Familiar foes duke it out for the first time in the postseason

LOS ANGELES — Though we’re still working off the contact high that we got from Wednesday’s completely awesome walk-off win in the Wild Card game, Dodger fans need to refocus their attention quickly to the next item on their October to-do list: the San Francisco Giants. The American League Wild Card winners the Red Sox got their hat handed to them on Thursday night after a big win a couple of days earlier, so the Dodgers need to be careful that they do not suffer the same fate on Friday when the series opens up. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at what will be in store the next few days…

Pitching matchups

There are basically two advantages to winning the division in this crazy 2021 season. First, securing home field advantage throughout the playoffs. No small thing. And second, the ability to line up your pitching rotation exactly as you want it. Whereas the Dodgers had to burn Max Scherzer on the Wild Card game, the Giants’ staff has been lounging around all week waiting to see who their eventual opponent would be.

However this is not such a clear advantage for the Giants. They do get their best two pitchers to start each of the weekend games. Logan Webb (11-3, 3.03) will start on Friday night. Kevin Gausman (14-6, 2.81) will toe the rubber on Saturday. The Dodgers counter with Walker Buehler (16-4, 2.47) on Friday and Julio Urias (20-3, 2.96) on Saturday. I’d be hard pressed to favor the Giants in either of these games. Certainly on Saturday, I would favor the Dodgers, as Gausman has been very pedestrian of late, posted a rather ho-hum 4.05 ERA over his seven starts. He did have a good start against the Padres on the last weekend of the season, but c’mon, it was the Padres.

Logan Webb is a similar story. He was blazing hot in August, posting a 1.41 ERA for the month, but has cooled off considerable as the weather has cooled down. His September ERA was 3.75, and his last start (also against the Padres) was a bit of a clunker. On October 3, Webb gave up four earned runs over 7.0 innings of work. So what I’m saying is, both these guys are starting to show some wear and tear as the season has progressed.

Buehler and Urias get the nod in Oracle

Walker Buehler, on the other hand, seems to have righted the ship after a few shaky outings in September. After that horrible outing in San Francisco in the last time these two teams met on September 5, Buehler was just meh on a couple of starts and then knocked around pretty good again in Coors Field on the last road trip. However, he finished the season with two very good starts, where everything was looking like he was the Walker Buehler of the earlier part of the summer, when he was the most dominant pitcher in baseball. He has given up only one earned run in his last twelve innings of work. And, we barely need to mention it, but Buehler does have that little 2.35 postseason ERA thing going for him.

Urias has been pretty consistent all year, especially in the second half of the year. After being a pretty average pitcher in June, the last three months have been a completely different story. Urias has posted a 9-0 record with a 2.04 ERA since the All-Star break as he blew past every other pitcher to win the NL crown for wins this year. His twenty wins were the first time a Dodger has reached that height since Clayton Kershaw in 2014. And as we all saw in his relief work in 2020, he does not exactly shy away from the big moment. It was he who was on the mound when the Dodgers clinched the series, and I’m guessing he’ll be on the mound for more than a few highlights this year as well.

Pitching gets murky when the series returns to LA

It’s hard to say exactly how Dave Roberts will play it in Games 3 and 4. Scherzer will certainly get one of those games, and Buehler will be on full rest for Game 5 if necessary. However, that still leaves one game with a question mark on it. Without Clayton Kershaw, does Dave Roberts fill the hole with Tony Gonsolin? A bullpen game? A combination of those two options? Hard to say. I would guess a lot of it would depend on where the series is at on that particular day. If they can come home tied or with a 2-0 lead, Roberts will have more options. If the Dodgers are facing elimination, a whole other scenario is in play.

As for the Giants, I’m sure Anthony DeSclafani will probably get the ball for Game 3 or 4. And probably Johnny Cueto or our old buddy Alex Wood will be the last starter. The Giants’ pen is completely rested as well, and it features the newfound weapon Camilo Doval, who has a 0.00 ERA over the last fifteen appearances. However, if it gets to a battle of the bullpens, I still like the Dodgers’ chances in this one.

Both teams without first basemen

We all know that the Dodgers will be without Max Muncy for this series. However, it is a bit of a wash because Giants’ first baseman Brandon Belt is also on the IL. He got hit by a pitch just before the end of the season, and is unable to hold a bat right now without pain. He’ll not even be on the Giants’ roster for the NLDS. Like Muncy, he’s hoping to return for the League Championship Series. Of course, we are hoping to give Brandon a nice long vacation so that he can heal up properly and return to the club in Spring Training 2022.

Who’s hot? Who’s not?

The Giants won eight out of the last ten games, so obviously there are not exactly scuffling as they head into the playoffs. However, some Giants are doing better than others lately, and Dave Roberts no doubt is taking notes about where the outs are in this lineup. Brandon Crawford continues to swing it well, with an OPS of .913 over those ten ballgames. Tommy LaStella, Wilmer Flores and Mike Yastrzemski are coming in hot as well, all hitting around .300 over the last two weeks of the season.

However, there are some holes in the lineup right now. Evan Longoria is in a horrible slump, hitting only 2-for-his-last-33. Splashy trade deadline acquisition Kris Bryant isn’t much better, with a lowly .424 OPS in that same time frame. And finally, clutch hero “Late Night” LaMonte Wade Jr. is struggling mightily as well, with only a .103 average over the last ten games. So clearly, there is some weakness in this lineup that can be exploited.

Let’s do this…

The Dodgers lost the season series to the Giants 10-9 after they had won the first four in a row. However, as anybody who watched the games knows, it could have just as easily been the Dodgers winning 12 or 13 or even 14 games this year had it not been for some shoddy plays at the ends of games and bad breaks during the year. Yes, the Giants won 107 games. Good for them. Tip o’ the cap.

But that was then. And this is now…