NBA Finals? How about some Sunday night baseball?
We’ve got a dandy of a pitching matchup tonight in primetime, as two of the best pitchers in baseball face off in the series finale between the Cleveland Indians and the St. Louis Cardinals.
The host Indians won the series opener 7-3 on Friday night behind a big night at the plate from Shin-Soo Choo and a solid pitching performance from David Huff, but the Cardinals evened the series with a 3-1 win yesterday, thanks to another patented display of power from Albert Pujols. After homering in Friday’s loss, Pujols smacked two yesterday to lead the Cardinals to victory.
With the way that Pujols has feasted on American League pitchers in interleague play over his career, I wouldn’t put it past him to send another ball or two out of the park tonight, but I’m banking on tonight’s series finale to be all about the pitching, with two recent Cy Young winners taking the hill in Chris Carpenter and Cliff Lee.
Replicating or even coming close to replicating his numbers from 2008 would have been tough for reigning AL Cy Young winner Lee, and on the surface, his 3-6 record would appear to be a major regression on the surface. But look a lot deeper, starting with his 3.17 ERA, and it’s safe to say that just as Lady Luck was on his side last year, she’s disappeared thus far this season.
Had Cleveland’s bats given him very much support in several of his starts, he could be well in contention for a second straight 20-win season. 10 of his 13 starts have been quality starts, and in those 10 starts, Cleveland has a 3-7 record. Twice he has been on the wrong end of shutouts, despite putting in efforts that would get the win nine times out of ten, and three other times, he recorded a quality start, but the Indians failed to get more than a run. That includes a performance against the Red Sox on April 27 in which he pitched eight shutout innings while his offense was similarly stymied by Boston’s pitching, then watched as Kerry Wood allowed three ninth-inning runs in a 3-1 loss.
It might be an encouraging sign that the Indians have scored 18 runs in the last two games that Lee has started after having scored only 30 in the first 11, but if they’re going to keep that up, it’s going to require a personal implosion from a rejuvenated Carpenter, who looks like the Carpenter of old, which is a welcome sight after his injury struggles over the last couple of seasons.
After going 21-5 in winning the NL Cy Young award in 2005, Carpenter went 15-8 with a 3.09 ERA the following season. But thanks to elbow problems that required Tommy John surgery, Carpenter was limited to only five starts total in 2007 and 2008.
Injuries haven’t eluded him this season, as he spent a month on the disabled list thanks to an oblique tear, but outside of that minor setback, it’s been smooth sailing. As with Lee, run support hasn’t been plentiful for Carpenter thus far, but it‘s been good enough for the most part. Heading into tonight, Carpenter is 4-0 with a 1.23 ERA in seven starts, allowing only six earned runs in 44 innings.
Before the oblique tear forced him out a game against Arizona on April 14, Carpenter had allowed no earned runs in the first 10 innings he’d pitched in 2009, and after coming back on May 20, that streak continued for on for another 14.1 innings until he allowed a run in the second inning of a 6-2 win over San Francisco on May 30.
With the bats that both teams have, they could go surprise us and have a slugfest tonight, but I think runs and run-scoring opportunities will be at a premium tonight. Lee does have the propensity to give up a lot of hits (106 allowed in 88 innings), and though he doesn’t get burned as often as he could for doing so, it can be a recipe for disaster if he lets a couple of men on with the wrong guys coming to the plate.
That’s an area where Carpenter has an edge over Lee, because he’s been fantastic about avoiding mistakes and testy situations. In his 44 innings pitched, Carpenter has allowed only 25 hits (the most he‘s allowed in one game is six), and he also hasn’t been liberal with the free passes, with a strikeout to walk ratio of nearly 6 to 1 (34 Ks/6 BB).
Tonight’s game will be on airing on ESPN at 8 P.M. ET, and during that time, many people might prefer to tune into Game 5 of the NBA Finals. But the least Finals viewers can do is switch to this one during commercials and at halftime, because this one shapes up to be a duel worth watching.
The latest MLB odds have this one as a toss-up, and rightfully so, but I’m going to have to go with Carpenter and the Cardinals tonight to win the rubber game of the series, and if the Brewers fall to the White Sox, end Sunday in first place in the NL Central.
Dont Agree? Let us Know. We love hearing your thoughts and picks!
Loading ...
