Steve Webb
One-game playoff looms on Wednesday
LOS ANGELES — It’s not the fate that we wanted, but it’s one that we now must embrace. The Los Angeles Dodgers, with their franchise-record 106 wins will be playing against the St. Louis Cardinals in the Wild Card round of the 2021 National League playoffs. Unlike last season, when the Wild Card round was a three-game series hosted by the higher seed, this year’s Wild Card will be decided by just one game, a one-and-done play-in game on October 6. Game time will be 5:10 pm local time, so make your driving and viewing plans now.
Two proven veterans will start
This year’s match-up will probably feature starters with among the oldest combined ages in playoff history. 37-year-old Max Scherzer will square off against Cardinals’ righty Adam Wainwright, who celebrated his 40th birthday in August of this year. But don’t let the flecks of gray fool you. Both pitchers are on the top of their game right now. Scherzer just missed the ERA crown in the National League and is having one of the best years of his Hall of Fame career. He is 15-4 this season, with a 2.45 ERA and a 0.86 WHIP.
On the other hand, Wainwright is borderline Cooperstown material, but he has put together a very solid career, topped off with a great 2021 campaign. In 32 starts this year, he’s posted a 17-7 record with a 3.05 ERA and a solid 1.06 WHIP. Waino has been very consistent all year long, relying on his off-speed pitches, especially his elite curve-ball for outs. And in his previous outing against the Dodgers, the guy was lights out, flummoxing Dodger hitters most of the afternoon.
It didn’t start out like that. Muncy, Betts, and Seager got three straight hits off Wainwright in the first inning. However, Mookie Betts was thrown out trying to score from first on a Seager double, and the rally fizzled after that. Wainwright was in total control following that shaky start, and the Dodgers didn’t get to him until they finally broke through in the ninth. They got two runs in the inning and chased Wainwright from the game. The inning began with three singles from Trea Turner, Mookie Betts, and Corey Seager to score one run, and then the Dodgers got another on a Will Smith sacrifice fly before reliever Giovanny Gallegos finally shut the door on the Dodgers by striking out Chris Taylor with the tying run stranded at first.
Cards streak into playoffs
On the offensive side of things, the Cardinals are not a great team by any stretch of the imagination. They are middle-of-the-pack in team batting average and OPS, and are 10th in the league in runs scored with only 704, by far the fewest runs scored by any of the playoff teams in the NL. Their run differential of only +34 is also on the bottom of the playoff qualifiers this year. Conversely, the Dodgers have scored 830 runs and have a run differential of 269. On paper, it looks like this is no contest.
However the game is not played on paper. And in September the Cardinals have been red hot. Mired in third place in the Central at the beginning of the month, the Redbirds proceeded to come out of nowhere and win the second Wild Card rather easily. They won seventeen straight games in the month, finishing September with a record of 22-7.
So how did they do it? Good pitching, great defense, and timely hitting. Led by their two stellar infielders (and former NL West foes) Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, the Cardinals finally started playing like experts thought they would at the beginning of the year. Over the last 30 days, Goldy is hitting .356 with an OPS of 1.127. Arenado has been just okay during the same stretch, but other players have stepped up. Tyler O’Neill has been mashing all year, and even Dylan Carlson and Harrison Bader have been playing out of their minds since the streak began. Clearly, it is a much different team that Max Scherzer will be facing than the one he saw a month ago.
Injuries could play a role
Of course that costly last weekend of the season is still weighing heavy on Dodger fans minds. Max Muncy‘s lost is especially painful for this playoff game when you think that Muncy mashed a home run off Wainwright in the last time the two teams met, and that bat will be silenced for the foreseeable future.
On the Cardinals’ side, the big question mark is the exact status of ace Jack Flaherty, who normally might be expected to start a big game like this. However, Flaherty been a bit of a mess since he injured himself on a swing at Dodger Stadium earlier in the year, and has just recently been seeing action again. Certainly, he won’t be starting or doing any long work, but don’t be surprised if he is used in the back end somewhere. Alex Reyes is the team leader in saves with 29, but he hasn’t had a save in a month and has lost the job to Giovanny Gallegos, who has been decent (not great, decent) in September.
Let’s do this
The Dodgers have come a long way this season, and overcome a lot. Of course, exactly ZERO people around the game will be feeling sorry for us, and every other playoff team will be rooting for the Dodgers to get punched in the mouth in this game and get bounced from the playoffs. They all have seen the way this team can get on a roll. They know very well that if the Dodgers get by the Cardinals and get into longer series against them, the Dodgers depth will eventually come into play and be overpowering. But first, the Dodgers have to win this one game. And that is easier said than done. Maybe we can get another one of these…
