With 3 games to go the St. Louis Cardinals are only one game back of the Atlanta Braves in the wildcard and a playoff spot. The bad news for the Cardinals is that they are having to go on the road while the Braves get to play at home and of course that they are one game back and having to play catch up still. The good news is that the Braves are playing against Philadelphia who have the best record in baseball and are scheduled to have Lee, Oswalt, and Hamels pitch, while the Cardinals get to go to Houston, who have the worst record in baseball.
Atlanta vs Philadelphia
Game 1 (Delgado vs Lee)
Randall Delgado just got his first career win on the 20th and has only pitched over 5 innings once when he pitched 6 over a month ago. Yet, he has done good for those 5 innings that he is in never having more than 3 earned runs in 6 appearances which the braves are 4-2 in. The bullpen has been very very very good to Delgado only allowing 5 runs in the 23 innings that they had to pitch (fun fact: those 5 runs came in two of the 6 games...the two the braves lost)...so this is basically how good is the braves bullpen going to be. Cliff Lee is pitching for Philly and they have won 9 of the last 10 games that he has pitched. He also hasn't allowed more than 2 runs in a game since July, and he will give you the innings that you need unlike Delgado so far....so my pick in this one is Philly.
Game 2 (Lowe vs Oswalt)
This matchup has two struggling pitchers going at and once again I am going to give the edge to Philly....as Oswalt can go much deeper into games putting the pressure once again on Atlanta's bullpen the next night after they are going to be used up from Delgado pitching. Also Oswalt has shown signs of being great lately while Lowe has shown signs of being just awful (6ER, 9Hits, 2.1 IP on Sept. 16th vs the Mets).
Game 3 (Hudson vs Hamels)
Despite exiting Friday's start early, and spending some time at the hospital afterward, Hudson (neck) believes he will be able to make his next start, MLB.com's Mark Bowman reports. That's not what you are really wanting to hear if you are a braves fan. Though, I can see Hudson pitching in this game and doing just fine especially with so much on the line...I still will have to go with Philly again as I find this to be a close matchup and with the injury only adding on to the idea that Philly should win...but for funsy sakes I'll say that the Braves take this meaning the Cardinals need to win at least 2 of 3 to tie and a sweep to win outright.
St. Louis vs Houston
Game 1 (Garcia vs Rodriguez)
Wandy has been consistent averaging three earned runs in his past 6 games. Garcia has been pitching great his last 4 outings and hopefully he can continue to do so, because he does show signs of getting roughed up every so often, especially on the road....this is a game that the Cardinals would really like to win and if my predictions are right would be able to tie up the wildcard tonight with a win, but Garcia just seems to pitch so much better at home than on the road and most of his recent success just so happens to be at home...but hopefully that isn't the case and he is just in the zone at this point and the Cardinals take it though I think this one may be a toughie.
Game 2 (Westbrook vs Sosa)
Sosa has the capability of being blown out...he will allow homeruns and he will walk people...if the Cardinals hitters can be patient and wait for their pitches I think they should have no problem and may end up scoring in double digits this game. Sosa pitched well in his last outing, but with so much on the line and having every at bat really count at this point, I think the Cardinals offense will be able to win this one. Westbrook has been having some troubles finding the strike zone lately allowing a bunch of walks, but hasn't really been earning a lot of runs against him, which will be key for this one.
Game 3 (Carpenter vs Myers)
This is by far the game of the series and if it wasn't already a huge game to watch, becomes even more so with this pitching matchup Myers has been pitching out of his mind as of late having allowed 1 earned run in each of his past 6 games. This should be a great pitching duel and hopefully Carpenter is able to keep them off the board early and the Cardinals can take an early lead so that this game won't be too stressful....but after what should be a high scoring game in game 2...there will be a low scoring pitching duel in game 3 that may determine whether the Cardinals are going to be heading to the playoffs or not.
My prediction is that Atlanta is only able to take one away from struggling Philly who I believe are going to be doing their best to get themselves back into playoff shape and a winning mentality, while the Cardinals should be able to win 2 or 3 from Houston having them win the wild card and the Cardinals going to the playoffs.
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