Baseball Musings: St. Louis vs. San Diego

October 03, 2005

St. Louis vs. San Diego

	St. Louis		San Diego
2005	Value	NL Rank	Value	NL Rank
Runs per Game	4.97	3rd	4.22	13th
Batting Average	.270	2nd-T	.257	12th
On-Base Average	.338	3rd-T	.333	5th-T
Slugging Percentage	.422	6th-T	.391	15th
ERA	3.48	1st	4.15	7th-T

This series appears to be a mismatch. St. Louis has an excellent offense and the best pitching staff in the league. The Padres don't score much, and despite playing in a low scoring park, their pitching is just middle of the road. When you look at the teams away from their home parks, the pitching difference becomes clear. St. Louis posts a 3.54 ERA, still the best in the National League, while the Padres fall to 13th with a 4.79 ERA. Playing up to three games in St. Louis does not favor San Diego.

By the same token, the offenses aren't as far apart as they look, either. You can see that in their overall on-base averages. On the road, the Cardinals score 4.9 runs per game, best in the NL. San Diego, at 4.64, is 3rd. So the real story here is that we have the best hitting and pitching team facing a good offense and a poor pitching staff.

How then, do the Padres make up the deficit in pitching? They need to use the bullpen. A lot. The Padres have five pitchers that can blow batters away; Peavy in the rotation and Seanez, Otsuka, Linebrink and Hoffman in the bullpen. With a day off between each of the first three games, Bochy can afford to go to his pen early and often. If Peavy can go deep in games 1 and 4, then three good innings from Astacio in one other game is all the Padres may need.

Of course, few lineups the Padres faced in 2005 have Albert Pujols, Larry Walker and Jim Edmonds. All three get on base and all three hit for power. They have a good table setter in Eckstein and some backup power in Sanders. The Cardinals need very few swings of the bat to score runs.

So the hope for Bochy is that the front line pitching can shut down the Cardinals and his team can score a few runs against the deep St. Louis pitching staff. The Cardinals are clear favorites, but this series has the potential to surprise fans.

Posted by David Pinto at 07:51 AM | League Division Series | TrackBack (2)

Comments

ESPN's Buster Olney likes the Padres in an upset. It certainly seems unlikely given the way the Cards steamrolled through the N.L. this year, but goofy things can happen in these five-gamers.

Posted by: Matt at October 3, 2005 09:33 AM

if you're interested in this series, six cardinal bloggers did an online chat last night and will be posting it today. part 1 up at my site, http://www.vivaelbirdos.com.

Posted by: l boros at October 3, 2005 10:09 AM

The Pads did win the season series, 4-3. Also, Clay Hensley has been much stronger than Otsuka out of the bullpen down the stretch and probably will be used in higher leverage situations, especially away from Petco Park, where Otsuka's ERA hovers near 7.00.

If Astacio can only muster three good innings in Game 2, the Padres are in big trouble. Of course, everything pretty much depends on Peavy winning Game 1.

Posted by: Geoff at October 3, 2005 07:34 PM

As much as I hate to say it as a Cardinals fan, I don't like their chances.

Their starting pitching has slumped big time the last few weeks. Carpenter, Mulder, and Morris have all pitched horribly. The first two seem out of gas (since TLR pushed them hard at the end of the year to stack up their win total), and Morris just hasn't been good since the All-Star break. And their most reliable starter the last month or so, Suppan, will be skipped in favor of Marquis. Marquis is good when he uses his sinker, but frequently just doesn't want to (Which is why the Braves traded him) and had trouble in his last outing.

And to top it off, they just lost their best reliever, Al Reyes. Who is not a big name, but has been virtually unhittable this year. WHIP under 1, lots of strike outs. They are already hurting in the 'pen with Ray King have a terrible year and Tavarez regressing a bit, so I don't know how they are going to get through the 7th and 8th innings.

On the plus side, Walker and Sanders seem to be hitting the ball well lately. Edmonds you never know. He's stuggled most of the year. Pujols has been hurting the last couple of weeks and slumped a bit, but I wouldn't count him out.

Posted by: Jeremy at October 4, 2005 05:00 AM