mets your looking to take one of these 1st 2 games in LA and come back home 1-1 with the turbulent Matt Harvey waiting at home vs Dodger lefty Brett Anderson.
We already know that Matt Harvey will be Matt Harvey and that along the way he is going to rub you the wrong way, but as long as Matt Harvey is able to win us a few games in these playoffs we'll deal with his shenanigans. Obviously Harvey has put this added pressure on to himself again, hopefully he'll find a way to pump himself up and use it to his advantage cause he's already on a short leash with the Met faithful.
Other issues with the NY Mets is Steven Matz who may not be at 100% but who right now seems slated for the possible game 4 start. Then you have former Dodger Juan Uribe who will miss the entire series, the Mets will miss his playoff experience which they lack plenty considering most of these Mets will be making their playoff debut.
An intriguing matchup in this series will be the 2 Cuban stars, Yasell Puig vs Yoenis Cespedes, both play with a flare and I expect to see them try and out do each others performances.
The Dodgers also have 2 former divisional foes who have killed the Mets in the pass, veterans Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins, seeing them in Dodger Blue will be weird but it's never good to see those 2 with a bat in their hands. Both are on the other side of their careers and I expect guys like Howie Kendricks and the rookie Corey Seager to get the starting nods in this series, but always leery that Utley and Rollins are always lurking for a chance to do some more damage on the Mets.
This series may come down to the bullpens and in this department both the Mets and Dodgers won't WOW you. I do believe the Mets have the edge with Jeurys Familia's stuff closing games over Kelly Jansen, I also like my chances with guys like Addison Reed and Tyler Clippard over Juan Nicasio and Pedro Baez trying to bridge the gap.
It won't be an easy and it never is but I like my chances with the Mets to come out on top, because some how some way the Mets will find a way.
4 comments:
That was a good game last night, great pitching and clutch hitting. Could have gone either way, love watching games like that. Like I said last night, I really feel if the Mets can win this series they'll roll all the way through. This team reminds me of the giants, very good starting pitching and hitting that, while won't overpower you, will take advantage of anything you give them. The one thing is that the bullpen isn't as strong but with that type of pitching it can lessen that concern.
On another note, I've noticed one thing while watching all these playoff games. Its how terrible the umpiring behind home plate has been. I thought MLB would be like the NFL and NHL where they send the best umps to the playoffs, it seems like MLB sends the worst.
Well you know I really enjoyed that game, deGrom was outstanding and loved the Wright at bat. I'm surprise you made the call that the Mets will win it all, I see you don't feel to good about the Dodgers chances. No surprise for me with the pitching, you already know how I been feeling about the pitching since the get go, when you have a 14 game winner like Bartolo Colon and he is not even your 4th starter says a lot. deGrom was great but I expect another type of game from Noah Syndergaard, that guy has the best stuff of all the Mets pitchers.
Yea I heard a lot gripes about the umpiring, saw a few pitches that were questionable last night, at the same time umpiring in MLB is definately harder then the NFL or the NHL. Every damm pitch and we talking about inches, I think they need a machine at home plate calling the balls and strikes.
Oh I still think the Dodgers can win this series, its just going to be that much harder. Games like last night's are fun, all you can ask for in a playoff game.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to watch much of last night's game because I had an event at my kid's school but from what I saw I did see some questionable calls and thats not counting the other games as well. Ehh, I beg to differ, I would say that MLB is probably the easiest. Not saying that it's easy to do, not by a long shot but when dealing with football and especially hockey so much is happening at any given second and the action is so fast paced that making calls is harder than baseball. Again, not taking anything away from baseball umps, thats not an easy job.
Will you be home tonight to watch the game?
I understand that football and hockey are so much more fast pace then in baseball but to me they are the 2 easiest to call sport. The NBA is harder then those 2 sport and to me probably the hardest to call because it's a lot more ticky tacky where in hockey and football contact is to be expected.
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