The two National League Divisional Series really are two different tales. On one side you have the juggernaut Philadelphia Phillies going up against the team that nearly didn’t make the playoffs in the New York Mets. On the other side, two titans getting ready to do battle in the LA Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. Both do have favorites going in, but I think no one would be surprised if there was an “upset” in this round.
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The Philadelphia Phillies have had nearly a week off since playing an actual baseball game. What have the Mets been up to during that time? I think we all know, but for the few just joining us I will run it down. New York has played in five games, including two games that were played on a day no other team was playing due to a postponement. The Mets also need to win at least one of those games to make the playoffs in the first place. Then they played in a best of 3 series against the Milwaukee Brewers in which they won in three games. So you could say they were busy.
The Phillies are a better team than the Mets in both hitting and pitching, but will rust have an impact on the series? I think not, but what may affect the series is the fact that New York has been on a heater. They are not missing a beat, even though they lost Game 2 last series. They can swing with the best of them and also have the pitching to at the very least compete.
New York will be again relying on their stars in Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, and Brandon Nimmo. On the mound they will turn to Kodai Senga for Game 1 and Luis Severino for Game 2. After that you could assume you will see the likes of Sean Manaea, Jose Quintana, or David Peterson.
On the Phillies side of the mound, the starter for Game 1 is Zach Wheeler, Game 2 is Cristopher Sanchez, and Game 3 they are going with Aaron Nola. Wheeler and Sanchez both finished in the top 10 in the National League for best ERA this season with Nola finishing in 11th. The Mets will have to grind these pitchers down to get to past this three headed monster Philadelphia is starting this series with.
With a 5 game series, the Phillies are really trying to make this series a short one with their pitchers. If the Mets can get past these three or even just one of them, they will most likely face Ranger Suarez who is no slouch either. If you can knock the starter out of the game you will have to face a very good bullpen. Pitching for the Phillies will be a strength.
Unlike the pitching being a little lopsided, the batting will be equal. The top players for the Phillies being Schwarber and Harper, with the Mets bringing Alonso, Lindor, and Vientos. On paper, these two teams are very equal when it comes to their batting lineup. The Mets pitchers will need to keep the big guns of Philadelphia under control to even have a chance of staying in this series. Along with that Alonso and Lindor will need to be themselves, and the support staff around them will have to give them some depth scoring.
The Phillies on the other hand need Harper and Schwarber to get going early and stay steady the whole time. If they can continue to get the support they had all season long they will have no problem handling the Mets pitchers. This really boils down to if the pitchers of the Mets can stop the bats of the Phillies. If that happens, New York will have a chance at winning this series.
With all that being said, I think this series will be very tight. It should at least be competitive. Even if this ends in a sweep in favor of the Phillies, I do not see it being easy. Everyone loves an underdog story, and the Mets are a very likeable team right now and a good team to be an underdog. Even so, I will take the Phillies in this series.
My Prediction: Phillies in 4
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California has some of the best teams in baseball right now. The Dodgers have always been the top California team in the National league for over a decade now. If you even want to take a step further they have been first place in their division 9 out of the last 10 years. The team that always challenged the Dodgers was the Giants. The Padres are kind of the new kid on the block when it comes to being near the top of the division. San Diego has the fire power this time to make some noise.
In past years, the Dodgers have had a little trouble making it past the NLDS. The last couple years they just have just not had the players needed to win. This year is different, purely because they have Shohei Ohtani. He has yet to play an inning of playoff baseball in the MLB, largely thanks to the Angels not being overly competitive while he was there, so we are not sure how he will perform in the postseason. If he is anything like regular season Ohtani, he will be the difference between winning a series and losing it.
Ohtani cannot be the only one that shows up for the Dodgers. Thankfully, he does have backup throughout the batting lineup. Teoscar Hernandez, Freddie Freeman (injuried but playing), Will Smith, and Mookie Betts to name a few names. They are not small names either, they are very much household names in the MLB. Now will they show up in crunch time as a team is yet to be seen, but on paper, this looks like a team I made in The Show 24 on my couch.
On the mound, Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Walker Buehler are the pitchers that will most likely be the starting three for this series. Gavin Stone will not be an option for this series, and most likely not for the rest of the postseason. Glasnow also most likely is not an option.
The Padres are equally as deep on the mound. Or they were until the announcement that Joe Musgrove needs Tommy Johns surgery and will not be back for this season. San Diego still have some elite pitchers in Dylan Cease, Michael King, and Yu Darvish. It has been announced that Cease will be in for Game 1, while Darvish is going in Game 2. It should give the Padres a good chance of shutting down the big bats of the Dodgers.
At bat, the Padres may be better at getting on base than the Dodgers, as San Diego ranks first in hits and batting average in the regular season. They may not homer a lot, or at least not as much as LA, but they know how to get men on base and move them around the bases. During their series with the Braves, it really showed that they are on another level than Atlanta was. While Atlanta did show that you can get to the Padres bullpen at times, it is still a very solid well rounded team.
The Dodgers are the favorites in this series, but I do think that is a little skewered by the presence of Ohtani on LAs roster. While you can not just take him off the roster just because he is a next level athlete. It is a factor though. If the Padres can shut him down, the Dodgers seem beatable. While they still a=will not be an easy out by a long shot, the Padres are good enough to beat them. They even be good enough with Ohtani. I think this series goes the distance, but I do think that the power of Ohtani will just be the deciding factor between the two teams.
My Prediction: Dodgers in 5
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