Three Great Pitching Matchups
October 3, 2007 by Geoff Young
Filed under Games Worth Watching, Playoffs
Hello, playoffs! Should be some good games on Wednesday:
- Rockies at Phillies, 12 noon PT — I’ve rambled at length about this series over at Hardball Times. Cole Hamels starts the opener against Jeff Francis. It’s hard to call Game 1 of any series a must-win, but the Phillies need to win behind Hamels to have any shot; the rest of their pitching staff is very suspect, and even their high-octane offense might not be able to overcome a loss today.
- Angels at Red Sox, 3:30 p.m. PT — John Lackey goes up against Josh Beckett in this one. Two legitimate Cy Young contenders. Lackey is 4-1 with a 1.92 ERA over his last seven starts. Small sample, but I love that he’s averaging 7 1/3 innings per start over that stretch. David Ortiz had a monster second half (.352/.458/.695) for Boston. Geez, the Red Sox as a team outscored opponents by 121 runs after the All-Star break. That’s sort of disgusting.
- Cubs at Diamondbacks, 7 p.m. PT — Chicago and its $300 million winter shopping spree squeak into the playoffs, while Arizona looks to become the second team ever (’87 Twins) to win the World Series despite having a negative run differential during the regular season. Carlos Zambrano and perennial Cy Young candidate Brandon Webb hook up in the opener. Both of these teams have better pitching staffs than you might realize. The question is whether any of the Diamondbacks bats come to life in October. These are certainly not the best two teams in the postseason, but they are well matched and in some respects, this might be the most fascinating series.
There you go. Happy watching…
I agree very much with what you said about Hamels and the Phillies. It’s the fourth inning as I write, and I am quite surprised by the problems Hamels is having. He’s calmed down now, but his team certainly didn’t need to get in this position. It amazes me that the Phils were able to get this far with their rotation. In a perfect world, Hamels would still be a couple of years away from the top of the rotation.
Yep, it is going to be difficult for the Phillies to climb out of this hole. I’m not sure who is scheduled to start the second game, but he needs to step it up big time.
The Phillies are never out of any series with that lineup. And since they are playing in a couple of bandboxes, don’t expect many more 4-2 games. Both lineups can put up runs in a hurry.
Lackey has pitched pretty well lately, but he has never done well at Fenway. With Beckett, Dice-K and Schilling lined up, the Sox will be very tough to beat.
“Geez, the Red Sox as a team outscored opponents by 121 runs after the All-Star break. That’s sort of disgusting.”
–You forgot to note that in this usage, “disgusting” means “this is one beautiful stat.”
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Red Sox fan in the house.