MLB - 907 St Louis Cardinals @ 908 San Francisco Giants
(Starting Pitchers: C. Carpenter vs R. Vogelsong)
We won our Over play yesterday in the first game of the series in the 4th inning and it was clear that we are in front of two teams with a lot of experience and that won't struggle no matter what happens during the game. Even where San Francisco was down by 0-6, they quickly bounced back by scoring four consecutive runs and having even chances to make the full comeback. Even though they missed those chances, it was clear that both teams are strong mentally, so it won't bother much San Francisco the fact that they are down in the series.
For today, the Cardinals will start Carpenter, who was one of the reasons why I lost so clearly my biggest play on the postseason. Back then, I wrote the following:
"Chris Carpenter was superb last season in the postseason and he even has the label of being “clutch” in the playoffs but this is not the same Carpenter that we are dealing for today’s game.
He made three starts since coming off the DL and his advanced numbers weren't that good:
ERA FIP xFIP
4.50 3.93 3.72
3.00 4.76 4.55
3.60 3.49 5.26
But then we have to understand that he faced the Cubs, the Astros and the Reds and these 3 teams were simply terrible hitting the ball in September:
CIN #29 w/ .618 OPS
HOU #26 w/ .662 OPS
CHC #23 w/ .676 OPS
...
WAS #1 w/ .819 OPS
Carpenter had three favorable matchups to work in his return but still he didn't impress me at all: he had a higher FB% than he used to, and according to fangraphs.com his avg. fastball speed was 91.4, 90.7 and 89.2 when in the last season, Carpenter topped 93mph in his fastball with regularity.
The Nationals hitters are batting .294 BA against him so I expect Carpenter to struggle a bit today while the Cardinals “best middle relief pitcher” Lance Lynn probably won’t be available after pitching 3 innings in game 2."
Even though Carpenter had a shutout in 5.2 innings, I don't believe he pitched so well that he should also dominate the Giants tonight. First of all, he had immediately an early lead with St Louis scoring 4 runs against Washington in the first two winnings and the Nationals showed in the whole series that they couldn't deal well with high pressure moments and the fact that they were down in the score won't help them at all for the rest of the game. Still, Carpenter threw 106 pitched for just 5.2 innings of work and therefore, we are talking about a 18.7 P/IP! He had just two strikeouts and his groundball/flyball rate wasn't normal for him, as he had 17 fastballs for just 6 groundballs! Despite having a perfect 0.00 ERA, his advanced numbers were much worse with 3.45 FIP and 6.82 xFIP! San Francisco has been a solid team against RH pitchers and sooner or later, Carpenter will suffer from the fact that he isn't at his best right now.
San Francisco will start Vogelsong, who even though isn't a better pitcher than Bumgarner, he is a worse matchup for the Cardinals. St Louis's offense is #3 in hitting against LH pitchers and they faced in their last three games three left handed SP's in Detwiler, Gonzalez and Bumgarner. On the other hand, the right handed Vogelsong has good numbers against RH batters, especially at home. Even though Vogelsong had a terrible phase back in August and September, he looked very good on his last four starts including a "tough" game in Cincinnati, when the Giants were down 0-2 in that series. The Cardinals' batters are just hitting .246 BA and .689 OPS in 61 AB's against him and previously on this series, Vogelsong dominated the Cardinals in St Louis by not allowing a single run in seven innings of work.
Therefore, I expect San Francisco to bounce back tonight from yesterday's loss and tie this series tonight. So, I'll be taking them in here on the Moneyline in a Single Dime Play.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 908 San Francisco Giants ML (w/ R. Vogelsong) @ -113 / 1.88 on Betonline
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