“Life’s not fair.”
— The Los Angeles Dodgers, probably
If you can’t bring yourself to pity the Los Angeles Dodgers, the ones who outspent every other team by $60-plus million this season, we understand. But in the eyes of some, the reigning World Series champions got a raw deal.
The Dodgers won 106 games, which is both a franchise record and the most wins ever for a team that didn’t win its division (or league). In 82 games since Canada Day, their .695 winning percentage is the highest in the league.
And yet here they are preparing for a nine-inning coin flip, which takes place Thursday in the form of the National League Wild Card game (8:10 p.m. ET on Sportsnet and SN Now). They’ll host the St. Louis Cardinals, who squeezed into a playoff spot in large part because of a franchise-record 17-game win streak in September.
No matter their paths, the Dodgers and the Cardinals have one game to decide who’ll face the league-leading San Francisco Giants in the next round. Cardinals manager Mike Shildt is happy to do it this way.
“If we’re gonna go to where we want to go, we’d like to go through the team that just won it the previous year,” Shildt said via Zoom regarding the date with the Dodgers. “So we might as well start with it right off the bat.”
[radioclip id=5213248]Here are some of the top storylines for Wednesday’s showdown:
On the mound, not over the hill
St. Louis’s Adam Wainwright, 40, and Los Angeles’s Max Scherzer, 37, are two of the four oldest starting pitchers in the majors — and they’ll face off in the biggest game of their respective clubs’ seasons.
Wainwright has taken up residence in the win column, going 10-1 with a 2.28 ERA over his past 14 starts (of which the Cardinals have won 13). Then there’s Scherzer, who looks like one of the greatest trade deadline acquisitions of all time (he’s 7-0 with a 1.98 ERA in 11 starts wearing Dodger Blue).
The edge in this matchup belongs to Scherzer, although his past two starts — 11 runs allowed in 10 1/3 innings — have been disastrous. But the St. Louis native has proven he can handle his hometown club in situations like this. In his past three post-season starts against the Cardinals, dating back to Game 2 of the 2019 NLCS, Scherzer is 3-0 with one unearned run allowed and 33 strikeouts in 21 innings.
“It’s gonna be a battle for all of us, our lineup,” said Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter, who has faced Scherzer 62 times in his career. “But I don’t think there’s anybody more prepared than us, and I don’t think there’s anybody we’d rather have on the mound than Waino.”
Does defence win wild card games?
Everyone knows the old adage, “Defence wins championships,” but can it be applied to one sudden-death game? The Cardinals sure hope so.
Led by corner infielders Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, who’ve combined for 11 Gold Glove Awards, St. Louis boasts arguably the best defence in the majors. In a one-game playoff, a play that saves a hit or a run could make all the difference.
At Fangraphs, St. Louis ranks second in runs saved based on range (i.e. Range Runs) and fourth in the catch-all statistic, Ultimate Zone Rating. At Baseball Savant, the Cardinals lead the majors in Outs Above Average, runs prevented and success rate on balls in play. There are countless defensive metrics to peruse, but the point here is that they all provide a similar message: the Cardinals take care of business in the field.
Carpenter, who debuted with the Cardinals in 2011, called the ’21 group the best defensive team he’s ever seen.
“It’s been pretty special to watch,” he said. “I fully expect it to hold true to what it’s done all year in the post-season for us.”
Muncy out … who’s in?
A collision at first base in Sunday’s season finale forced Dodgers first baseman Max Muncy to leave the game, and now his team is left thinking about who will take his spot.
Muncy’s all-star season included career highs in home runs (36) and OPS (.895), which is to say he cannot be easily replaced. When asked about potential candidates for Wednesday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts vaguely said the decision would be “matchup-driven,” and that value on offence and defence would be considered.
One option is Cody Bellinger, the fall-from-grace former MVP whose OPS+ this season (45) is barely a third of his career mark (126). He’s 1-for-8 lifetime against Wainwright. Matt Beaty is another option, but he’s been used as a pinch-hitter in 20 of his past 21 games.
The most fun option is Albert Pujols, who’s destined to enter Cooperstown donning a Cardinals cap after spending his first 11 seasons with them. Because of Wainwright’s fairly even splits (.655 OPS allowed to lefties, .595 allowed to righties), it could work for the right-handed Pujols.
For now, we really don’t know. But a “Pujols vs. St. Louis” subplot is more than welcome.
